The mountains began as a whisper. At first they were only shadows behind the clouds, faint ridges brushing the horizon. By the time the sun began to fall, stone had replaced sand beneath their feet, and the air had thinned to something sharp enough to taste.
Sol paused at the crest of a narrow path. Mist curled between the peaks like breath. "It feels… quieter here," she said.
Ya Zhen adjusted the strap of her pack and looked up at the mountain pass. "The air's thinner. Sound doesn't travel as far."
Ji Ming glanced up the winding trail ahead, as well. "Or something doesn't want it to."
They reached a plateau by dusk. The remains of a monastery clung to the mountainside, its roofs collapsed and its prayer towers leaning. The scent of rain still lingered on the moss-covered stones.
Sol brushed her fingers along a half-buried carving: a lotus blooming from water, surrounded by lines of old script. "Lotus Sect glyphs," she whispered. "This place was one of ours."
Ya Zhen's gaze moved over the ruins. "A Courier report once called this site 'The Hall of Still Echoes.' No one ever explained what that meant."
"It means the echoes never faded," Sol murmured.
Inside, the temple hall was open to the sky. Pools of rainwater filled the cracks between tiles, reflecting the last light of day. The reflections didn't match the world above them, each pool showed a slightly different sky.
Ji Ming knelt by one and touched the edge with his blade. "It isn't natural."
"It's memory," Sol said softly. "The walls are listening."
Ya Zhen crouched beside another pool. "Listening to what?"
Sol hesitated. "To everything we've already said."
As if in response, the air shifted… a low hum, not loud enough to hear but strong enough to feel in their bones. The pools began to ripple, each one in rhythm with Sol's heartbeat.
Ji Ming rose slowly, hand tightening on his sword. "Sol—"
"I didn't do this," she said, though her voice carried uncertainty. "It's the resonance."
The light from the water intensified, and shapes began to form within it: silhouettes of people kneeling, hands joined, faces indistinct. The reflections moved as if alive, performing rituals long forgotten.
Ya Zhen whispered, "Echoes of the monks who lived here."
One of the silhouettes looked up. Its face was a blur, but when it opened its mouth, the voice that came out was clear… not human, not spirit, but something in between.
"Welcome home, Lotus."
The words reverberated through the hall.
Sol froze. "It knows me."
Ji Ming stepped closer to her side. "Stay behind me."
The reflection tilted its head.
"You carry the pulse of what was lost. You bring sound where silence once ruled."
Ya Zhen's expression hardened. "If this is another trick of the Mirror—"
"No mirror," the voice said gently. "Only memory that never learned to die."
The reflections in the pools shifted, merging into a single figure standing upright upon the water… an outline of silver light, robes flowing like mist.
Sol's breath caught. "The First Lotus Master."
The figure inclined its head.
"The bond has returned, and with it the question every age forgets to ask: can harmony exist without sacrifice?"
Ji Ming's voice was low, steady. "We're trying to find another answer."
"Then you already walk the edge of every choice that broke before you."
The figure's eyes — if they could be called that — turned toward Ya Zhen.
"And you, courier of silence, carry the last key. The truth written in red."
Ya Zhen stiffened. "I don't have your truth."
"No," the reflection murmured, "but it has you."
Before any of them could speak, the light flared, washing through the hall. Sol felt a pressure behind her eyes, a rush of images not her own: monks writing on mirrored scrolls, water flowing uphill, and two figures whose joined hands cracked the sky.
When the vision faded, she was on her knees, breathing hard. Ji Ming knelt beside her, one hand on her shoulder. "Sol… look at me."
"I saw them," she whispered. "The first ones. The Twin Hearts before us. They tried to keep their resonance alive after death… and it became the Mirror."
Ya Zhen closed her eyes. "So it wasn't born from malice. It was born from grief."
The reflection's light dimmed.
"Grief becomes hunger when denied understanding."
Sol looked up. "Then if we can help it understand—"
"Understanding costs the same as love," the voice interrupted. "Everything."
The water began to still again, each reflection returning to normal.
Ji Ming's expression was unreadable. "What do you want from us?"
"To remember differently," the reflection said. "That is all any echo can ask."
Then it was gone. The pools darkened, the hum faded.
Only rain began to fall again, thin and gentle, dripping through the broken roof.
Ya Zhen exhaled, tension slipping from her shoulders. "If this place truly remembers, it will remember us now too."
Sol rose slowly. "Then maybe next time, it won't speak in riddles."
Ji Ming sheathed his sword. "Riddles are safer than soldiers."
She smiled faintly. "You say that now."
They made camp in the shadow of the hall. The firelight reflected faintly on the water's surface, casting three flickering figures across the walls. None of them noticed that their reflections moved a heartbeat out of sync.
Outside, beyond the mountain mist, the Empire's banners glimmered in the valley… the Mirror Division advancing through rain and silence.
The world was remembering too quickly.