The crater that was once Solmere shimmered beneath a twilight sky. The wind carried whispers — not words, but soft tones, like echoes of a forgotten melody. At the center, the tree glowed faintly, its trunk carved with veins of gold and black.
Arka stood before it, his cloak tattered, his starlight dim. For days, he had not slept. He had buried the names of the fallen, though the soil no longer held life. Only the tree still pulsed, its glow synchronized with his heartbeat.
He reached out, pressing a hand against its bark. It was warm. Alive.
Then — a voice.
Soft. Familiar.
"You stayed."
Arka froze. His breath caught. "Lyra?"
The light within the tree brightened. The leaves shimmered, taking the faint shape of a woman — not fully formed, her face shifting between shadow and light.
"You shouldn't be here," she whispered. "The world still needs you outside this wound."
Arka's voice trembled. "You're part of it now. The seal took you."
The figure smiled faintly. "No. I chose it. The Harmony couldn't be repaired from outside — it needed a living soul to balance it. I became that balance."
Arka clenched his fists. "Then I'll stay with you."
Her gaze softened. "And if you do, who will protect the ones who still breathe?"
He fell silent. Around the crater, faint silhouettes wandered — the survivors, dazed and lost, seeking direction. Some looked to the sky, others whispered his name as if it were a prayer.
Lyra's voice was a breeze across his skin. "They see you as light, Arka. You always were."
He bowed his head. "I was light because you stood beside me."
The leaves rustled — almost like laughter, gentle and sad.
"Then let this world remember both."
The glow from the tree intensified. Roots spread outward, crawling across the cracked ground. Grass began to sprout where ash once lay. The wind carried warmth again.
But as Arka watched, he saw something else — beneath the golden roots, shadows moved. Slow, deliberate. Watching.
He drew his blade. "It's not over."
Lyra's voice lowered, tinged with warning. "No… the reflection wasn't destroyed. It lingered within the void. And now it seeks a new vessel."
The earth trembled. A low, guttural sound echoed from the depths of the crater's edge. From beneath the soil, a figure began to emerge — humanoid, but hollow-eyed, skin veined with black light. It bore Arka's face.
Arka tightened his grip on the sword. "Another me."
Lyra's voice trembled for the first time. "It's not you — it's what was left behind when you defied the seal. The part of you that refused balance."
The reflection's grin widened. "You gave your mercy to the world, Arka. But you left your wrath with me."
The air cracked with darkness.
Arka's starlight flared instinctively, wrapping him in silver flame. He turned once toward the tree. "Then I'll end what I started — for both of us."
Lyra's whisper was soft, almost lost in the storm.
"Be careful. Even light casts shadows."
The reflection lunged.
Steel met darkness. The crater blazed with silver and black — two halves of the same soul colliding once more beneath a fractured sky.