Chrono's Curse

The fire crackled weakly in the ruined hearth, flames dancing low as if uncertain whether they belonged. The air inside the abandoned tavern was thick with old smoke and newer silence.

Alpha sat with his back against the wall, Vanitas leaning beside him like a shadow that refused to rest.

The boy had fallen asleep near the edge of the room, curled against a faded banner someone had once called home. The remnants of laughter and life still clung to the wood here, but barely. Like breath on glass.

Selene stood by the window.

Still. Silent.

Watching something outside that only she could see.

Alpha didn't speak, not at first. There was something fragile in the air, and he'd learned that even people like Selene could fracture if pressed too hard.

Finally, she said, without turning, "You've noticed it, haven't you? The way it pulls at you."

Alpha didn't have to ask. "Vanitas."

A slow nod.

"It's not just a weapon," she murmured. "It's a witness."

She turned to him then, eyes not glowing, not ominous. Just tired.

Old, not in years, but in weight.

"You wonder who I am. Why I know so much. Why I care."

She walked toward him slowly and sat opposite the fire, the glow casting shadows across her face like cracks in a porcelain mask.

"I was meant to die," she said.

Alpha's brow furrowed.

"I wasn't the one meant to walk away from the ritual." Her voice was quiet, but every word was a blade unsheathed. "My Wielder… was stronger. Smarter. Braver."

A bitter laugh. "Or so I believed."

Alpha's eyes narrowed. "He spared you?"

"No. He ran."

A silence stretched between them, heavy and sharp.

"He couldn't face me. Couldn't look at what he had created. So he fled. Left me behind in a burning sanctum where the ritual was still unfinished. Where the soul had no anchor. And do you know what happens to an Echo when the bond is severed, but the ritual isn't completed?"

Alpha didn't answer.

Selene's smile was slow. Pained. "We don't fade. We… fracture. The magic burns through us like acid. Identity begins to tear. I could feel myself dissolving into something else, anger, loss, hunger."

Vanitas pulsed faintly at his side.

"But something held me together. It wasn't love. It wasn't hope." She looked at him now, truly looked. "It was hate. Hate for the one who made me and left me unfinished. Hate for the world that feared reflections so much they made murder a rite of passage."

Her hands were trembling now, barely noticeable. She clenched them into fists.

"Years passed. My name changed. My face… started to drift. I anchored myself to the sword. Bound the remnants of the Echo ritual to Vanitas, to keep from unraveling completely."

Alpha stared at her. "So it's your tether."

"It's our tether," she said. "That blade knows what it's like to hold two souls inside it. It remembers every Echo who ever bled for their right to be real."

A cold wind whispered through the cracks in the ruined wall.

"Alpha," Selene said slowly. "When the time comes… and it will… Vanitas will call you to the mirror. And something will step out. Maybe it'll look like you. Maybe it'll feel more like you than you ever did."

Her eyes softened, just a little.

"You'll think you have a choice. But you won't."

The fire cracked louder now, as if protesting the truth.

He didn't speak.

Selene rose.

And just before walking away, she whispered without turning, "Don't do what I did. Don't survive this… broken."

Elaris was a city of silence.

No birds. No distant bells. No laughter echoing in alleys. Just the sound of footsteps scraping across stone and the eerie hush of buildings half-eaten by time and fire.

Alpha moved carefully, Vanitas strapped to his back, its weight heavier now. Not just physically, but spiritually. As if it knew what lay ahead.

The boy trailed behind him, quiet. Watching. Always watching.

Selene said nothing. But her posture had changed since they passed beneath Elaris's broken gates. She was tense. Guarded. Like a wound walking.

It wasn't long before they found him.

In the garden of a crumbled cathedral, flowers still blooming against all odds, a man stood among the ruins, his back to them. His armor was rusted but ornate, blackened by years of neglect, the insignia half-faded from the breastplate.

When he turned, Alpha felt something tighten in his chest.

The man's face was lined by age and regret, but his eyes, gray like the storm-washed sky, held a flicker of recognition.

Not for Alpha.

For her.

Selene stopped walking.

Dead still.

"…Caelen," she whispered. The name cracked like glass on her tongue.

Alpha glanced at her, but her expression was unreadable. Frozen. Trapped between memory and something more ancient than pain.

Caelen's lips parted. "You're still alive," he said softly.

The weight in his voice wasn't relief.

It was disbelief. And dread.

Selene took one step forward. Then another.

"You left me."

His shoulders sagged. "I know."

"You were supposed to kill me."

"I know."

"You promised, Caelen." Her voice was trembling now, every word trembling at the edge of something violent and unfinished. "You looked me in the eye and told me I was real… and then you left me to fade."

Caelen dropped to one knee, not in worship. In shame.

"I couldn't do it," he said, voice cracking. "I couldn't kill you. You weren't a copy. You were her. The best parts of her. Maybe more than she ever was. And when I saw that, when I saw you, I realized I didn't deserve either of you."

He raised his head. Tears shimmered, but didn't fall.

"And the moment I ran, the sword turned cold. It sealed itself. I never heard it speak again."

Vanitas pulsed faintly behind Alpha's shoulder, as if listening.

Selene's face twisted with something indescribable.

"I spent a century unraveling," she said. "Anchoring myself to its edge. Trying not to forget who I was. What I was. While you lived?"

He shook his head.

"I didn't live, Selene. I waited. I stayed here, in this dead place. Guarding your grave. Or what I thought was your grave."

He looked at her again. "You're stronger than I ever was."

She said nothing.

But Alpha could feel the air shift around her. Like the calm before something ancient shattered.

Caelen stood, slowly.

"I've read the old texts," he said. "You know what they say about Echos who survive too long. About how their reflection begins to outgrow the original. About the Wound Beyond the Mirror, the place where forgotten selves wait to be born again."

He looked at Alpha now.

"You're close, aren't you? To your reflection."

Alpha didn't answer.

Caelen's jaw tightened. "When it comes… when you stand before yourself in the mirror, don't do what I did. Don't run. Don't let fear make your choice."

He looked at Selene again. His eyes were glassy, filled with the sorrow of years.

"I see now," he whispered, voice breaking. "You didn't survive because I spared you. You survived because you refused to fade."

He reached into his cloak and pulled something out, a shard of polished obsidian, engraved with twin marks: a crescent and a blade.

"The last fragment of your initiation. The piece we never completed."

He held it out.

"For you. To decide what's next."

Selene didn't move. Not for a long time.

Then, slowly, she stepped forward and took it.

Her fingers trembled.

Not with rage.

But release.