The ground split beneath our feet.
The crater that had quieted under the Envoy's seal now pulsed like a heartbeat, each tremor pulling the air thinner. Soldiers shouted, but the sound was swallowed by the rising hum, a chorus of whispering metal, like voices trying to remember how to speak.
The Envoy stood at the edge, his blade blackened by the light. His eyes glowed the color of a dying star. When he spoke, his words came layered… his own voice buried beneath something vast and echoing.
"All things that seek reflection… must surrender their shape."
Ya Zhen froze. "It's using him as a vessel."
The Envoy's body moved, but no longer to a human rhythm. Each motion was precise, deliberate, the way a puppet turns its head after the strings are cut but before it falls.
He raised the obsidian sword. "You touched me when you broke the Forge," the Mirror said through him. "Now I remember your names."
The shards around the pit lifted into the air, orbiting him like a halo of knives.
"Scatter!" Ji Ming shouted.
The air fractured. A wall of mirrored glass slammed into the ground between us, splitting the camp in half. I fell backward, rolling through dust. My shoulder hit stone; sparks danced across my vision.
When I pushed myself up, I saw Ji Ming on the other side… barely ten paces away, but the new wall made it a thousand. I could see his reflection moving with mine, our breaths syncing even through the barrier.
The bond flared without warning. I could feel his heartbeat against mine… fast, jagged, wild.
Don't move, his voice came through the resonance. It reacts to motion.
How are you—
Because you're too loud when you panic.
Even in the middle of hell, he managed to sound like himself.
The Envoy lifted his sword again. Every shard in the air turned toward us. I braced, pulling what qi I could to form a barrier, but the resonance pushed back, resisting.
It didn't want defense. It wanted balance.
Ji Ming realized it at the same time I did. His reflection met my eyes through the glass.
We have to act together.
I nodded.
He lifted one blade, angled downward, and I mirrored him. The resonance pulsed once… twice… and then the shards shuddered midair, hesitating.
Ya Zhen's voice cut through the roar. "Now!"
She leapt from behind a column, throwing a seal into the air, a Red Courier sigil, crimson on black paper. It ignited instantly, unfolding into a circle of flame that wrapped the Envoy in red light.
For the first time, the Mirror recoiled.
The envoy screamed. The sound inhuman. The red flame wove around him like a web, binding the shards to the air. His body convulsed, his reflection flickering between himself and something made of glass and fire.
Ya Zhen staggered, blood running from her nose. "Move!" she shouted at me. "His body's breaking, he won't survive the exorcism!"
"Then we can't kill him," I said.
Ji Ming vaulted over the fractured wall, landing between the Envoy and the pit. His sabers crossed, catching one of the floating shards as it shot toward me. The blade shattered into light, scattering across his armor like falling stars.
"He's already dead," Ji Ming said. "It's the Mirror that's wearing him now."
He lunged.
The Envoy blocked the strike, just barely. Sparks flew. For every blow Ji Ming landed, another shard tried to pierce him. The resonance thrummed through me in waves, his pain echoing down the link.
"Sol," Ya Zhen gasped, still holding the burning sigil, "you can dampen the resonance, pull his energy back before it feeds the Mirror!"
I pressed my palms together, closing my eyes. I could feel the bond like a wound threaded with light. I reached for the rhythm we'd found before… breathe in, breathe out, match.
The resonance obeyed. Ji Ming's movements smoothed, no longer frantic but fluid. He ducked under the envoy's next strike, pivoted, and drove his saber into the ground. The light redirected — not out, but down.
The crater roared.
The Mirror's reflection warped. For an instant, I saw what it saw: the Emperor's throne, empty; the Court, burning; the sky splitting open above an army of nameless faces. All possibilities. All futures.
It wasn't showing us prophecy. It was showing us its desire.
Ji Ming stumbled back, gasping. The Envoy's sword nicked his shoulder, shallow but bright. His armor hissed where the blade touched, as if seared by acid.
"Ji Ming!"
"I'm fine," he said, though his voice broke on the second word.
The Envoy turned toward me. "He burns for you," the Mirror said through his mouth, "and I can see it."
The world tilted. Every shard flashed crimson. I felt the resonance surge out of control, drawn to the taunting and to the emotion behind it.
"Don't listen," Ji Ming said. "It feeds on what it names."
But the Mirror was already whispering again, its voice layered and low.
You made it love. You made it mortal.
Ya Zhen hurled another sigil, shouting an incantation that burned her throat raw. The flame carved through the air, striking the Envoy's chest. The Mirror shrieked.
I moved without thinking, placing a hand on Ji Ming's back, anchoring his breath to mine. "Stay with me."
His reply was a whisper, as his lips lightly brushed against my cheek. "Always."
The bond exploded.
Silver and crimson light flooded the ruins, pouring from the mark on our skin and into the air. The shards dissolved into mist. The Envoy's body convulsed once more, then went still, the glow fading from his eyes.
For a moment, there was only silence. Then the crater sighed, the sound like a wave pulling back from shore.
Ya Zhen dropped to her knees, exhausted. The sigil smoke rose, curling around her hands like incense.
"It's done," she said.
But the Mirror wasn't gone. It shimmered faintly beneath the surface of the crater, forming not a body this time but a symbol — a circle divided by a lotus petal and crescent moon.
I recognized it instantly. The Red Courier's seal.
Ya Zhen saw it too. Her expression was unreadable.
"The Forge learned from me," she whispered. "It copied my sigil."
"Why?" Ji Ming asked.
"Because I taught it what rebellion looks like."
She turned to us, eyes hollow with realization. "The Mirror isn't the Emperor's weapon anymore. It's mine."