Chapter 32 – Echoes of the Unlived
Steel clashed against its twin.
Chris's staff spun, crackling with arcane fury as she struck a perfect replica of herself—one that moved with impossible grace and precision. Every motion she made was countered before she finished it. Her duplicate smiled, unbothered, as if it already knew how the fight would end.
Grey wasn't faring better. His doppelgänger wielded a blade of mirrorlight, faster and cleaner than his own. It moved without hesitation, without exhaustion. It didn't bleed. It didn't fear. It didn't remember pain.
The chamber rang with battle—steel, magic, breathless gasps, and shattering glass.
The mirrors hummed.
"You can't win," the false Chris said gently, stepping aside to avoid a blast of fire. "You're burdened by memory. By doubt. I am what you could have been."
Chris answered with a roar and slammed her staff into the floor. Arcane lines flared across the tiles, erupting in a burst of violet flame. The fake staggered, hair singed, robes torn. Its smile faltered.
"Good," Chris growled. "That means you can hurt."
Beside her, Grey pushed his mirrored self back with a vicious parry. Blood now painted his jaw, but his eyes still burned bright.
"Retreat!" he barked. "We won't win like this!"
Chris hesitated, then saw what he meant.
The reflections weren't stopping.
More poured from the walls, crawling from the mirror like water spilling from a broken dam—copies of allies long dead, enemies long forgotten, even strangers that had never existed but somehow felt achingly familiar.
A universe of what-ifs come alive.
They couldn't win this fight. Not here. Not yet.
Chris opened a portal rune mid-air and shouted the coordinates.
They dove through the golden ring of light just as the chamber drowned in silver.
The portal spat them out into a ravine north of the Bastion, where the world still obeyed its natural laws. Chris collapsed to one knee, breath ragged. Grey knelt beside her, sword still drawn, eyes scanning the sky.
"Did they follow?"
"No," she said, after a moment. "The portal closed clean."
They sat in silence, letting the stillness wrap around them like a blanket. For the first time in days, no whispers followed. No shadows reached. No silver gleamed.
Chris pulled off her gloves, rubbing her blistered palms.
"I couldn't beat her," she admitted. "Not because she was stronger. But because she didn't hesitate. She didn't question herself."
"She wasn't real," Grey said. "She was an echo, a lie with skin."
"Then why did she feel so much like… me?"
Grey didn't answer right away.
Because he knew the truth.
Wale's twisted genius wasn't in his power or illusions—it was in his understanding. He hadn't created monsters. He'd weaponized hope. Longing. Regret.
He turned the best versions of them against the real ones.
And people were starting to prefer the fiction.
"We need a way to fight him that doesn't involve facing ourselves," Grey said finally.
Chris frowned. "There's no version of this where we don't."
Grey shook his head. "I don't mean our doubles. I mean... the person Wale used to be."
Chris stilled.
"You think he can still be reached?"
"I think," Grey said, "we need to remember who he was—because that's the only piece he can't perfectly mirror."
Chris mulled that over. "Lucien would've known how to reach him."
Grey nodded grimly. "But Lucien is gone."
"Not entirely," said a new voice.
They spun around.
From the shadows emerged a woman in crimson armor, her face veiled, bearing the insignia of the Ashbound—an old order of watchers believed lost in the first Mirrorfall.
She removed her veil.
It was Isolde, Lucien's older sister.
"I followed your trail through the Mirrorlands," she said calmly. "I've seen what Wale has done."
Chris rose slowly. "If you're real, you'll understand why I have to ask—"
Isolde smiled thinly. "What was the name of the song Lucien wrote after the Battle of Eld Hollow?"
Grey blinked. "No one knew he wrote songs."
"He wrote only one," Isolde replied. "Called it 'To Those Who Fell Awake.' Sang it once. At night. Only to me."
Chris nodded.
She was real.
Barely.
Isolde stepped forward. "Wale is anchoring himself to the Nexus Heart. He's not just altering reality. He's replacing it. Unless we sever that bond, nothing will matter. Not who he was. Not who we are."
Grey sheathed his sword. "You know where it is?"
Isolde nodded. "But getting to it means going through the Ruined Maze. And Wale's keeping something there. Something… monstrous."
Chris frowned. "What kind of monster?"
Isolde's eyes darkened.
"One he couldn't manipulate. So he locked it away."
They moved again at dawn.
The sun rose slowly, dragging reluctant light across the fractured landscape.
The Ruined Maze was not a place, but a condition—a half-realm twisted by failed mirrorwork, where time doubled back on itself and memories could become traps. It was said the Maze reflected not one's appearance, but one's soul.
It made sense that Wale would hide the last real threat there.
Their path was slow. Sometimes, they walked for hours only to find themselves back at the same stone arch, or repeating conversations they hadn't yet had. Chris left runes as markers, only for them to vanish five minutes later.
They didn't sleep. They barely spoke.
But eventually, they reached the heart of the Maze.
A clearing. Circular. Empty.
No doors. No shadows. Only silence.
Then something moved.
From beneath the stone itself, a shape rose—tall, thin, shrouded in black.
Its face was blank, but its body shifted constantly—bones pushing through flesh, then receding. Its hands were shackles. Its mouth, when it opened, was full of other mouths.
But what chilled Chris wasn't its form.
It was the feeling.
She recognized it.
"Wale made this?" Grey asked, stepping back.
"No," Isolde said, eyes wide. "He tried to. But it came out wrong. This… this is what he buried. The one mirror that turned toward him. Not his image of the world…"
"But his image of himself," Chris breathed.
The creature turned its blank face toward her.
And wept.