Havenreach's power grid had been crippled twice in three days, plunging sections of the city into darkness. Reports traced each sabotage to abandoned utility tunnels beneath Sector Nine. Kael knew the pattern—it was bait. Taren wanted to draw him in.
So Kael let himself be drawn.
Rhea, Joran, and a squad of Frontier soldiers flanked him as they moved through the tunnels, their steps echoing on damp metal floors. Lights flickered above, casting long shadows.
"Feels wrong," Rhea muttered, her rifle sweeping the gloom. "Too quiet."
"It's supposed to," Kael said. His hand rested on the hilt of his blade. "He wants us on edge. He wants me on edge."
Joran spat. "Good. Let him want. I'll give him something to choke on."
Kael didn't answer. His gut twisted. Every instinct screamed this was more than a raid.
And he was right.
The squad reached a junction, walls scrawled with faint sigils that pulsed with ghostly light.
"Found his calling card," Rhea said grimly.
Then the first soldier screamed.
A blur cut through the squad, faster than sight, blades flashing silver. Blood sprayed across the tunnel walls.
"Contact!" Joran roared, raising his blade just in time to parry a strike that would have taken his head.
The figure landed in the center of the junction, moving with fluid grace. Armored in matte black, face hidden by a reflective mask, the assassin stood in silence, twin blades dripping red.
Kael felt the world still. His heart hammered.
Because he recognized the stance. The footwork. Even the way the assassin tilted his head.
It was his own.
"Fall back!" Kael barked, shoving Rhea aside as the assassin lunged.
Their blades met with a crack of steel. Sparks lit the darkness. Kael's muscles screamed as he parried strike after strike, every motion mirrored, every technique countered.
The assassin fought like a reflection in water—familiar, yet twisted.
Kael slashed low. The assassin spun high. Kael feinted right. The assassin feinted left. It was like fighting himself, each move anticipated, each weakness exploited.
Joran charged in with a roar, only to be hurled back by a brutal kick to the chest. Rhea fired three precise shots, but the assassin's blades deflected them in impossible arcs.
This was no fanatic. This was a weapon.
The assassin pressed Kael against the wall, blades crossed at his throat. Through the mask came a voice, distorted but unmistakable in its cadence.
"Taren trained me for one purpose—your end."
Kael's blood froze.
"You're lying."
The assassin tilted his head. "Am I? Every strike you make, I know. Every flaw you hide, I see. Because I was made to be you, but better."
The words sank like poison. Taren hadn't just raised a brother against him. He had forged a shadow—a mirror meant to replace him.
Kael shoved hard, breaking free, rage igniting. "Then prove it."
Their blades clashed again, ringing through the tunnels like war drums.
Kael fought with fury, but fury was what Taren wanted. The assassin absorbed it, turned it back, pressing him harder.
Then Kael remembered Lyra's voice. Unbreakable.
He slowed. Centered himself. Let instinct give way to control.
Strike. Block. Counter. Not rage—discipline. Not fury—focus.
The assassin faltered, just slightly, unused to patience instead of fire. Kael seized the opening, twisting his blade into a brutal lock that wrenched one of the assassin's weapons free.
The reflection staggered. For the first time, the mask tilted—not with precision, but with hesitation.
"You're not me," Kael growled. "You're his puppet."
The assassin lunged again, desperate, but Kael drove his blade deep into the joint of his armor, severing muscle. The assassin collapsed to one knee, breathing ragged.
Kael ripped the mask away.
The assassin's face was pale, scarred, but hauntingly familiar. Not Kael's. Not Taren's. But a twisted echo of both—features blended, engineered. A face built in a lab, not born.
The assassin's eyes burned with unnatural light, veins marked with faint sigils.
"Who are you?" Kael demanded.
The man spat blood. "I am your replacement. I am the one who will stand when you fall. Taren made me… from you."
Kael's stomach turned. A clone. A construct. A shadow given flesh.
The assassin coughed, a dark smile spreading across his lips. "And there are more."
Then he drove his remaining blade into his own chest, collapsing lifeless at Kael's feet.
The squad was shaken. Three soldiers dead. The rest bloodied.
Rhea stared at the corpse with wide eyes. "What the hell was that?"
Kael knelt beside the body, his hands trembling. "A weapon. My brother's weapon. He's not just building fleets anymore. He's building me."
Joran's face twisted with fury. "Then we'll kill every last copy."
But Kael said nothing. His eyes lingered on the dead reflection, and dread coiled in his chest.
Because he knew Taren. If there was one, there would be many. And each would carry not just Kael's face, but his doubt.
Back in the medbay, Kael sat beside Lyra once more. She stirred, whispering his name.
He took her hand, gripping it as though it were the last thing tethering him to reality.
"Taren's building soldiers… soldiers who look like me. Fight like me. Shadows of me. He wants to erase me, Lyra. Replace me."
Her eyes opened faintly, glowing with fragile light. "Then… don't let him. You are not replaceable. You are Kael Ardyn. And you are more than his reflection."
Her voice cracked, but her words steadied him.
Kael pressed his forehead to hers, closing his eyes.
"Then I'll burn every shadow he makes. Until only one of us remains."