The Mirror Cracked

Chapter 18

The mask fell, clattering against the stones.

The Fractured's face was Kian's own—older, ravaged by time, but undeniably his. A scar split his left brow, and his eyes burned with a hollow gold light, but the sharp jawline, the curve of his lips…

"You," Kian breathed.

"Me," the Fractured said. "Or what remains of me."

Jin Yue stepped back, her sword trembling. "How?"

The Fractured ignored her, his gaze locked on Kian. "You thought merging with the boy was a sacrifice? Child's play. I merged with myself . A dozen iterations, a hundred fractured timelines—all compressed into this… rotten flesh." He gestured to his crumbling body. "The Flame demands balance. To exist outside time, you must become time's puppet."

Kian's mark pulsed, tendrils of gold now creeping toward his collarbone. "You survived. How?"

"By doing what you refuse to." The Fractured's voice turned venomous. "I let go. Severed every tie. Every memory. Every soul."

Lian's presence flickered in Kian's mind, faint but defiant. "He's lying. He's alone. We're not."

The Fractured's eye twitched, as if he'd heard. "You think your little merger makes you stronger? You're a guttering candle. I am a inferno."

Master Liangu edged forward, his voice wary. "You're a Shard-bearer. One of the first."

"The last," the Fractured corrected. "The others are dust. The Flame consumed them. It will consume you too, Kian. Unless…"

"Unless?" Jin Yue demanded.

The Fractured smiled, a cracked mirror of Kian's own. "Unless he becomes me."

The Pact

Kian's fading arm shimmered, the gold tendrils etching deeper. "What do you want?"

"An anchor," the Fractured said. "A piece of your timeline to tether me to this moment. In exchange, I'll show you how to stabilize… this ." He gestured disdainfully at Kian's spiraling mark.

"No deals," Jin Yue snapped. "He'll betray you."

"He's right," Master Liangu murmured. "The Fractured is a paradox. Anchoring him here could unravel reality further."

The Fractured laughed, a sound like grinding stone. "Reality is already unraveling. The boy's fusion with the Shard has accelerated the decay. You felt the quakes? The skies bleeding at dawn? That's him."

Kian clenched his jaw. "What kind of anchor?"

"A memory," the Fractured said. *"One I've long since burned. Give me the day you first held the Shard."

Lian's voice surged in warning. "He'll use it to overwrite you!"

Kian hesitated. The memory the Fractured wanted was the same one Kian had sacrificed to save Lian—the moment his mother left him at the monastery. But how?

Unless…

"You're not just me," Kian realized. "You're her son too. You lost her twice."

The Fractured went very still.

Then, softly: "Give me the memory. Let me remember her face. And I'll show you how to survive."

The Exchange

They built a fire in the wastes.

The Fractured drew a circle in the sand, its edges lined with shards of obsidian. "Sit."

Jin Yue gripped Kian's wrist. "Don't."

"We're out of time," he said gently. Lian's presence was a faint hum now, like a distant star.

Kian sat. The Fractured knelt opposite him, their shared face lit by the flickering flames.

"Focus on the memory," the Fractured instructed. "The Shard's heat in your hand. Her voice. Her face."

Kian closed his eyes. The void where his mother's memory had been ached, but deeper still, fragments remained—the Shard's first pulse, the scent of lotus blossoms, a fading whisper. Be brave.

The Fractured placed a crumbling hand on Kian's chest.

Agony.

Kian's mind tore open. The memory surged—not as a vision, but a reliving.

He was seven again, clutching the Shard in the monastery courtyard, tears streaming as his mother walked away. "Wait!" he screamed. She turned, her face clear for the first time in years—soft eyes, a scar on her chin, a smile meant to reassure. Then she vanished.

The Fractured gasped. "There you are," he whispered—not to Kian, but to the ghost in the memory.

The circle ignited.

The Cost

When Kian awoke, the Fractured was gone.

In his place stood a man—whole, unblemished, Kian's mirror image but for the eyes. Cold, calculating, alive.

"What did you do?!" Jin Yue demanded, her blade at the man's throat.

He smiled. "I remembered."

Kian's mark had receded, the gold tendrils fading to pale scars. But the hollow in his chest yawned wider. The memory of his mother was gone. Not buried, not fractured—erased.

"You took it," Kian rasped. "You took her from me."

"You gave it freely," the Fractured—*no, the man—said. "And in return…" He raised a hand, and time bent. A dead shrub at his feet bloomed, withered, and regrew in seconds. "I am whole. And you are healed."

"Liar," Master Liangu said. "The boy's soul—where is he?"

The man's smile faded. He looked at Kian. "Gone. Absorbed. Did you think you could defy the Flame and keep him too?"

Kian's breath stopped. "Lian?"

Silence.

The void in his mind was absolute.

The Shattered

Jin Yue lunged, but the man flickered, reappearing atop the dune.

"This is mercy, Kian. The boy was a weight. Now you're free."

"Free?" Kian's voice cracked. He clutched his chest, where the Shard's warmth had once pulsed. "You killed him."

"No," the man said. "You did. When you chose to save yourself."

The truth struck like a blade.

The Fractured had not taken Lian.

Kian had.

In the moment of the exchange, he'd clung to life—his life—and let Lian dissolve into the void.

"No…"

The man tilted his head. "You begin to see. We are the same. Selfish. Survivors."

"Never," Kian snarled.

But the mark on his palm glinted, cold and final.

The Wound

They buried nothing in the wastes.

Jin Yue said Lian's name once, a question, and Kian could not answer.

Master Liangu studied the sky, where cracks of gold now split the horizon. "The timeline is fracturing. Without the Shard or the boy to anchor it…"

"What happens?" Jin Yue asked.

"Time dies. And us with it."

Kian stood apart, the man's words echoing. Selfish. Survivors.

A whisper brushed his mind—not Lian's, but his mother's, from a memory he no longer possessed.

Be brave.

He turned to the cracks in the sky.

"We fix this."

The Fractured Path

The man awaited them at the edge of the storm.

"You'll try to undo it," he said. "To reclaim the boy. But some threads, once cut, cannot be rewoven."

Kian drew the dagger at his belt—Jin Yue's dagger, offered without a word. "You exist because I allowed it. Now you'll help."

The man laughed. "Or what? You'll kill me? I am you, Kian. Older. Wiser. Unburdened."

"No." Kian met his gaze. "You're what I refuse to become."

The storm surged.

Somewhere in the chaos, Jin Yue shouted. Master Liangu chanted.

And Kian plunged the dagger into his own palm, piercing the spiral mark.

Gold erupted—not from him, but from the sky.

The First Flame descended.