(Season of Reflection, Part III)

POV 1 — QUEEN ELARA: THE ECHO THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST

The Lunar Citadel’s highest tower was quiet—too quiet.

Queen Elara stood alone before the panoramic window, her hands clasped behind her back as the faint glow of Forestia’s two moons cast silver ribbons across her robes. Below the tower, the Citadel pulsed with activity—mages, guards, scholars, Timeweavers, even Lunar Priestesses working in shifts to stabilize the realm.

All of them mobilized because one child had cried.

And because one shadow of that child now walked freely across reality.

Elara shut her eyes for a moment.

Where are you now, little fragment? What future are you reaching for?

Footsteps echoed behind her.

Elwen.

“Your Majesty,” she said quietly, “the fractures have multiplied again.”

Elara opened her eyes. “How many?”

“Seven confirmed. All within the last four hours.”

Elara inhaled sharply. “Do we know if they are caused by the Rogue Echo moving… or meddling?”

Elwen hesitated.

“That is unclear. But three of the fractures occurred simultaneously in distant regions. Only an entity with variable-state presence could manage that.”

“Variable-state…” Elara murmured. “He is splitting as well?”

“Not splitting,” Elwen corrected. “Projecting. Tentatively. Experimentally.”

Elara’s jaw tightened. “We are losing time.”

She pressed a palm against the windowpane.

“I have lived through war. Through the Great Birth Decline. Through the shattering of the First Moon and the famine that followed. But never—never—have I felt our realm slipping from our grasp like this.”

Elwen swallowed. “Your Majesty… the child is frightened. And fear shapes echoes.”

Elara closed her eyes.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Aurel is afraid. And the Rogue Echo… feeds on that fear.”

A sudden pulse of magic rippled through the Citadel—sharp, discordant, unnatural. Elara and Elwen both turned.

“What was that?” Elara demanded.

Elwen touched her crystal-threaded bracelet. “Mary just activated an emergency Mirror flare. Something has happened.”

Elara’s heart clenched.

“Aurel.”

She swept from the tower with a speed that made her robes whip behind her, her voice ringing through the corridor:

“Summon the guard. Find Dyug. Find Reina. The fragment has moved again.”

The Third Month of Rogue Reflection had begun with uncertainty.

It was now accelerating toward crisis.

POV 2 — REINA MORALES: A CHILD WHO DREAMS THE WRONG FUTURES

Reina hadn’t slept in almost thirty hours.

Her eyes burned. Her hands shook. But she refused to look away from the trembling child curled tightly against her side on the Lunar Citadel bed.

Aurel’s breathing hiccupped with each inhale.

Every time his breath staggered, a thin ripple of distortion trembled through the air—barely perceptible, like heat haze.

Reina tightened her arms around him.

A baby shouldn’t have to hold the weight of entire realities.

“Shh… I’ve got you,” she whispered, brushing her fingers through his soft silver hair.

Aurel whimpered. “Reina… I saw him again.”

Reina bit down hard on her lip. “The Rogue Echo?”

A nod.

“He’s trying to… take my place.”

Reina felt something cold twist in her chest. “He can’t.”

“He can,” Aurel whispered. “Because I’m weak.”

Reina cupped his cheeks, forcing him to look at her. “Aurel. I’ve met gods. Soldiers. Monsters. Heroes. And you are stronger than all of them because you don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Aurel trembled. “But he does. He wants to hurt everyone.”

Reina kissed his forehead. “Then I’ll protect you from him.”

Aurel blinked up at her.

“Even if he’s me?”

Reina hesitated.

Then nodded.

“Even then.”

Aurel swallowed, burying his face in her chest. “It’s getting louder,” he whispered. “All the futures. All the endings. All the versions of him.”

Reina held him tighter.

“What do you see?” she asked softly.

Aurel shuddered.

“Me,” he whispered. “Not existing.”

Reina’s lungs froze.

Not existing.

“Aurel—”

Before she could finish, the air around them fractured—a crack of light like splintering glass.

Aurel gasped, clutching his head.

Reina’s heart leapt. “Aurel?!”

He screamed—a sound like a hundred voices crying at once.

Reina clung to him as the room warped—walls bending, ceiling trembling, the floor vibrating with unstable magic.

The Mirror flare Mary had sent earlier pulsed again.

Reina whispered desperately:

“Hold on, Aurel. I’m right here. I’m not letting you go.”

Outside the door, running footsteps approached.

But in that moment, all Reina could focus on was the terrified child in her arms—

And the shadow of his other self growing stronger.

POV 3 — DYUG VON FORESTIA: HUNTING THE SHADOW OF A CHILD

Dyug ran.

His armored boots thundered through the Lunar Citadel corridors as he followed the trail of distortions only he could sense—faint ripples of fractal magic, cold and sharp as lunar ice.

The Rogue Echo.

His prey.

His nightmare.

He tightened his grip on his spear.

He had failed once—when an echo nearly consumed Aurel.

He would not fail again.

Ahead, a set of doors rattled violently, shimmering with distortion. A guard stumbled backward, shouting:

“SIR DYUG! Temporal breach!”

Dyug didn’t wait.

He slammed his foot into the door—

And burst inside.

The room beyond was empty.

Too empty.

The air hummed—cold, hostile.

Then a voice whispered behind him:

“You always chase. Never catch.”

Dyug spun, spear raised.

The Rogue Echo stood on the windowsill, balancing with unnatural stillness, his expression eerily calm.

Dyug’s heart roared.

