The first light came pale and diffused, filtered through a haze that turned salt into frost.
The city no longer shimmered with illusion; it waited, quiet and colorless, as if exhausted from dreaming.
Sol rose before the others. Her hands trembled faintly from the resonance's echo, but the ache inside her chest had softened. Every inhale drew in the scent of minerals and smoke.
She found Ji Ming sharpening his blade near what remained of a fountain, its basin empty, the carved lotus petals cracked down the middle. He did not look up when she approached.
"You didn't sleep," she said.
"I tried." His tone was calm, low. "Every time I closed my eyes, I heard it breathing through the stone."
Sol traced a finger along the fountain's edge. "Maybe it's learning to breathe the way we do."
"That's not comforting."
"It wasn't meant to be." She smiled faintly, but it faded when she saw the small cut along his wrist. "You reopened the wound."
"It's nothing."
She reached out anyway, pulling his hand toward her. "You say that too easily."
For a heartbeat he didn't resist. Her qi brushed his, warm and steady. The cut sealed, but neither moved to break the contact. The bond hummed, quiet but certain, like a second pulse shared between them.
Ya Zhen's voice carried from the archway. "If you're done tending wounds, we should decide whether to stay."
She entered the courtyard, eyes shadowed from lack of sleep. "The Mirror won't stay quiet for long. If we're moving, it must be now."
Ji Ming nodded. "And if it follows?"
"Then we don't run in straight lines."
They packed in silence. When the last talisman was folded away, Sol glanced back toward the tower. Dawn light struck its surface, turning it briefly translucent. For an instant, she saw shapes within, figures of salt and light, caught mid-motion. One looked like Ya Zhen, another like Ji Ming… and the third, facing them, like herself.
She blinked, and the images dissolved.
"The Mirror's learning faster," she whispered.
Ya Zhen heard. "Then it's watching through your eyes now."
"Then let it," Sol said softly. "Maybe it'll see what it's never understood."
With an arched eyebrow, Ya Zhen's gaze lingered on her a moment too long. "Mercy?"
"Choice."
They stepped out into the open street. The salt crunched beneath their boots, each step breaking the thin crust left by night dew. Overhead, the sky carried the faint pink of morning, color bleeding slowly into gray.
At the edge of the city, the road split in three: one leading toward the mountains, one toward the buried coast, one toward the wastes where the wind sang through shattered glass.
Ya Zhen pointed east. "The coast. There's an abandoned outpost there—old Courier ground. If anything still remembers how to hide, it'll be that place."
Ji Ming adjusted his cloak. "Then east."
They walked until the tower disappeared behind the horizon. The wind shifted, carrying the faintest whisper… Sol's own voice, but distant, delayed, as though the city were repeating her words.
"Choice," the echo said.
She turned once, seeing the Salt Fell shimmer again under the rising sun, its streets gleaming like cracked mirrors laid end to end.
Ji Ming followed her gaze. "Don't look back."
"I'm not." Her eyes stayed on the horizon. "I'm making sure it learns to."
The road curved ahead, vanishing into a field of white dunes. Each grain glittered faintly, alive with memory.
Behind them, far away, the tower's light faded… but its reflection lingered in the air, faint and pulsing, like a heartbeat that refused to stop.