The eastern ridge was not meant for human feet.
Sharp stone jutted like broken teeth from the earth, and the path twisted in narrow arcs carved not by travelers, but by wind and time. It wasn't really a trail at all, more a suggestion, a memory of one. Yet it was the way the mountain guided them, and so they followed.
Mist clung to the cliffs like torn silk.
Wind carried the thin, metallic scent of pursuit.
Sol kept her steps light, trusting the stone to hold. Ji Ming stayed a half pace ahead, mapping the terrain with that disciplined calm only Sky Wolf training could produce. Ya Zhen moved at their rear, her fan propped casually against her shoulder… though nothing in her posture was casual.
Every few breaths, the mountain hummed beneath their feet.
A warning.
A pulse.
A reminder.
Ji Ming paused near a bend where the trail became little more than a slanted edge along a steep drop.
"Careful. The path is narrow here."
Sol answered softly, "It wasn't always narrow."
Ji Ming glanced back at her. "Sol… the mountain did not collapse for dramatic timing."
"No," she whispered. "It collapsed for memory."
Ya Zhen muttered, "Fantastic. The terrain has trauma now."
But Sol wasn't wrong.
The stone shifted under her touch, not crumbling, not unstable, but responsive, as if recalling a time when this ridge had been wider, safer. And then it tightened again, retreating into the present.
"It's showing me what used to be here," Sol murmured.
Ji Ming stepped closer. "Is it safe?"
"Yes," she said.
But her fingers trembled.
She wasn't used to the world listening so closely.
Ji Ming reached out, gently brushing his hand along her wrist, subtle contact, but enough to steady her. His voice was barely above a whisper, the way a lover speaks when its only meant for one listener.
"Then keep going. I'm right here."
Sol nodded.
They moved.
The trail wound downward until the sound of a thin stream reached them, not water flowing, but water echoing against stone. A narrow cascade trickled through the rocks, cutting a pale silver ribbon along the mountain.
Ya Zhen knelt and dipped two fingers into the water.
"…Not just water," she said. "Qi-laced. Old."
Sol knelt beside her. "Memory flows through it."
Ji Ming scanned the ridge behind them. "We don't have long. The Mirror Division will reach the monastery soon."
As if answering him, a distant horn sounded, faint but unmistakable.
Ya Zhen wiped her fingers on her sleeve. "There goes subtlety."
Ji Ming's jaw tightened. "We need to cross the ravine before they see us."
"The ravine?" Sol asked.
Ji Ming nodded toward the east.
Beyond the cascade, the terrain dropped sharply into a valley woven with pale blue mist, the telltale glow of ley-line energy. A single fallen tree, old and bleached by sun and memory, formed a natural bridge across it.
Sol felt the air shift the moment she saw it.
"That bridge…" she whispered.
Ji Ming answered, "Is our only path east."
Ya Zhen clicked her tongue. "It's a glorified twig."
"It's also stable," Ji Ming said.
But Sol wasn't listening to either of them.
The fallen tree… hummed.
Not in warning.
In recognition.
A memory, soft and fragile, brushed the back of her mind.
Someone once crossed this long before she was alive.
Someone with a heartbeat like hers.
Sol inhaled softly. "…The Ancestress walked here."
Ji Ming frowned. "How do you know?"
"She left her echo on the wood. The tree remembers her weight."
Ya Zhen groaned. "Everything up here remembers something, apparently."
Ji Ming stepped onto the first section of the fallen trunk. It held firm beneath his weight.
He extended his hand. "Sol."
She took it.
Together, they crossed, slow, steady, breath held.
Ya Zhen followed after with a muttered, "If I fall, I haunt you both."
Halfway across, the wind shifted sharply.
Sol froze.
Ji Ming immediately anchored his stance beside her. "What is it?"
"The air…" Sol whispered. "It's reacting."
Ya Zhen snapped, "To what?"
Sol didn't have the words.
The wind wasn't wild.
It wasn't dangerous.
It was pulling.
Not toward the ravine —
but toward her.
Something in the ley lines below was awakening… and the resonance was stirring in response.
A flicker of light shimmered at the far end of the trunk. A shape, small and bright, flickered like a reflection struggling to form.
Sol's breath halted.
"…It followed us."
Ji Ming's voice sharpened. "The reflection-child?"
Sol nodded.
The little silhouette appeared at the far edge of the ravine, not standing on the path, but hovering in the mist like a fractured moonbeam.
Its shape trembled, as if unsure how to exist outside the monastery.
"Sol," Ji Ming murmured. "Don't move."
The reflection's head tilted, mimicking Ji Ming's posture… then his tone.
A faint echo drifted across the ravine, soft and wavering like a child learning to speak:
"…Sol…"
Sol's chest tightened. "It remembered my name."
Ya Zhen hissed, "That shouldn't be possible."
Ji Ming steadied himself, grounding them both. "Why is it here?"
Sol shook her head. "Because… it doesn't want to be alone."
The reflection flickered again… this time with fear.
Its edges blurred.
The mist thrashed behind it.
Sol gasped. "Someone else is coming."
Ya Zhen whipped her head to the right. "Imperials?"
"No," Sol said. "Not entirely."
She felt it in her blood, a disturbance in the ley lines. Not a soldier. Not a reflection. Something the mountain feared, something that woke when the Echo Monastery breathed its memories back into the world.
Ji Ming tightened his grip on her hand. "We run. Now."
They reached the far end of the tree bridge just as the mist behind them began to twist.
Ya Zhen landed lightly on the path and snapped her fan open. "Move, move, move—"
Sol turned once more toward the reflection-child.
It leaned forward, reaching out with a small trembling hand.
Not in fear.
Not in warning.
In plea.
"Sol…" the echo whispered again.
She placed her palm over her heart.
"I'll come back for you."
The reflection shimmered… then dissolved into the mist as something larger stirred behind it — a low growl of shifting qi, heavy as stone dragged across stone.
Ji Ming pulled her forward. "Sol—now!"
They ran.
The ridge path narrowed, the world trembling beneath their feet not from danger, but from anticipation.
It has begun.
Not with a battle.
Not with a revelation.
But with a pursuit, from the Empire, from the ley lines, from the Mirror itself… and from the memory that refused to let Sol walk alone.