Rain of shadows poured endlessly, rippling against an invisible boundary between what was real and what wasn't.
Lyra stood in the middle of the Reflection — her boots submerged in a shallow pool that mirrored not the sky above, but her own memories. Every step sent ripples through time itself.
Fragments of her past flickered across the water's surface — her training in the Sanctuary, the battles, Arka's steady eyes before the fall — and then, memories that weren't hers.
Kael's.
The starfields burning.
The sacrifice.
The loneliness of holding the Balance alone.
Lyra clenched her fists. "You gave everything to protect it. And still it fell apart."
The air trembled, responding to her anger. Red lightning cracked across the dark heavens, carving open a wound in the reflection — and from that wound, she emerged.
Her own face.
But the eyes — those eyes were void black.
"Still pretending you're better than her?" the dark Lyra whispered, stepping out of the fissure. Her voice was sharp, melodic, cruel. "Still denying that you crave the same power?"
Lyra froze. "You're not real."
"I'm as real as you let me be." The reflection tilted her head, smiling faintly. "You took her light, her soul, her memories. What makes you think you won't end up like Kael — broken and forgotten?"
"I'm not her," Lyra said again, louder this time. "And I don't need her past to shape mine."
The reflection's smile faded. "Then prove it."
The pool beneath them shattered like glass.
Lyra leapt backward as her shadow-self lunged, blades of condensed darkness forming in her hands. Their clash split the realm — each strike echoing through both their hearts.
Each hit carried emotion — rage, sorrow, longing.
Every parry tore more of the reflection apart, until both of them stood surrounded by floating shards of memories and light.
Lyra's breath came in gasps. The wound on her palm glowed fiercely. "You can't control me."
The reflection stepped forward, eyes narrowing. "Then why do you still hesitate when you think of him?"
Arka's image flickered briefly between them — his silhouette half-lit, half-devoured by shadow.
Lyra's blade faltered. The reflection smirked. "Exactly. You'll lose him too."
"No…"
"Say it," her dark self whispered. "You're afraid. Afraid that the more power you take, the less of you remains."
Lyra's tears glowed faintly gold as they fell. "Maybe I am. But fear doesn't own me."
She slammed her hands together — light and shadow intertwining in her grasp. The explosion of force rippled through the realm, consuming both of them in a storm of shifting color.
When it cleared, the reflection was gone.
But her voice lingered: You can't destroy what you are.
Lyra dropped to her knees, exhausted, clutching her chest. The mark burned with golden-black fire — and beneath her, the reflection began to stabilize again.
She whispered weakly, "Balance… isn't light or shadow. It's the space between them."
The world around her began to reshape — a doorway forming in the horizon, woven from threads of Arka's aura.
She stood, trembling but resolute. "I'm coming."
Elsewhere…
Arka's descent finally ended in a vast, silent plain of obsidian sand. The sky above him was fractured, pieces of reality drifting in slow orbit — the remnants of a world that once was the Balance's core.
In the distance, a single spire stood — jagged, pulsing faintly with dying light.
He began to walk toward it. Each step sent faint tremors through the ground.
Halfway there, he heard a sound — a slow clap.
"Impressive," said a voice smooth as glass.
From the haze stepped a tall man cloaked in white, with silver hair and an unsettling smile. His eyes gleamed gold, but there was something fractured in them — like a mirror that refused to reflect truth.
"You must be Arka," the man said. "The survivor."
Arka's hand instinctively reached for his blade. "Who are you?"
The stranger bowed slightly. "Names change. But once, they called me the First Echo — the one who tried to stabilize the Balance before Kael took over."
Arka froze. "That's impossible. The First Echo was erased ages ago."
A soft chuckle. "Not erased. Forgotten."
The man lifted his hand, revealing a crystal identical to Lyra's, though its glow was cold and inverted.
"The Balance failed because it trusted mortals with divine energy. But I can rebuild it… differently this time."
Arka's grip tightened. "You want to control it."
The First Echo smiled faintly. "No. I want to end it. Balance breeds endless conflict — one side always rising against the other. What if there were no sides left?"
He gestured, and the ground cracked open — revealing streams of shadow and light twisting violently beneath. "I can erase the cycle itself."
Arka drew his weapon. "Not while I'm alive."
The First Echo sighed. "Then die for it."
Their blades collided, and the dying Balance screamed.