For three nights the camp kept its distance.
No one sought his orders; no one dared speak his name. They lit their fires farther down the valley, where the air didn't taste of thunder. The general came only to deliver brief reports, voice clipped, eyes avoiding his.
When she left, silence filled the tent again—thick and restless.The air around him still shimmered faintly, the echo of the containment spell that had nearly broken the world.
He could feel Maya's pulse sometimes, faint but regular, a rhythm hidden under his own.Each beat was an anchor and a weight.
He told himself he needed to hear her one last time—to warn her that the seams were worsening.But part of him simply needed proof that someone, somewhere, still believed he was human.
He prepared the ritual at midnight.
No runes this time—just a circle drawn with chalk and memory. A mirror of polished steel at its center, the river's water pooled across it like mercury.
He whispered the words carefully, each syllable dragging through his throat like gravel."Show me the other heart."
The water stirred.
For an instant, only his reflection looked back—pale, cracked with faint light.Then the surface rippled, and another reflection began to form. Softer. Human.
Maya.
Her eyes were tired, hair loose around her face. Behind her, he saw the faint blur of a child's bedroom. Her lips moved. Arjun?
Relief hit him like a blow. "It's me. The barrier's weakening again. You have to stay away from windows—"
The water hissed. A line of red light seared across it.Somewhere outside, a horn blew.
Voices rose—shouts, confusion.
The general burst through the tent flap, sword drawn. Behind her came three guards, their faces hard."Arathen, step away from that thing," she ordered.
He looked up, startled. "It's not what it looks like."
"It looks," she said, "like sorcery that isn't ours. The council says you've invited the enemy into our skies."
He tried to speak, but the mirror pulsed again. Maya's image brightened; her voice cut through the noise."Arjun, they're afraid of you."
"I know," he whispered.
The general's gaze snapped toward the mirror. "Who is that?"
"No one you can harm," he said, stepping between them.
She hesitated only a second before shouting, "Break it!"
A guard lunged.
The first blow shattered the mirror's edge. Water splashed across the chalk circle, sizzling where it met the runes that hadn't quite faded from the soil. The air convulsed—light and sound folding inward.
Arjun reacted on instinct. He threw up a barrier, the smallest he could manage. It flared too bright, a cage of fire that pushed everyone back.
When the light died, the tent walls were gone, burned away.
He stood in the open air, surrounded by soldiers who looked at him as if seeing a god or a monster—they no longer knew which.
"Arathen," the general said, voice shaking, "if you still serve us, stop. If you don't, we'll end this now."
He opened his mouth, meaning to surrender, to explain.But Maya's voice whispered through the smoke: They'll kill you if you let them.
The next heartbeat wasn't his. The next breath wasn't either. Something vast and furious answered through him.
The ground flared with light. Spears of energy erupted upward, halting the soldiers mid-charge.
When the glow faded, the army knelt—not in obedience, but in terror.
Arjun lowered his hands. The silence that followed was worse than battle.
The general sheathed her sword slowly. "What have you become?"
He couldn't meet her eyes. "Something that still remembers why it fought."
She took a step back. "Then remember mercy."
Her tone made him look up—and in her expression he saw not hatred, but grief.
They left him there, standing alone amid the scorch marks and the smell of rain.
He looked down at the shattered mirror, its surface still quivering. Maya's reflection flickered once more, faint and broken.
"Arjun," she whispered, "what did you do?"
"I tried to save both," he said. "Now they both fear me."
Her image blurred, fading into darkness.
He touched the cooling steel. "I'll find a way to make it right," he said. "Even if it means I disappear."
The last ripple stilled. Only his reflection remained—half light, half shadow.
And from the valley below came the slow, measured sound of drums: his army marching away without orders.