Eclipsed Horizon — Chapter 16: "Resonance Over Zephyr"
The sky bled light.
From the observation deck of Zephyr Command, the view was unlike anything recorded since the Breach Incident. The heavens had folded open—two horizons overlapping like mirrored wings. Between them shimmered a vortex of fractured Aether, pulsing in rhythm with an unseen heartbeat.
Commander Mireen Solis stood at the central console, eyes locked on the projection. Her voice was steady, but her fingers dug faintly into the edge of the desk.
> "Status."
Tech officer Sena Korr didn't look up from her display. "We're reading a synchronized flux pattern—same signature as Cael and Lyra's Pulsebands. But it's… recursive. They're resonating inside a dimensional reflection."
> "In English, Korr."
Sena exhaled, brushing silver hair from her face. "They're alive. But not in our Zephyr."
At the far end of the deck, Jax Torren slammed a gauntleted fist against the railing. "So what—there's another Zephyr now? A mirror city? How the hell do we get them back?"
Before anyone could answer, the sky shuddered. The projection flickered. On every monitor, the scar expanded — brilliant veins of blue-white energy splitting across the atmosphere.
Reo Marvek, stationed near the atmospheric readouts, swore under his breath. "It's spreading past containment level six. If it reaches the upper lattice, it'll cascade through the orbital grid."
Mireen's jaw tightened. "Contact Orbital Command. I want evacuation protocols ready but silent. We're not starting another panic."
A pause — then Sena's voice, quiet but sharp. "Commander… it's resonating with the Aether core beneath the base. The same frequency Cael used during the training collapse."
That name hung in the air like a curse.
---
The deck lights flickered.
Every screen went white for half a second — and then, faintly, two silhouettes appeared amid the distortion: Cael and Lyra, drifting through mirrored light, hands interlocked, surrounded by the shattered fragments of the Custodian's code.
Reo whispered, "That's them…"
Mireen's throat tightened. "Magnify."
The image sharpened — not by much, but enough to see Cael's expression: calm, determined, a faint glow running along the Pulseband at his wrist. His voice came faintly through the comm relay, distorted but resolute.
> "Commander… if you can hear this—don't stop the resonance. It's the only way to stabilize the breach."
Jax barked, "Stabilize?! You'll tear the base apart!"
Cael's reply came broken, carried through static.
> "The Custodian wasn't the enemy. It was the failsafe. We created it to contain the first fracture. If we don't merge both Zephyrs, the mirror will collapse — and both worlds with it."
Silence followed — broken only by the low hum of the scar outside.
Lyra's voice came next, softer but steady.
> "We're close, but we need an anchor. Someone outside has to keep the resonance stable while we cross."
Sena's hands flew across the console. "We can reroute the Aether regulators into a resonance channel—use the city's pulse lattice to maintain link continuity."
Mireen nodded once. "Do it. And lock their signal to Command frequency only. If this goes wrong, we lose comms and containment."
Jax looked at her sharply. "You're seriously letting them merge with that thing? We don't even know what happens when two cities fuse."
Mireen met his glare evenly. "We're out of choices, Lieutenant. If they fail, Zephyr ceases to exist — both of them."
---
Outside, thunder rolled across the mirrored horizon.
The two Zephyrs — real and inverted — began to drift toward each other, drawn by unseen gravity. Between them, the sky stretched thin, forming a column of pure resonance light.
Sena's voice trembled. "It's happening…"
Cael and Lyra's silhouettes hovered at the nexus, hands clasped. Their Pulsebands blazed, projecting twin arcs of light that curved toward the sky scar like veins reconnecting to a heart.
Then, without warning, alarms blared.
> AETHER CORE OVERLOAD — 120% CRITICAL THRESHOLD.
Reo shouted, "It's feeding on the city's power grid! We can't stop it!"
Mireen's eyes flashed. "Redirect the excess to the upper array—let the resonance burn through the scar before it hits the core!"
Sena hesitated. "That'll expose them—"
> "Do it!"
---
The blast that followed wasn't sound — it was memory.
Every Eclipser on the deck saw flashes: the old Zephyr before the war; the founding of the Corps; the first Resonance experiments; the laughter of cadets training under false skies. All of it burned across their minds like light through film — fragments of lives lost and reborn.
And then—silence.
When the glare faded, the mirrored city was gone.
Only one Zephyr remained, its outline flickering but solid. The sky above it was no longer cracked — only scarred, faintly glowing with blue veins like healing tissue.
Sena's voice broke the quiet. "Readings stabilizing… the mirror's gone. The core's holding."
Reo leaned back, stunned. "So… they did it?"
Mireen didn't answer right away. Her gaze remained fixed on the sky, where two faint trails of light descended slowly toward the city's surface — falling like shooting stars.
> "They did," she said softly. "Now let's hope they survived it."