Darkness swallowed the cavern like a lid closing over a box.
Not the soft dark of night.
Not the comforting dark of lanterns blown out.
This was the dark of memory forgotten, thick and heavy, pressing against skin like a weighted cloak.
Ji Ming shifted his stance beside Sol, sabers angled, breath steady but taut.
"Stay behind me," he murmured.
Ya Zhen's voice came from somewhere to their left, low and razor-sharp. "If whatever that is touches my ankles, I'm killing it."
The Mirror Division commander snapped a command to his officers:
"Form defensive triangle—"
But his voice cracked mid-word.
A sound moved through the dark — not footsteps, not breathing…
Brushing.
Like palm against stone.
Like something using the cavern walls to feel its way forward.
Sol felt her pulse hitch.
It wasn't malevolent.
It wasn't kind.
It was searching.
The ley lines overhead flickered faintly, trying and failing, to illuminate the intruder. Their light sputtered like dying fireflies before retreating again, as if afraid.
Sol whispered, "It followed the resonance from before."
Ji Ming tightened his grip. "The revenant?"
"No."
Sol swallowed.
"This one… remembers more."
A metallic clatter rang in the dark… one of the Mirror officers had dropped his mirrored talisman. The sound echoed too loudly, the cavern stretching it into something hollow and wrong.
Ya Zhen hissed, "Wonderful. We're being hunted with incompetent company."
The brushing sound stopped.
Silence.
Then—
A whispering scrape of nails, or claws, against stone.
Followed by a slow exhale that didn't belong to any human throat.
Sol felt her legs tremble.
Ji Ming sensed it instantly and shifted closer. "Sol, breathe."
"I am," she whispered.
"No, you're holding it."
Ya Zhen snapped from the shadows, "Both of you breathe later, survive now."
The commander lit a mirrored flare, a small orb of silver light that hissed into existence like a spark trapped inside glass.
For one heartbeat, the cavern brightened—
And they saw it.
It clung to the wall like a shadow given form.
Limbs too long.
Torso warped.
No face, not in the human sense… just a stretch of smooth, mirrored skin that rippled with stolen reflections.
It wasn't truly flesh.
It was a memory made physical, layered with qi so old it tasted metallic in the air.
A Mirrorborn.
A being formed in the earliest centuries of resonance theory, before the Empire, before sects learned to fear their own reflections, before mirrors were regulated.
The creature turned toward the flare, and every mirrored mask in the room cracked down the center.
The Mirror Division officers staggered backward, choking on air.
Sol gasped. "It broke them just by being seen."
Ji Ming pulled Sol behind him again. "Don't look at it directly."
Ya Zhen muttered, "Too late for them," and twirled her fan, sigils flaring to life with sharp vermilion light.
The Mirrorborn dropped from the wall.
Not pouncing.
Not attacking.
But folding, collapsing into a bipedal shape as if remembering how a body should stand.
Its voice came next.
Not spoken aloud, but vibrating through the stone, dripping into ears like water finding cracks.
—where… is…
It paused, as if struggling to form the word.
…home…?
Sol's heart broke in a way she didn't expect.
"It's lost," she whispered.
Ji Ming didn't soften. "Lost or not, it's dangerous."
"Ji Ming," Sol said, her voice trembling but firm, "it's asking."
The creature tilted its head toward her.
And for an instant, just one, its mirrored chest flickered.
Her reflection appeared in it.
Only hers.
Not Ji Ming's.
Not Ya Zhen's.
Not the officers'.
Sol felt her breath catch.
"It recognizes me."
Ya Zhen hissed, "Of course it does. You woke the entire mountain. Anything reflective within a hundred li is probably whispering your name and tracking you like a lost ghost puppy."
The commander, now maskless and breathless, raised the cracked talisman.
"Neutralize it!"
Ji Ming barked, "No—"
But the commander hurled the talisman anyway.
The Mirrorborn screamed, not from pain, but from fear, a sound that sucked the air from the cavern and bent the light around it.
The ley lines reacted.
A wave of light surged downward…
Sol threw her hands up instinctively.
The ley energy wrapped around her like armor.
And the talisman's blast shattered harmlessly against her shield.
The commander stared. "Impossible…"
Ji Ming lunged and kicked the talisman from the officer's grip. It clattered across the floor, sparking violently.
Ya Zhen's fan sliced the air, sigils spiraling outward.
"Enough!" she snapped. "You're going to bring the entire mountain down on us!"
But Sol wasn't listening.
She stepped toward the Mirrorborn.
Ji Ming grabbed her wrist. "Sol… don't."
She didn't pull away.
But she looked up at him, eyes steady.
"It's not attacking."
"It will," Ji Ming argued. "If it feels threatened."
"And right now," Sol whispered, "I'm the only one it doesn't feel threatened by."
The Mirrorborn reached out with one trembling hand.
It stopped inches from Sol's face, mirroring her breath.
Sol touched her heart.
A gesture it had learned from the revenant.
The Mirrorborn lowered its hand…
…and pressed its palm to the same spot on its own chest.
A soft, broken exhale escaped its body.
…home…?
Sol's eyes softened. "I don't know where your home is… but I'll help you find it."
The creature shuddered.
For the first time, its form stabilized, no longer rippling, no longer warping. A shape half-remembered and half-born.
But that moment of peace lasted only seconds.
Because more boots echoed in the passage behind the commander.
Reinforcements.
Ji Ming's jaw tightened. "We're out of time."
Ya Zhen snapped her fan shut. "Sol. Command it. Now. Before the Empire does."
Sol looked up at the Mirrorborn.
She didn't command.
She offered.
"Come with us."
Silence.
Then—
The creature stepped forward.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Choosing.
Ji Ming exhaled softly, a mixture of relief and dread.
The commander snarled, "You cannot take a Mirrorborn—"
"It's not yours," Sol said quietly.
And then the mountain trembled again.
Harder.
A crack split across the cavern wall.
Ji Ming grabbed Sol's arm. "Move!"
The Mirrorborn echoed the gesture, grabbing Sol's other arm with startling gentleness, helping stabilize her as the cavern ceiling split open.
Ya Zhen pulled them toward the exit. "Everyone out before this place buries us—"
Rock sheared down from above.
Light split through the cavern.
And the three, Sol, Ji Ming, Ya Zhen… burst into the open air with the Mirrorborn at their back just as the cavern collapsed behind them, swallowing the Mirror Division whole.
Sol turned, chest heaving.
The mountain sealed itself.
Ji Ming stared at the closed rock face.
Ya Zhen panted, fanning herself. "And that, children, is why we never trust caves."
Sol looked at the Mirrorborn.
It looked back.
Then bowed.
Not deeply.
Not formally.
Just enough to say: I choose you.