The fog thinned as they wound down the eastern path, until the mountains emerged in blurred strokes of gray and green. The air grew colder, sharper, the kind of cold that makes one hold their breath.
Sol could feel the presence behind them before she heard it. A low vibration in the stones. A tremor in the mist. The unmistakable pulse of synchronized qi.
Ji Ming felt it too. His hand found the guard of his saber, but he didn't draw yet. "They've entered the monastery."
Ya Zhen didn't look back. "Let them search. They'll find echoes before they find us."
Sol slowed. "And the echoes will show them everything."
Ya Zhen flicked her fan open with a dry snap. "Good. Let the Empire see what regret looks like."
But Sol's worry remained. "The Mirror Division won't understand what they're seeing. They'll think it's an attack."
Ji Ming's steps slowed beside hers. "Memory feels like a threat to those who fear truth."
Sol met his gaze. "But truth can kill too."
Before he could answer, the mountain trembled, softly at first, then with a pulse that traveled up through their feet and into their bones. The mist ahead parted, revealing a narrow ridge path leading to a valley carved between two cliffs.
A place where sound gathered.
A place where ambushes thrived.
Ya Zhen's eyes narrowed. "They're trying to herd us."
Ji Ming shook his head. "No. Something else is calling."
Sol felt it then… faint, like a whisper in the hollow of her ribs. A memory that wasn't hers. A sound carried not by air, but by water deep under the earth.
She stepped forward. "We're not being hunted. We're being summoned."
Ya Zhen gave her an incredulous look. "By who? The mountain?"
Sol didn't answer. She couldn't. The whisper had grown into a hum — not threatening, not kind, but… expectant.
They reached the pass just as the mist thinned completely. Sunlight broke through in thin, pale beams, illuminating a flat stone basin ahead. Water pooled across its surface, forming a mirror no larger than a courtyard… perfectly still despite the breeze.
Ji Ming moved in front of Sol instinctively. "Stay back."
"No," she said softly. "It brought us here."
Ya Zhen circled the basin carefully. "This isn't natural. This is cultivation. High-level. Old." She crouched, touched her fingers to the water… and hissed. "Memory qi. Concentrated."
Sol knelt opposite her. "It's calling to the resonance."
Ji Ming's eyes flicked between the pool and the cliffs. "If it can call to us, it can call to them."
Ya Zhen straightened. "Then we need to be gone before—"
She stopped abruptly.
Because suddenly, very suddenly, they weren't alone.
A ripple passed across the water — once, twice — then the reflection shifted. Not sky. Not cliffs. Faces. Helmets. Spears. Silver masks.
Four Imperial Mirror Division scouts stepped into view at the far end of the basin, weapons drawn, mirrored insignias glinting beneath their cloaks. They were close… too close.
Ji Ming's swords were in his hands before Sol even rose.
Ya Zhen moved beside him, fan angled like a blade.
The scouts didn't shout warnings, didn't call for backup. They didn't need to. Mirror Division soldiers were trained to communicate in silence.
One stepped forward… the lead. His mask gleamed. The mirrored surface flickered… not with the view of the valley, but with Sol's image.
Sol's pulse stilled.
The scout's mask spoke for him:
"Resonance confirmed."
Ya Zhen swore under her breath. "They can copy faces now? Since when—"
Ji Ming stepped in front of Sol, blades crossed. "Leave. Now."
The scout tilted his head. When he spoke, his voice was layered, one voice over another, as though something behind the mask was speaking through him.
"You awoke what slept. The Empire requires your compliance."
Sol stepped forward before Ji Ming could block her. "The Mirror isn't yours to control."
That was when everything broke.
The pool of water at their feet pulsed — violently — sending a shockwave of reflected light across the basin. The soldiers staggered, masks flashing. Their reflections twisted, stretched, then snapped back with a crack of displaced qi.
Ji Ming seized Sol's arm and pulled her back. "Sol… don't touch it!"
But the water was already rising.
Not upward… outward.
A ring of light erupted around the basin like a boundary line, humming with the same resonance that had awakened in Sol days ago. The scouts recoiled, weapons sparking against the barrier.
Ya Zhen's fan snapped open. "Is that your doing?"
"No," Sol whispered. "It's reacting."
Ji Ming's jaw tightened. "To what?"
Sol looked at the water, at her own reflection, shifting like breath… and knew.
"To them. To us. To everything."
The lead scout regained balance and drove his palm forward. A burst of mirrored qi hit the barrier, and rebounded, slamming him backward into the cliff wall.
He didn't move again.
Ya Zhen stared. "It protected us."
"Not us," Sol murmured. "The resonance."
Another scout lunged. Ji Ming moved like shadow meeting light, his blades crossing in a single smooth arc that sent the soldier sprawling.
The barrier flickered. The water darkened.
Something beneath the surface shifted.
A hand, made of reflection and memory, rose from the pool and pressed against the inside of the barrier.
Sol felt her breath catch. "It's trying to come through."
Ji Ming didn't turn. "Tell it no."
"I can't speak to it like that..."
"Then feel it," he said, voice sharp and low. "Before it decides for us."
The Mirror Division soldiers regrouped, forming a line. One lifted a flare talisman; bright, silver, a signal.
Ya Zhen hissed, "Backup's coming!"
Sol closed her eyes.
The water hummed.
The reflection's hand pressed harder.
She reached out… not physically, but with qi, with resonance, with the memory of the sea that had learned to breathe under her touch.
Not now, she told it.
Learn first.
The reflection stilled.
Then—slowly—its hand withdrew beneath the surface.
The water dimmed.
The barrier flickered, then faded altogether.
The scouts saw their chance.
"Move!" Ji Ming grabbed Sol's wrist, pulling her toward the eastern path. Ya Zhen covered their flank, fan blazing with courier sigils that sliced the air like knives of red light.
Behind them, the scouts regrouped, and further down the valley, silver flares began to bloom.
But the water stayed still.
Not reflecting their retreat.
Not reflecting the soldiers.
Reflecting only the sky.
The first sign that the world was learning to choose its own memory.