The mountain was quieter once the cavern sealed.
Not peaceful… tired. As if it had spent the last of its strength closing its own wounds.
They stood on a narrow shelf of rock, the sky a hard, washed-out blue above them. The air was thinner here, tasting of stone and old storms rather than pine and mist. Below, the slopes fell away toward a pale smear on the horizon.
Salt flats.
Beyond them, faint as a memory, lay the first ghost of a city.
Salt Fell Proper.
Ji Ming checked the rock face one last time, fingers brushing the new seam where the mountain had sealed the Mirror Division in.
"No cracks," he said quietly.
Ya Zhen flicked her fan open, letting it dry the sweat at her temple. "If they survived that, they can keep their fury for another day."
Sol didn't answer.
She was looking at the creature standing a few steps away.
The Mirrorborn watched her with head tilted, as if memorizing the way light touched her hair, the way breath moved her shoulders. Its form had settled, becoming less warped, more coherent. Limbs still too long, torso still too smooth, but it stood like a person now rather than something dragged out of a nightmare.
Its chest still glimmered faintly, holding the echo of her reflection.
Sol drew in a slow breath. "Are you hurt?"
The creature's head twitched, as if listening to a distant echo of her words. Then it pressed one hand lightly against its own ribs, copying the way she had once checked herself for injury.
"…no…"
The voice was rough, like stone scraping glass, but the word was clear.
Ya Zhen blinked. "It talks now."
"It always could," Sol said softly. "It just didn't know how to choose the sounds."
Ji Ming stepped closer, placing himself between Sol and the creature with the ease of habit. Not fully blocking, not overtly hostile… but there, a wall she knew better than to argue with for now.
"Then let it answer the important part," he said. "What does it want."
Sol nodded.
She shifted slightly to see around him and met the Mirrorborn's faceless gaze.
"What are you looking for?" she asked. "When you asked for home… what did you mean?"
The creature's fingers flexed.
Its chest rippled, catching brief flashes of the cavern they had left behind: the ley cradle, the Mirror Division, the fallen rock, a lake with no surface. Then Sol's face flickered there again, steadier than the rest.
"…not… alone…"
The words were quieter this time, less broken.
Sol's throat tightened.
"I told you," she said gently. "You're not."
Ji Ming's jaw worked. "Sol…"
Ya Zhen sighed. "Before we argue about the ethics of adopting haunted mirror relics, we should move. The Empire may be trapped for now, but if anyone was outside that cavern, they will be sending word."
Ji Ming tore his gaze from the sealed rock and scanned the sky instead. No visible riders, no signal flares. Yet.
He nodded once. "We head toward Salt Fell Proper. The inner city's ley residue is strong enough to blur tracking. If we reach the outer ruins before night, we can disappear."
Ya Zhen arched a brow. "You sound very sure."
"I scouted here for the Gate," he answered. "Before the Empire pushed us north."
"And you lived," she said. "That is reassuring."
Sol glanced between them, then back to the Mirrorborn.
"Can you walk?" she asked.
The creature looked at its own feet like it was seeing them for the first time.
Then it took one uneven step forward.
Then another.
On the third, it almost stumbled… until Ji Ming moved without thinking and caught its arm.
They both froze.
Ji Ming's fingers tightened. The Mirrorborn shivered, its form flickering where he touched.
Sol held her breath. "Ji Ming…"
He released it slowly, as if withdrawing his hand from hot iron.
"It is… solid," he said, more to himself than to them. "Not just qi. Not just echo."
Ya Zhen hid a smile behind her fan. "Congratulations. You just confirmed our new companion is capable of falling on its face like the rest of us."
Sol bit back a laugh that felt slightly hysterical.
The Mirrorborn looked between the three of them, registering tone more than words. It straightened a little, then carefully mirrored Ji Ming's previous stance, feet braced, weight balanced.
Sol nodded approval. "Good. Stay close."
They began their descent.
The path down the mountain was less treacherous than the eastern ridge, but no kinder. Loose stone slid underfoot. Scrubby grass clung to thin soil. The higher forest was gone, replaced by hard-bent shrubs and the occasional skeletal tree that looked more dead than living.
Sol stole a look at Ji Ming.
His face was composed, eyes narrowed in thought. But she could feel the tension in the line of his shoulders, the way his hand stayed close to his sabers even now.
"You're angry," she said quietly.
His eyes flicked to her. "At who."
"Me. The Mirrorborn. The Empire. Take your pick."
The ghost of a smile touched his mouth. "All of the above."
Ya Zhen spoke without looking back. "This is the part where the two of you talk before everything explodes at the worst possible moment."
Sol rolled her eyes, but the comment loosened something in her chest.
Ji Ming was silent for several heartbeats, the kind of silence that meant he was searching for words instead of shutting them away.
Finally he said, "I'm not angry that you chose to speak to it."
Sol waited.
"I'm angry that the world keeps asking you to risk yourself first," he finished quietly. "That it keeps putting you between mercy and death and trusting you to choose the right moment to decide which one to offer."
