The war room fell into silence. Maps lay sprawled across the table, candles flickering as if the flames themselves were nervous. Outside, the faint hum of wind filtered through cracks in the stone.
Corren leaned forward, voice low.
"How long until they reach Heiard?"
Kessle swallowed.
"Three days. Four if we're lucky. They're coming from the North Valley. Tearing through settlements on the way."
Renzo slammed his hand on the table.
"They're baiting us. Trying to push us into panic before they even get here."
Azriel stood back, arms crossed, gaze locked on the map. His knuckles were white.
"Then we won't give them that luxury," he said.
"We strike first."
Everyone turned.
"You want to go out there?" Lysara asked carefully.
"We don't even know their full capabilities—"
"We know enough," Azriel interrupted. "And I won't sit here while they slaughter innocent towns."
A moment of quiet followed.
Corren exhaled deeply. "We'll need scouts. Diversions. Renzo, can your traps cover the eastern passage?"
"If I work all night," Renzo muttered.
Gio looked at Azriel, worry in his eyes.
"You've changed," he said.
Azriel didn't respond at first. His eyes were still locked on the horizon of the map.
"Frenel's death wasn't for nothing. If I have to die to stop Velmira, then so be it."
Gio stepped forward and gripped his shoulder.
"You're not dying anytime soon, kid. We're with you now. All the way."
Later that night, Azriel drifted into sleep in the quiet of their shared quarters, unaware that Reflection had a gift waiting for him.
The familiar symphony greeted him first—low strings echoing in the dark, like memory itself humming from the void. Then came the corpse again: his corpse, arms open wide. Was it… asking for a hug?
Azriel hesitated. "The hell is this supposed to mean?" he muttered.
But something pulled at him. Curiosity, perhaps. Or fate.
He stepped forward and embraced the dead version of himself—and suddenly, gravity lost meaning. Azriel was no longer in Reflection as he knew it, but suspended in a vast, endless void.
Floating all around him were shards of glass—hundreds, maybe thousands. Each shard showed a different version of himself: some with horns, some cloaked in darkness, some with wings, others burning or made of light. Different races, different forms… all him.
It felt like swimming through dreams. He glided weightlessly, reaching toward one shard after another. But then, one caught his eye. Unlike the rest, this one reflected his current self—worn, scarred, yet unmistakably him. No distortions, no alternative version. Just Azriel.
"Why this one?" he whispered.
Drawn to it, he reached out and touched the shard.
The moment his skin met its surface, it split his palm—sharp and merciless. Blood spilled across his hand, but strangely, instead of flowing, the blood stood still… frozen in motion.
He gasped—and woke.
Azriel sat up in his bed, heart racing.
His hand still bore the streak of blood.
But the blood didn't drip.
It stayed there, unmoving. Suspended. As if part of a memory refusing to fade.
He didn't sleep again that night. Instead, he stared into the dark, replaying the strange dream over and over.
"Reflection's changing," Azriel murmured. "But why now…?"
He sat with his thoughts, shadows pooling in the corners of the room as Renzo's hammer echoed distantly—tink, tink—steady and comforting, a sound of survival. Chatter drifted from the other side of the base. But Azriel was alone here, in the company of his own mind.
"Maybe it's because I'm anxious," he said aloud, half-joking. "Maybe it's all in my head."
Then, a tingling sensation crawled up his arm—his blood. It was moving again, but not like before. It flowed up, against gravity, like a red ribbon climbing toward his shoulder, neck, skull—
And then the world went black.
When Azriel opened his eyes, the room looked the same—but something wasn't right. The walls didn't breathe, but they felt like they could. The air was heavier, laced with a dream-like silence.
And then he saw it.
Himself.
Standing just a few steps ahead, expression blank.
Azriel blinked. His reflection blinked back.
He took a cautious step forward.
"Hello?"
The mimic answered in perfect timing. "Hello?"
Every tilt of the head, every breath, every twitch—it mirrored him flawlessly. Until, slowly, its rhythm began to shift. It hesitated a second too long before blinking. Then its lips moved first.
"Azriel?" it said.
Azriel froze. "Yeah… that's me. Or—us?"
The mimic smiled slightly, but there was no warmth in it. It walked to the side now on its own accord, no longer bound to imitation.
"Strange, isn't it? To live and not know why. To fight and not know for what."
Azriel's brows knit. "What are you?"
"You."
"Or maybe just the version of you that's tired of pretending there's meaning where there isn't."
The room shifted, walls dissolving into fog. Now they stood in that same vast void from Reflection, with glass shards spinning slowly in the distance.
"Do you ever wonder," the other Azriel said, "why we keep going? When everyone we love dies, when the world proves again and again that hope is a fool's word?"
Azriel clenched his fists. "Because I have to. Because if I don't—Frenel's death, Lucia's death, my death—means nothing."
The mimic smirked. "And what if it already means nothing?"
Azriel stepped closer. "Then I'll give it meaning."
"Spoken like a man afraid of the void."
"Maybe I am. But fear doesn't make it less real. And I'd rather walk into the void than let it swallow me while I stand still."
There was a pause. Then the mimic laughed—genuinely, softly. A strange peace settled over him.
"Good."
"Then let's keep walking."
The mimic walked forward—and merged with Azriel.
His body jolted awake in bed.
The blood on his hand had vanished. His head no longer throbbed. But his eyes… they burned with clarity.
He whispered, to no one and everyone:
"I don't know what any of this means… but I'll make sure it matters."
Azriel sat at the edge of his bed, hands trembling slightly. Not from fear—but from awareness. The kind that hums in your bones, the kind that whispers you've changed.
The silence of the room no longer felt empty. It felt... attentive, like something unseen was watching.
He ran a hand through his hair and stood, walking slowly to the small, fogged mirror above the wash basin. His reflection stared back—just him this time. No mimic. No void. Just Azriel.
But for the first time, he wondered:
Was this reflection always his… or something else entirely?
He blinked. The reflection blinked. And yet… there was the faintest delay. Half a second. A breath, almost.
Elsewhere—far deeper than the mind—inside Reflection itself...
The void swirled, and the glass shards orbiting the vast nothingness shimmered with new energy. One shard, fractured in the earlier encounter, began to repair itself, glowing faintly blue.
A presence stirred in the dark. It had no voice, only sensation. A silent observer. It had watched Azriel since the beginning—since his first death, since the first tear shed under the shattered moon.
Now… it was interested.
The next morning, sunlight trickled through the cracks in the wooden blinds.
Azriel groggily opened his eyes—and froze.
There, lying beside him, on the same thin mattress, was himself.
Azriel 2.0. Still and silent. Eyes open, blank. Breathing—barely.
Azriel sat up slowly. "...You're real?" he muttered.
The doppelgänger blinked once, but said nothing.
"Okay. Cool. Great. I'm definitely not losing it," Azriel whispered, running a hand over his face. "This is fine."
The clone—or whatever it was—stood up, mimicking him again with near-perfect movement. No words. No expression. Just that eerie sense of presence.
Azriel grabbed his coat and headed for the central planning room.
Everyone was gathered: Lysara, Gio, Renzo, Corren, Kessle. A pot of thick stew boiled in the background, someone was sharpening a blade.
Then—
Azriel walked in.
And behind him… Azriel walked in.
"WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. SHIT." Renzo nearly dropped his hammer.
"WHY IS THERE TWO OF YOU?!" Lysara shouted, already half-reaching for her staff.
"I wish I knew," Azriel muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.