Vhapter 31

For a few heartbeats, there was only silence.

Not the quiet kind. The choking kind. The kind that presses on your ears and makes you feel like the air has weight. Like the walls are watching. Listening.

Kye didn't move.

Neither did Renna.

Even Veika, who was always talking or twitching or bouncing her foot, stood frozen, her breath shallow.

The boy still sat in the chair. His head slightly tilted. His silver-glass eyes reflecting nothing. Not the torchlight. Not movement. Not even the outline of the room.

Just stillness.

Then, softly, the boy spoke again.

> "They called me a mirror."

His voice wasn't just using Kye's tone—it carried the same rhythm, the same pause patterns, the same slight roughness on the vowels. It was *exact*. Even Kye felt unsettled by it.

Renna narrowed her eyes. "You said you were him."

The boy gave a tiny shrug.

"I said I was *you,*" he corrected. "You just assumed I meant the body."

Veika finally found her voice. "Okay, I hate this. What the hell does that mean?"

Kye took a slow step forward, hands away from his sword. He didn't like this, but he needed answers. "Why do you sound like me?"

The boy's head tilted again. Not like a person thinking. More like… a machine testing range of motion.

> "Because I remember you."

That sentence landed like a punch.

Kye stopped moving.

"…What?"

The boy stood up. His movements were stiff, practiced, like he hadn't stood in years. Or maybe like he'd just learned how to now. His feet were bare, skin pale as salt, body thin but not fragile. No scars. No weapons.

Just him.

"I don't know who I am," the boy said, slowly, like he was reading from something invisible. "But I know what I was made from."

He pointed straight at Kye.

> "You."

---

Renna moved in front of Kye without thinking.

"You'd better start explaining," she said. "Right now."

The boy's expression didn't change. He didn't look angry. Or even bothered. Just… distant.

"I'm a sealed record," he said.

Veika blinked. "A what?"

"A living memory," he clarified. "Locked away during the Fifth Purge. Because I wasn't allowed to exist."

Kye's stomach turned.

"Fifth Purge," he repeated. "That was over a decade ago."

"I've been waiting ever since."

He turned his glass eyes toward the far wall.

And for the first time, Kye noticed it.

There was a mural carved into the black stone—worn, faded, almost erased. But beneath the dust, the image still held.

A sword. A flame. And **two identical boys** standing back to back, one holding a blade, the other holding a book.

Renna brushed past Kye and stared at it. "Twins?"

"No," the boy said softly. "One mind. Two paths."

Kye stepped closer now. He couldn't help it. There was something… pulling at him. Something in the back of his head. A feeling he didn't have a word for. Not recognition. Not fear.

**A missing piece.**

"I don't remember you," Kye said carefully.

"That's the point," the boy answered.

He stepped aside. Pointed to the floor near the wall. A sealed hatch. Circular. Lined with runes so old Kye didn't recognize half of them.

"What's under that?" Renna asked.

The boy finally smiled. Not warmly. Not cruelly. Just… knowingly.

> "Everything you forgot."

---

Kye knelt beside the hatch. His hand hovered over the lock.

Then he stopped.

He looked up at the boy again. Really looked.

"Why me?" he asked.

"You're not the only one they changed," the boy said. "But you're the only one who kept fighting it."

Veika chewed her lip. "So what, you're like… his clone?"

"No," the boy said. "I'm his *undoing.*"

---

The tension in the room grew heavier. The torch flame began to flicker, even though no wind passed through the sealed chamber.

Kye glanced at Renna. She gave a small nod.

He touched the lock.

The runes pulsed.

Clicked.

The hatch opened slowly, hissing like something had been sealed for far too long.

And inside—

There wasn't gold.

No weapons.

No scrolls.

Just a **metal pod** the size of a coffin, coated in red runes. A crack ran across its lid like something inside had pushed to get out.

Kye leaned closer.

Inside the pod… was **a second sword**.

Identical to Vireon's Breath.

But **darker. Heavier. Corrupted.**

And just as he reached for it—

The boy grabbed his wrist.

His silver eyes locked on Kye's face.

And in a flat voice, no longer pretending to sound like him, he whispered:

> "If you touch that one… the real war begins."