The fire crackled low.
Selene sat across from him, sharpening a blade she hadn't drawn in years, not since her trial. The flames painted her face in gold and shadow. But her eyes stayed fixed on Alpha, as if measuring what had come back from the Rite.
"You don't understand it yet," she said quietly, "but it will come for you again."
Alpha didn't speak. He couldn't. He still wasn't sure the words he'd form would sound like his.
Selene slid the blade back into its sheath and leaned forward.
"I once stood where you stood," she said, "and I made the same choice."
He looked up slowly. "You survived?"
Selene's laugh was sharp, joyless.
"No one survives the Rite. Not completely."
"They called us the Twin Wielders," she said. "A prophecy. Two chosen by Vanitas, born on the same night, under mirrored moons."
"I had a sister. Syra. She was… brighter. Stronger. Loved."
Selene's voice grew hollow, almost fragile."She should've been the one. But Vanitas chose us both."
"That's not supposed to happen."
"No. It isn't."
The Rite of Severance was older than Elaris, older than even the first Rift. A remnant of the Council of Pale Flame, who believed that power must be purified through pain.
When two wielders emerged, a trial was invoked.Not a duel.Not a test.
A ritual of erasure.
Only one reflection could remain.
One becomes real.
One is unmade.
Selene closed her eyes. "We fought in a dream-space shaped by our memories. Every blow felt like cutting through myself."
"In the end… I won."
She looked away.
"But Vanitas never stopped whispering her name."
Alpha frowned. "Who were they?"
Selene's jaw tensed. "The original conjurors of the Rift. Philosophers, they claimed. But their kind worshiped suffering. They believed duality was a curse, only unity through pain could bring order."
"They built the Rite. Crafted Vanitas to remember."
Alpha's grip tightened on the hilt.
"So the sword's alive."
Selene nodded. "Alive… and watching. It records every bearer. Every failure. Every lie."
She leaned in.
"And if you ever forget who you are, it will remind you. Violently."
Far away, the boy stirred in his sleep.
His small hands clenched the blanket as if warding off a phantom.
He dreamt of a hallway of mirrors.
Of voices that spoke with Alpha's tone… but not his kindness.
He saw one version of Alpha kneel beside him.
"I'll protect you."
Then another appeared behind him, whispering:
"Or maybe I already failed."
The boy turned—caught between two Alphas.
One smiled.
One bled.
He screamed.
Alpha's hand jerked.
Vanitas hummed, no, purred, with something old and cold.
He looked at Selene. "Does it ever stop?"
Selene's gaze was distant now, lost in a place she never left.
"No," she said softly.
"But one day, you stop asking who you were."
"And start asking what you've become."
The moment Alpha offered the blade
The Echo paused.
Its face twitched, just slightly. Confusion flickered in its eyes, the faintest ripple across a mirror that was never meant to reflect mercy.
"This is not the Rite," the Echo hissed."You were supposed to kill me."
Alpha's hand didn't waver. "Then maybe the Rite was wrong."
The silence that followed wasn't empty.
It listened.
And then, for the first time since the ritual began
The mirror cracked.
Far above, Selene felt it.
A pull beneath her ribs. A sting behind her eyes.
Vanitas had changed.
Not the sword, but the soul bound to it.
She gripped the stone wall of the cathedral, breath shallow. Her mind was no longer entirely in the present, Not when the past was screaming.
"She begged you not to draw it," a voice whispered from within."She asked you to run."
The air twisted, and suddenly
She was back in the temple, seventeen years old. Her sister, Celara, kneeling before the Echo Blade. Her voice shaking.
"Selene… we don't have to be legends."
But Selene had drawn her sword.
Because legends were the only thing that survived.
And she had killed her reflection.
Not her own.
Her sister's.
Down in the dark, Alpha and the Echo stood still.
The blade hovered between them.
Vanitas trembled.
A crack formed on its edge.
"This is not how it ends," the Echo muttered, voice breaking."You must become real. Only one of us can be."
But Alpha lowered the sword.And said the words that shattered the chamber:
"Then let's both be."
The light exploded.
Symbols along the wall flared, ancient language igniting in red and white.
The basin shattered.
The twin sigils on the wall, upright and inverted, began to twist, intertwining.
Above them, the stars dimmed.
And something in the deep woke up.
Far above, in the ruined streets of Elaris
The boy staggered back as a wave of psychic heat poured from the cathedral.
His eyes burned.
And for a second...
He saw everything.
Two swords, fused by rejection.
Two souls, bound by refusal.
And a third presence.
Something deeper.
A watcher.
A voice whispering from beneath the city's bones.
"A wielder who spares… calls the Old Mirror."
"He who walks with his double… invites the Reflection War."
The boy collapsed, gasping.
When he opened his eyes
They were black from edge to edge.
And behind his gaze, something watched.
When Alpha woke
The chamber was silent.
The Echo was gone.
But something remained.
Not a reflection.
A companion.
Vanitas was no longer one blade.
It had split in two.
A pair of short swords, twins.
Their hilts mirrored, their cores humming with the echo of what Alpha had spared.
Selene stood at the threshold, stunned.
"…You broke the Rite," she whispered.
Alpha didn't look at her. "No."
"I rewrote it."