The Timebound
CHAPTER TEN
The Mirror War and the Children of Echo
The mirror exploded not with glass, but with memories—shards of lives Alexander had never lived but somehow remembered. They tore through the room like spectral blades, cutting across the fabric of reality, distorting sound and light.
The Thing That Followed stepped fully into the room, dragging a ripple of unreality with it.
It had Alexander's voice—but none of his soul.
"You run from your past," it said. "I am the pieces you left behind."
Sister Yu raised a barrier of frost, but it melted the moment the thing looked at it.
"No more tricks," she hissed, drawing a sigil across her palm with a blade of mirrored bone. "This place—it feeds on your guilt. If you falter, it will use you to create another."
Alexander said nothing. His eyes locked with the creature's. In its gaze, he saw every death he'd failed to prevent. Lenora among them. Over and over and over.
He stepped forward.
And struck.
---
The Mirror War
It was not a battle of fists, but of essence. The creature mimicked his every movement, every blow, every flicker of thought. For every punch Alexander threw, the Thing followed with equal force.
They weren't fighting for victory.
They were fighting for dominance of identity.
Sister Yu chanted behind him, weaving a tether of soul-thread, attempting to anchor Alexander to who he truly was. But the room spun with illusions—dozens of alternate selves clawing their way from the shattered mirrors, each one screaming truths that never happened.
"You let Lenora die."
"You let the world burn."
"You don't deserve to go back."
"No," Alexander growled. "I'm not here to be forgiven. I'm here to save her."
The sigil on his chest—where the Chronoblack Scripture had burned into him—flared.
A shockwave blasted the mirror-room apart.
The Thing That Followed staggered. For the first time, it looked unsure.
Alexander surged forward.
And consumed it.
Not by force—but by acceptance.
He took the guilt. The pain. The regret.
He made it his.
And the room fell silent.
---
The Archive Below
They emerged into tunnels that pulsed with power—old brickwork, but laced with glowing veins of crystal and circuitry. Steam hissed from rusted valves. Somewhere far below, a great engine turned.
They were in what remained of Project Echo.
Alexander could feel it—this place was not meant to be found. Not by the living.
Not twice.
"Time was being studied here," Sister Yu said, running her fingers across a wall where echoes of the past played like projected film reels. "They didn't just observe anomalies. They created them."
A child's voice spoke from behind a pillar.
"You shouldn't have come."
They turned.
A girl stood there—same brass eyes as the Clockwork Orphan. But this one wore a coat bearing the Project Echo insignia.
On her hand: a device. A compass that didn't point north—but elsewhere.
"Lenora is between," the girl whispered. "Locked in the Grey Span. We can still save her. But he is coming."
"Who?" Alexander asked.
The girl looked at him, her gaze ancient.
"The Architect."
---
The Architect of Ruin
Somewhere deeper in the Archive, something stirred.
Gears turned that hadn't moved in centuries.
A vault unsealed itself, lined with blood and runes.
Inside: a throne built of discarded timelines, occupied by a figure of impossible geometry—part man, part machine, part ghost.
His face was obscured by a mask of timepieces, all ticking out of sync.
He turned toward the surface.
"Anachron has breached containment," he said to no one and everyone. "Chronoblack Protocol is active. Initiate Collapse Vector Nine."
The Architect rose.
The machine that held the timelines together began to tremble.
---
The Children of Echo
Back above, Sister Yu examined the compass device. "This shows instability between fixed points in time. The next shift is soon."
Alexander nodded. "Then we move. Lenora's close."
The girl's voice came again—softer this time. "We were made from her fragments. All of us. The Children of Echo. She seeded herself into time to escape him."
Alexander's eyes widened.
"Lenora's not just trapped. She's fighting back."
The compass spun wildly.
Above them, the city screamed.
Time was fracturing again.
And something massive was coming through.
---
To be continued…