The training fields were quiet again. But Yao Yi wasn't there.
He stood at the edge of Mirror Lake, the same place where dusk had once painted the water in crimson and gold. Now, before dawn, the lake was pale, flat, still—and cold. Mist rose from the surface like breath from a corpse.
The mirror hung at his side, pulsing softly. It was almost... eager.
He was not.
A part of him still wished he'd burned that scroll. Another part—quieter, but sharper—knew that even if he ran, the mirror would follow.
He stepped onto the waiting boat. No oar. No wind. Just motion, smooth and inevitable.
The island loomed ahead like a forgotten tooth in the lake. The pagoda's silhouette was still and waiting.
Elder Silvermoon was already inside.
This time, he wore a robe stitched with ancient patterns, stars and chains embroidered in dull silver thread. He didn't greet Yao Yi. Didn't speak.
Instead, he pointed to a circle drawn on the stone floor. Symbols Yao Yi couldn't read burned faintly within it.
"Sit," Silvermoon said.
Yao Yi obeyed. The stone was cold even through the cloth of his robes. He placed the mirror at the center of the circle.
Silvermoon's voice was quiet, almost gentle.
"This is not a lesson. It is not safe. It is not kind. But it is necessary."
Yao Yi nodded once.
Silvermoon reached into his sleeve and withdrew a dagger—not long, but old. Its blade shimmered, not with light, but with memory. Yao Yi could almost hear a scream that had never passed his lips.
"You must bleed," Silvermoon said. "Your blood will awaken what slumbers. And perhaps, if we are fortunate, you will not be lost to it."
Yao Yi took the dagger.
For a moment, he hesitated.
Then he cut.
The blade kissed his palm with a heat that was not fire. Blood welled up, red and thick—but before it could drip to the stone, the mirror drank it.
It shimmered. Shifted.
Then it began to hum.
Yao Yi gasped.
He was no longer in the pagoda.
The world around him twisted.
He stood in a field of glass. Shards crunched under his feet, and the sky overhead was fractured, filled with broken moons and a sun that did not move.
Figures surrounded him—blurred, shadowed, thousands of them. Each one with his face. Each one watching him.
Some were younger. Some were older. Some wore robes of power; others chains of servitude. But all were him.
One stepped forward.
It wore black. Its eyes bled silver tears. And when it spoke, its voice echoed like steel striking bone.
"Do you know who we are?"
Yao Yi swallowed. "Reflections."
"Possibilities," the figure corrected. "Each one of us is a path the mirror remembers. A version of you that might have been—or still might be."
The air thickened.
Yao Yi clenched his fists. "Then tell me. What am I meant to become?"
Another voice—older, colder.
"That depends."
A second figure emerged. This one bore a crown of flame. Ten sun-like sigils burned behind it.
"Will you be the one who saves the world, Yao Yi... or the one who burns it?"
Yao Yi fell to one knee.
The mirror pulsed again—harder, faster.
Images crashed into him.
—A city torn by fire.—A child with his face, sobbing in ash.—A tower of bones.—A girl with silver eyes, weeping as she raised a blade against him.
Then—
Silence.
He opened his eyes.
Back in the pagoda.
His hand still bled. The circle was broken.
Silvermoon crouched beside him, eyes narrowed.
"You were gone longer than expected," the elder said softly.
"How long?"
"Almost an hour. But the lake went still when you screamed. That has not happened before."
Yao Yi's voice was hoarse. "I saw them. Versions of me. Some were monsters."
Silvermoon nodded.
"They are real."
Yao Yi looked at the mirror. "Then what am I now?"
The elder hesitated.
"That depends on what you do next."
But the mirror hadn't stopped humming.
Even as Yao Yi tried to calm his breath, a strange heat surged beneath his skin—silver threads, racing along his bones. His heartbeat doubled, then staggered.
He gasped, clutching his chest.
The mirror rose from the floor again. Not fast, not violently—just… deliberately. A soft silver glow pulsed from its surface, syncing with Yao Yi's pulse.
"No—no, it's still—" he choked.
The symbols on the stone ring flickered back to life.
Silvermoon's eyes narrowed. "Focus. Contain it. You must not let it claim you."
"I—I don't know how—"
"Name yourself!"
Yao Yi tried to speak, but his throat closed.
His vision blurred.
He wasn't in the pagoda anymore.
He stood on a bridge of light between two worlds—one burning, one weeping. His reflection stood at the midpoint, cloaked in shadows, holding a blade made of memory.
"If you won't become me," it whispered, "then I'll become you."
The blade descended.
Yao Yi screamed—
The mirror exploded in light.
Stone cracked beneath him. The pagoda shuddered.
Silvermoon stepped forward in an instant, one hand pressing two fingers to Yao Yi's brow, the other forming a seal in the air.
"Return! Seal! Anchor!"
The light collapsed inward.
Yao Yi's body jolted, then fell still.
The mirror dropped into his lap, quiet.
When he awoke again, it was night.
He lay on a bed of woven grass mats in one of the pagoda's side chambers. Candlelight danced on the ceiling. His hand was bandaged. The mirror rested beside him, silent.
Then he noticed the figure sitting by the door.
Ling Yue.
Her arms were crossed, but her eyes were soft.
"You idiot," she said. "You almost tore the veil open."
He blinked at her. "How long was I out?"
"Most of the day. Elder Silvermoon said the mirror tried to merge you with a reflected self."
Yao Yi sat up slowly. The memory still burned behind his eyes.
"It wasn't just a reflection. It... wanted to replace me."
Ling Yue didn't respond immediately. Then, quietly: "I saw it too. Just for a moment."
He turned to her sharply. "What?"
She hesitated. "When the mirror surged... I felt something. It showed me a boy with your face. He called me by a different name."
A silence passed between them.
"I think it's not just a tool," she said at last. "It remembers. It wants."
Yao Yi gripped the edge of the bed. "Then what do we do?"
Ling Yue stood, walking to the window.
"We survive. We learn. And we don't face it alone."
She looked back at him, silver eyes serious. "You're not the only one the mirror touched."
Far across the lake, high in the Inner Sect's observatory, another figure watched the island through a long bronze scope.
Li Zhi.
Behind him, an older man in dark robes stepped from the shadows.
"You saw it?" the man asked.
Li Zhi nodded. "The mirror reacted."
"And the boy?"
"He won't last. The more power it gives, the faster it hollows you out."
The older man placed something in Li Zhi's palm. A mirror shard—black, not silver.
"Then make sure you're there when he falls."
Li Zhi's smile returned. Not crooked, this time.
Sharp.