Her breath caught.
"That isn't… just me," she said. "The ley lines, the mountain, even the Mirrorborn, they're responding because of what was set in motion long before we touched any of it."
"Yes," he said. "And all of it still condenses at your feet."
The wind pushed against them as if agreeing.
Sol swallowed. "Would you rather I had let the Mirror Division take it?"
He didn't answer immediately.
The question hung between them, sharp as a blade.
At last he said, "No."
Ya Zhen glanced back over her shoulder, eyes thoughtful.
"Then what do you want me to do differently?" Sol asked.
Ji Ming exhaled slowly. "I want you to tell me before you decide to stand in front of something none of us understand. So I can stand there with you, instead of wondering if this is the moment the world decides it can't bear your kindness."
The words slipped under her ribs like heat.
The Mirrorborn's fingers flexed again, as if it could taste the emotion in the air.
Sol looked down, then back up, her voice softer.
"I don't know how to carry this without reaching for things that are hurting," she said. "But I can promise to reach with you beside me, not ahead of you."
His eyes met hers.
"Good," he said simply.
Ya Zhen made an exaggerated coughing sound. "If the two of you start making vows in the middle of the path, I would like advance notice so I can turn my back like a proper chaperone."
Sol's cheeks warmed. "We're talking about tactics."
"Tactics," Ya Zhen repeated dryly. "Of course."
They walked a while longer, tension eased but not gone. The mountain's angle lessened under their feet. The sky widened, no longer framed by sharp cliffs.
Ahead, the world opened.
An expanse of white-gray stretched to the horizon, flat and harsh. The salt flats gleamed under the thin sun, their surface broken only by jagged cracks and the occasional dark shape where rock thrust through like exposed bone.
Beyond that, faint lines suggested structures, low, angular, half-sunken into the ground. The air here held almost no moisture, only a thin dryness that sucked any moisture it detected.
"The city really forgot water," she murmured.
"Not forgot," Ya Zhen said. "It traded water for survival. When the rivers shifted, the people stayed. Dug in. Learned to live on brine and stubbornness."
Sol pondered, then glanced at the Mirrorborn.
It had stopped.
Its head tilted, chest rippling with faint, uneasy light.
"What is it?" she asked.
It turned slowly toward the distant city.
For the first time since leaving the cavern, its form blurred at the edges, as if the sight of the flats and the far-off salt walls disturbed its shape.
"…no… water…"
The words came out rough, but understandable.
Sol frowned. "You can feel that too?"
The creature's hand rose to its chest, pressing flat.
The surface there reflected not Sol this time, but an image that wasn't the mountain or the cavern.
Water.
Deep.
Still.
Black as ink, bright with stars.
A lake that remembered everything.
A lake that no longer existed here.
Sol's breath caught. "You… came from somewhere like that."
The creature didn't nod.
But the light in its chest shivered. A kind of grief.
By the time the Mirrorborn had steadied its steps and adjusted to the weight of the robe Ya Zhen had thrown over its shoulders, the path had descended far enough that the salt basin opened before them in full.
But this time, it wasn't unfamiliar.
And it wasn't the place of their first disaster.
Sol felt it first, another shift in the air, a sting at the back of her throat that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with memory.
"Not the Salt Fell we crossed before," she murmured, tugging her cloak closer. "This isn't the basin."
Ji Ming nodded once. "No. This is Salt Fell Proper. The inner city's breath… harsh, thin, heavy with evaporated minerals." Ji Ming shaded his eyes, studying the horizon. "We skirt the edge first. The inner wards have mirror checkpoints. The outer rings are… looser."
Ya Zhen added, "Salt Fell Basin may have been lifeless, but the inner city is feral. It survived the loss of its lake by turning its own air into a weapon."
"And we're bringing a walking reflection into a city that hates them," Ya Zhen said lightly. "Nothing could possibly go wrong."
Sol glanced at the Mirrorborn.
Its movements grew more natural with each step as it adjusted to the pull of gravity and the give of the ground. It walked at her pace, matching without hovering.
Not clinging.
Choosing.
Silence stretched for a time, filled with the crunch of gravel, the whisper of cloth, the distant, dull roar of wind moving across salt fields.
The word from the ley cradle circled in Sol's thoughts.
Choose.
Sol inhaled and instantly regretted it.
The air here was heavier, it was dense, almost metallic, leaving a dry, crystalline film along her tongue.
It was nothing like the emptiness of the basin.
This air had teeth.
Ji Ming noticed the way Sol flinched. "Don't breathe too deeply," he said softly. "The salt vapor will scrape the inside of your lungs raw if you inhale too quickly."
"It did that last time?" Sol asked.
He gave a dry, humorless smile. "The first time I scouted this place, I thought I'd swallowed a fistful of knives."
Ya Zhen snorted. "You did. I remember the coughing. It was dignified."
His expression remained flat, but the corner of his mouth twitched. "It was efficient."
