The nights had become Jin Mu's greatest enemy. When the city of Ardentis fell quiet, when even the glow of the obelisk dimmed to a steady heartbeat, the walls of his chamber became suffocating. Sleep did not come; it ambushed him in broken fragments, visions of fire and screams clawing their way into his skull. He would wake drenched in sweat, his fingernails sunk so deep into his palms that blood stained the sheets.
Eleanor had noticed, of course. She always noticed. Sometimes she found him sitting on the balcony at dawn, eyes glazed as though staring into a world that wasn't there. Other times, she caught him pressing his palm to the wall, whispering to shadows that coiled too eagerly around his fingers. She never scolded him. She only stayed, silent, her presence grounding him. But Jin knew the truth—he was a fractured vessel leaking poison into every moment of peace.
One night, the fractures widened.
He dreamed—not of Eleanor, not of Ardentis—but of the Tribunal halls back in his old world. The cries of chained slaves, the hollow eyes of children, the sharp crack of a whip across Su Lin's back. And then, deeper still, he saw himself: the old Jin Mu, cold-eyed and relentless, drenched in blood as he carved his way through enemies and allies alike. That other self stared at him with disgust.
"You're pathetic," the phantom whispered. "You let them take everything. You lost Shen's arm. You lost their trust. You lost me."
When Jin jerked awake, the room was dark. Too dark. His own shadow had crawled up the walls, spreading like tar. His chest heaved as his heartbeat pounded like war drums. He staggered to the mirror, gripping its edges until the frame cracked.
The reflection was wrong. His eyes glowed with the sickly violet of the Black Emperor Pathway, but threaded through them were streaks of pale silver—alien, unstable. His face seemed to shift between the boy who had been broken, the man who had regressed, and something monstrous in between. He smashed the mirror with his fist.
The noise drew Eleanor. She entered without hesitation, silk night-robe flowing like liquid moonlight. "Jin—"
"Stay back," he rasped, blood dripping from his knuckles. "I can't—control it."
But she did not step back. She crossed the room, slow, steady, as though approaching a wounded animal. His shadow lashed out, curling toward her ankles like snakes. She walked through them.
Her hand touched his arm, gentle yet unyielding. "Control doesn't come all at once," she whispered. "It comes in pieces. And you are more than what hunts you in the dark."
He wanted to believe her. God, he wanted to. But the memories wouldn't let him. Every face of those he had failed flickered before his eyes—Xue Yiran's sharp gaze as she refused to leave his side, Shen Yan's arm falling into the dirt, Camellya's smile hiding bitterness, Su Lin's tired resilience. They had needed him, and he had vanished, swallowed by madness and regression. What right did he have to live here in light while their fates remained uncertain?
Tears burned his eyes before he realized they had fallen. His knees hit the floor, shoulders shaking. Eleanor knelt with him, her arms wrapping around him as his body trembled like a child's.
"I killed them," he whispered, though it wasn't true. Not yet. But in his dreams, it always ended that way. His blade through Shen's chest. His hand strangling Xue. His voice ordering Su Lin back into chains.
"You didn't," Eleanor said firmly, her voice steel under velvet. "That's the voice of your fear, not your truth."
But Jin couldn't shake it. He couldn't shake the certainty that he was a danger, that one day the merging of his souls would twist him fully into the monster he saw in his reflection.
The weeks that followed blurred. He withdrew further, speaking less, patrolling the palace halls in silence. His eyes lingered too long on blades, on high balconies, on the sharp edges of reality where ending everything seemed like release. Eleanor stayed near, anchoring him with her presence, but she could not pull the knife of guilt from his chest.
On the thirty-first day of his spiraling, he found himself on the palace's tallest spire. The wind howled, tearing at his robes. Far below, the city glittered like a thousand stars. He spread his arms, feeling the shadows coil eagerly, whispering promises of peace if he only let go.
Eleanor's voice cut through the wind. "Jin!"
He turned. She stood on the narrow ledge, barefoot, hair wild, eyes burning with a fire that rivaled the obelisk itself.
"Don't do this," she said.
"You don't understand," he whispered hoarsely. "I'm not one person. I'm… fragments. Monsters. I'll hurt you. I'll hurt them. Maybe ending it is the only way to protect anyone."
Eleanor's steps were steady despite the drop yawning beneath her. She came within reach and grabbed his blood-stained hand.
"Then let me carry the weight with you," she said, her voice breaking. "If you fall, Jin, then I fall too. But I will not let you go alone."
The shadows recoiled, shuddering as if struck. Jin stared at her, at the tears streaking her face, at the raw sincerity in her words. Something inside him cracked—not the fracture of madness, but the faintest spark of light pushing through the darkness.
And though the voices of his other selves still screamed, though the trauma still clawed at his mind, Jin Mu stepped down from the ledge.
He collapsed into Eleanor's arms, and for the first time in months, he let himself sob without restraint.
The obelisk pulsed brighter that night, as though the city itself bore witness.