The Citadel no longer felt like home.
Kael pressed against a dripping metal wall, one hand gripping the hilt of his blade, the other guiding Eira through the narrow vent corridor as alarms echoed somewhere far above them. Vireya moved ahead silently, and Arion covered the rear with twitching eyes and sweat-slicked hands.
None of them spoke.
They hadn't, since the drone.
> "There's another Kael. Another Eira."
That message repeated in Kael's mind like a curse.
It wasn't possible.
It shouldn't have been possible.
And yet—deep inside—he felt something unnatural drawing closer.
Not a hunter.
A reflection.
--
The tunnel eventually opened into a long-forgotten refinery corridor—once used to transport blackdust from deep vault furnaces to the upper tiers. Decades of abandonment left the rails twisted and coated with fungal growths that pulsed softly in the dark.
Vireya held up a small pulse-lamp.
> "We're close to the junction chamber. Once we pass that, we drop into the sewage nets. From there, we exit into the Outer Enclaves."
"Assuming the exits aren't locked," Arion muttered.
Kael ignored him.
His focus remained behind them.
Something was following.
Not footsteps. Not drones.
But him.
---
Unbeknownst to the fugitives, across the upper tiers, The Emberborn gathered in the ruins of the old chapel district.
Children danced around fires, drawing glyphs in ash.
Acolytes etched Kael's name onto their skin using ember ink—painful, permanent.
High Judge Alvren stood before them, arms outstretched.
> "Tonight, the False Kael will meet the True One. The Devourer tests him. If he survives... he will become Flame Incarnate. If he dies... he was never the Flame at all."
They knelt.
And chanted.
---
Back in the depths, Kael and the others reached the junction chamber.
It was vast—a cylindrical hollow of steel and soot, with catwalks spiraling upward and thick pipes crossing like webbed veins.
Eira paused. "Something's… off."
Vireya nodded. "We're not alone."
They fanned out cautiously.
Then they saw him.
At the far end of the platform stood a figure cloaked in torn armor—his back turned, shoulders heaving like breath was a burden.
Kael stepped forward.
> "Who are you?"
The figure turned.
And Kael's breath caught.
It was him.
But not him.
The face was the same. The eyes burned brighter. His skin was marked with crimson runes that pulsed like open wounds.
He smiled—and it was wrong.
> "Finally found me," the Other Kael said. "I was starting to get bored."
---
The doppelgänger lunged forward without warning.
Kael barely raised his blade before the first blow connected—raw force that rattled his bones. The impact flung him backward into a wall of rusted metal.
Arion charged in with a kinetic blade—only for the clone to catch it barehanded and hurl him aside.
Eira reached for her inner light—only to scream as her reflection appeared behind her.
> "Hello, sister," the Other Eira whispered.
> "Want to see what I look like when I stop pretending to care?"
Her eyes blazed silver as tendrils of dark energy lashed from her fingertips.
The chamber erupted into chaos.
Steel warped.
Light bled.
And through it all, Kael felt himself… cracking.
As he struggled to his feet, the Other Kael approached him again—slower this time. Smiling.
> "They tried to make you forget. Tried to bury your real blood in pretty lies and loyalty oaths. But not me."
> "I remember everything."
Kael drew his blade again, teeth gritted. "You're not me."
The double's smile widened. "No. I'm what you could be. What you will be. I'm the Kael who stopped apologizing for surviving."
Then—he attacked again.
The fight turned brutal.
Blades clashed. Flesh tore. Psychic echoes fractured the platform beneath their feet.
Kael was faster. But the Other Kael was feral. Every strike aimed to kill, not just win.
Their blades locked.
Kael stared into his own eyes and asked:
> "Who made you?"
The Other Kael hissed:
> "The same people who made you."
---
Just as the clone readied a finishing blow, Eira screamed—and her power exploded in a white pulse.
The chamber shook.
The double Eira was flung into the far wall, twitching.
The Other Kael snarled and vanished into smoke.
Silence returned.
But only for a moment.
A voice echoed through the empty metal:
> "You survived the mirror."
"Next time, we won't be alone."
"The Gate is opening, Kael."
"And the Devourer is watching with both eyes now."
They escaped quickly—battered, bloodied, shaken.
Kael's ribs were cracked.
Eira's veins still shimmered with unstable energy.
But they were alive.
They reached the outer tunnel, the steel grate ahead half-welded, the sky beyond visible for the first time in days—tainted, but open.
And yet…
Kael didn't feel relief.
Only one thought burned in his mind:
> Who had made copies of them?
> And why were they heading toward the Gate?
---
As they stepped outside into the frozen desert wind, Vireya tapped Kael on the shoulder.
"There's something you need to see."
She held up a piece of cloth.
A torn insignia.
The symbol of the Silent Order.
Fresh.
Left on the path just before the mirror encounter.
They weren't just being hunted.
> Someone inside the Council had sent the doppelgängers.
And they were still watching.