"It sounded like you were dying," Ya Zhen corrected.
Sol's lips curved faintly despite herself. "Efficient dying?"
"Clearly I survived," Ji Ming said, as if that settled the matter.
Salt Fell Proper emerged slowly, like a mirage refusing to commit.
The flats gave way to a harsher terrain, salt-crusted ridges, half-submerged stone blocks, and the skeletal outlines of buildings that had folded under decades of mineral weight.
The farther they walked, the thicker the vaporized salt became, rising from cracks in the ground like ghostly breath.
The city waited at the center like a bleached fossil, its streets laid out in lines so stark that even the sun might have avoided touching them.
Sol shivered.
"This feels… older than the basin."
"It is," Ya Zhen said. "The basin was the lake's skin. The inner city was the lake's heart. When the water vanished, everything it touched turned half-alive."
Ji Ming slowed slightly, scanning the pattern of the dry canals. "We should make camp at the old inspection station before entering the inner wards."
"Is it safe?" Sol asked.
"Nothing here is safe," Ya Zhen said. "But the station's walls still stand, and the Mirror Division avoids it. Their masks fog too quickly in this air."
Sol blinked. "Salt does that?"
"It does worse," Ya Zhen said. "Wait until we cook."
Sol couldn't decide if she was joking.
They reached the inspection station at dusk.
The structure, though battered by time, offered enough shelter: half a roof, three walls, and a shallow overhang that kept the salt wind from flaying their skin.
The Mirrorborn settled against the far wall, coiling its limbs inward like it was imitating the way Ji Ming sat. Its hood shadowed its chest, but Sol could see faint glimmers of light pulsing beneath the cloth, its attempt to calm itself.
Sol rummaged through her pack, pulling out rations.
Ya Zhen prepared the small cooking vessel, using a single heat-stone for warmth. As the pot warmed, the salt air hissed against the metal.
Ji Ming checked their perimeter, then sat beside Sol with a quiet exhale.
"Dinner is not going to taste good," Ya Zhen warned from the pot.
"It never does," Ji Ming replied.
"Tonight will be worse."
Sol tore a dried strip of fish in half and handed him a piece. "Why?"
Ya Zhen stirred. "Because Salt Fell hangs in the air. Everything tastes like bitterness and someone else's regret."
Sol blinked. "That's… vivid."
"That's the reality of it."
They ate in silence for a few minutes before Sol finally spoke.
"Ji Ming… Ya Zhen…" She hesitated. "We need to talk about the Mirror. About all of it."
Ji Ming didn't flinch. Ya Zhen didn't pretend not to hear.
"Good," Ya Zhen said. "It's time we stop pretending we don't know the stories."
Sol leaned closer to the fire. "Then tell me. Tell me everything."
Ji Ming exchanged a brief look with Ya Zhen.
A silent agreement: We speak carefully.
Ya Zhen began first.
"Mirrors weren't always forbidden," she said. "Before the Empire, cultivators used them the way monks use bells, to reflect qi, to test the heart. Reflection was once a path to enlightenment."
Sol absorbed that quietly.
Ji Ming continued. "But the Mirror Forge changed everything. It wasn't a mirror… it was a weapon made of reflection. It didn't reflect images. It reflected emotion. Desire. Fear. Grief. It learned from whatever it saw, and it grew stronger for it."
Ya Zhen added, "And after the first Twin Hearts broke, after the Forge tried to copy their bond and consume it, the Empire outlawed all advanced mirror techniques. Except—"
"The Mirror Division," Sol finished.
Ji Ming nodded.
"They were allowed to exist because they were trained to do the opposite of the Forge. Instead of reflection… they mastered negation. Breaking images. Silencing echoes. Killing anything that could take shape in glass."
Ya Zhen's voice dropped lower.
"And Mirrorborn… are relics from before that time. Failed experiments. Reflections that learned to live without glass."
Sol shivered. "And this one… recognizes us."
"It recognizes you," Ji Ming corrected softly.
Ya Zhen's fan tapped her knee. "Mirrorborn are drawn to the strongest emotional resonance in range. Right now, that is—"
"Don't say it," Sol whispered.
But Ya Zhen only shrugged.
"You asked for honesty."
Sol stared into the fire, breath softening.
Ji Ming's voice gentled, almost hesitant. "Sol… if you want to sever this connection—"
She shook her head.
"No. Severing would hurt it. And us. This thing… this being… It isn't a threat waiting to attack. It's a child learning to breathe."
Ya Zhen sighed. "Then the only question left is: Will we teach it mercy… or will the Empire teach it fear first?"
A sharp gust of salt wind scraped across the station, rattling the loose beams.
Sol's heart tightened.
"We teach it mercy," she whispered. "Before the Mirror Division reaches us."
Ji Ming nodded slowly.
"We'll stand with you."
The Mirrorborn stirred, turning its faceless head toward Sol.
"…not… alone…"
The words were quieter, gentler this time.
Sol smiled faintly.
"No," she whispered. "You're not."