“You stay away from him.”

The echo cocked his head. “You are loyal. Predictable. Necessary.”

Dyug snarled. “Necessary for what?”

The echo smiled—sharp, hollow.

“To test myself.”

Dyug lunged.

For the first time in days, he saw the Rogue Echo move—fast, fluid, effortless. The child stepped sideways, and the spear cut through where his heart should have been.

The echo didn’t counterattack.

He simply watched.

Studied.

Measured.

Dyug froze, realization crashing into him.

“You—” he whispered. “You weren’t trying to hurt Aurel last time. You were studying him.”

The echo nodded.

“And now I study you.”

Dyug’s stomach dropped.

“What do you want?” he growled.

The echo’s answer chilled him to the core.

“To see what happens when I remove you.”

Before Dyug could react, the echo raised a hand—

Space shattered.

A burst of dark fractal energy hurled Dyug backwards into the corridor—through the wall—through the floor—

Slamming him into a lower hall in a shockwave of broken marble.

Dyug gasped, struggling to rise.

He failed.

He could barely breathe.

Through the ringing in his ears, he heard one quiet sentence drift down from the floor above:

“You protect him only because he is weak. I want to see what he becomes without you.”

Dyug’s vision flickered.

And the Rogue Echo disappeared.

POV 4 — MARY: THE MIRROR THAT MUST NOT BREAK

Mary arrived a moment later—crystalline boots slicing across the floor in perfect precision. She knelt beside Dyug, her luminous fingertips hovering inches from his shattered armor.

“Dyug,” she said sharply. “Do not move.”

Dyug coughed, blood staining his lip. “He… he’s getting stronger.”

Mary’s eyes flickered—a prism of worry she had long suppressed.

“Yes,” she whispered. “His projections are stabilizing. His energy signature is no longer erratic.”

Dyug tried to rise again—Mary held him down with unexpected force.

“Dyug, listen to me.”

He looked up, struggling to focus.

Mary’s voice softened, crystalline and steady.

“The Rogue Echo is evolving. He no longer exists as a single unstable fragment.”

Dyug’s breathing stalled.

Mary continued:

“He is becoming an identity.”

Dyug felt ice crawl through his veins. “An identity… separate from Aurel?”

Mary nodded.

“Yes. He is stabilizing into a self with intention. Desire. Autonomy.”

Dyug clenched his fists.

“And purpose?”

Mary hesitated.

Then she answered—

“He wishes to replace Aurel.”

Dyug’s heart convulsed.

“No.”

Mary touched his forehead, a cooling pulse of magic easing the pain radiating through his ribs.

“We must return to Queen Elara. The Realm’s defenses must change. The Citadel must be sealed.”

Dyug’s voice broke.

“He said… he said he wants to see what Aurel becomes without me.”

Mary paused—then placed a hand over his chest, her voice low, gentle.

“Then do not leave the child’s side.”

Dyug blinked up at her.

Mary’s gaze held his.

“You are his anchor,” she said quietly. “If the Rogue Echo wants to remove you… then you matter more than ever.”

Dyug’s breath shook.

Mary stood, helping him rise.

“Come,” she whispered. “Aurel needs you.”

POV 5 — AUREL: THE WEIGHT OF A FUTURE NOT HIS OWN

Aurel sat upright in Reina’s arms, trembling violently.

The room was filled with Elara’s elite guards now. Elwen worked frantically at the window, patching the distortions that still rippled through the air. Mary arrived with Dyug half-collapsing against her, his armor cracked and smoking.

Aurel’s breath caught.

“Dyug…?”

Dyug forced a smile, even as blood dripped down his jaw.

“Hey. I’m fine.”

Aurel’s lower lip quivered.

“No you’re not.”

Dyug knelt in front of him as best he could, placing a hand over the child’s heart.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Dyug whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Aurel looked down.

“He is,” Aurel whispered. “He’s everywhere now. He’s in the futures. In the cracks. He knows how to hide. I can’t find him anymore.”

Dyug’s voice softened.

“You don’t need to find him alone.”

Aurel shook his head, tears falling.

“You don’t understand,” he whispered. “He isn’t just a shadow.”

Dyug frowned. “What is he then?”

Aurel’s voice trembled.

“He’s… me. But wrong. Me, if I chose to stop caring.”

The room grew still.

Elara stepped forward, kneeling beside him with a gentleness that only her child—or her grandchild—ever saw.

“Aurel,” she whispered, brushing a tear from his cheek. “You are not wrong. And you are not alone.”

Aurel closed his eyes.

“There are so many futures,” he whispered. “So many endings. And in all the bad ones… he wins.”

Elara froze.

Reina tightened her hold.

Dyug gripped the child’s small hands.

Mary’s aura flared.

Elwen paused her stitching, breath caught.

Aurel looked at them all—eyes flickering with fractal light.

“But there is one future,” he whispered, “where he doesn’t win.”

Elara leaned closer.

“How?” she whispered.

Aurel swallowed.

“Because I… become something stronger.”

Dyug’s face paled.

Reina’s breath hitched.

Mary stepped forward, almost afraid to ask:

“What… do you become, Aurel?”

Aurel looked up.

His eyes shifted—

Bright.

Sharp.

Infinite.

The room dimmed around him as the very air slowed, the echoes of time folding inward.

Aurel’s voice was quiet.

Steady.

Resolved.

“I become the version of me who stops being afraid.”

And somewhere—far away, in a dark corner of reality—

The Rogue Echo smiled.