(Season of Reflection, Part IV)

POV 1 — QUEEN ELARA: THE SHAPE OF THE FORTHCOMING STORM

The Lunar Citadel had withstood sieges by dragons, rebellions by High Elves, and the shuddering collapse of the First Moon.

But it had never felt like this.

The walls hummed—not with attack, but with anticipation. Every stone in the Citadel seemed to sense the shifting tides of fate swirling around one trembling child.

Elara stood before the war table in the central chamber. Maps of Forestia floated midair, fractured by small distortions that flickered like frost along their borders. Elwen adjusted the crystalline orbs projecting the display, but every few seconds the map glitched again.

Fractures.

Each one a place the Rogue Echo had touched—or passed through.

“Your Majesty,” Elwen said, swallowing hard. “There were twenty-two new distortions in the past hour.”

Elara didn’t blink. “Are they intensifying?”

“Yes.” Elwen’s fingers shook. “And they no longer behave like random ruptures. They are forming patterns.”

Elara exhaled slowly.

He is taking shape.

The thought chilled her.

Across the room, Mary, Reina, Aurel, and Dyug entered—Dyug still staggering slightly, Aurel clinging to Reina’s arm for support, Mary’s crystalline body glowing with tense energy.

Elara turned toward them.

Her grandson looked so small. So fragile. Yet the air around him pulsed with quiet power. Aurel’s eyes shimmered with faint fractal glints.

Elara knelt before him.

“Aurel,” she said softly. “Tell us what you saw.”

Aurel squeezed Reina’s hand.

“He’s growing,” the child whispered. “He’s learning faster. Thinking faster. Becoming someone separate.”

Elara absorbed the words.

“He wants to replace him,” Dyug rasped, his voice still strained from the impact of his earlier battle.

Aurel nodded once.

“And he can,” the child whispered. “In almost every future I see… he does.”

Elara felt the air tighten around her lungs.

“But you said there is one future where he doesn’t win,” she murmured.

Aurel nodded again.

“Yes. One future where he doesn’t take my place.”

Mary stepped forward. “And in that future… you become someone stronger?”

Aurel hesitated.

Then he spoke—

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

Elara reached out and placed both hands on his cheeks.

“Aurel,” she whispered, “the world does not need you to be fearless. It needs you to be yourself.”

Aurel lowered his gaze.

“He made himself from the part of me that wanted to run. The part that wanted to be safe. The part that… didn’t want to choose.”

Elara felt her throat tighten.

“And now he wants to make me disappear.”

Silence engulfed the chamber.

Elara stood, her expression steeling into something sharp and commanding.

“Then the Citadel fortifies at once. Double the Mirror Sentinels. Triple the Timeweaver barriers. No one goes anywhere alone.”

Her gaze sharpened.

“And the Rogue Echo must be found. Before he stabilizes completely.”

But another voice spoke quietly.

“No,” Aurel whispered. “He’s not hiding.”

Everyone turned.

Aurel’s small hands curled.

“He’s waiting.”

POV 2 — DYUG VON FORESTIA: THE FEAR HE CANNOT SHOW

Dyug’s ribs still burned.

He had crossed the battlefield against demons, stood against Earth’s modern weapons, survived torpedoes and nuclear testing fields—but nothing had shaken him like seeing a child’s echo fling him across a citadel like a toy.

He walked beside Aurel now, keeping one hand hovering near the child’s back. Every time Aurel’s breath hitched, Dyug’s heart seized.

He wants to remove you.

The Rogue Echo’s words replayed endlessly in Dyug’s skull.

Because Aurel becomes something different with you at his side… and he wants to see what happens without you.

Dyug clenched his teeth.

He couldn’t let Aurel know how terrified he was.

They walked down the corridor as guards rushed past, erecting barrier after barrier—lunar shields, fractal dampeners, sound-wave distorters, time-slowing crystals. But Dyug saw their hands shaking.

Mary walked ahead of them, crystalline footsteps echoing like tempered bells.

Reina hovered at Aurel’s side.

Elwen rushed between rooms, coordinating Timeweavers.

And Dyug stayed close.

“Aurel,” he said finally, when they paused outside his private chamber, “listen to me.”

Aurel looked up.

“Earlier,” Dyug continued, “when he attacked me… he didn’t do it because you’re weak.”

Aurel’s lips trembled. “Then why?”

Dyug knelt slowly, ignoring the sharp pain in his ribs.

“Because you’re stronger than you think. Because you are meant to grow into someone he can’t predict. And that terrifies him.”

Aurel blinked rapidly, tears welling.

“I… I don’t want anyone to get hurt because of me,” he whispered.

Dyug smiled gently.

“That was your flaw,” he said. “But it’s also your strength.”

Aurel pressed a trembling hand to Dyug’s chest, above the cracked armor.

“I don’t want you to disappear,” he whispered.

Dyug swallowed.

“You won’t lose me,” he said, voice steady. “Not to him. Not ever.”

Aurel buried his face against Dyug’s armor.

Dyug closed his eyes.

He would protect this child. Even if it killed him.

POV 3 — MARY: THE CRYSTAL WHO KNOWS WHAT MUST BE DONE

Mary rarely experienced fear.

Crystals were stable. Predictable. Structured.

But as she watched the Citadel’s fractal distortion trackers tremble with rapid pulses, she felt something she had no word for.

Foreseen disaster.

Unraveling timelines.

Impending collapse.

The Rogue Echo was not only stabilizing—

He was accelerating.

Mary stood before the Mirror Core—a crystalline sphere that pulsed with reflections of all magical structures in Forestia.

Elwen hurried beside her, adjusting the arcane conduits.

“If he continues at this rate,” Mary said quietly, “he will gain enough stability to anchor himself as a full entity within a month. Perhaps sooner.”

Elwen froze.

“You mean—he will become another Aurel?”

Mary’s crystal eyes darkened.

“No,” she said. “He will become a predator. A being built solely from the version of Aurel who wished to escape responsibility. A self built from fear and calculation.”

Elwen shivered.

“And Aurel,” Mary said softly, “is built from compassion.”

Elwen whispered, “How do you fight something born from a child’s deepest terror?”

Mary placed a crystalline hand on the Mirror Core.

With a sharp pulse, it showed her hundreds of reflections of Aurel—crying, laughing, growing, fractured, whole, infinite.

Mary closed her eyes.

“You don’t fight it.”

Elwen stared.

“You evolve before it does.”

POV 4 — REINA MORALES: THE HUMAN HEART IN A REALM OF MIRRORS

Reina held Aurel close as he drifted into uneasy, trembling sleep. His small form pressed into her chest, warm and fragile. Each time his breath quivered, a faint distortion shimmered through the room.

Reina stroked his hair.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered. “I’ll always have you.”

She had seen terrifying things on Earth.

But nothing—nothing—compared to the idea of losing this child to a shadow of himself.

Reina whispered softly:

“You don’t have to be unafraid. You just have to not face it alone.”

She kissed his forehead.

The distortions grew calm.

Aurel slept.

Reina didn’t.

She sat awake, watching the faint ripples in the air, her pulse hammering.

Suddenly—

A voice whispered from behind.

“You love him too much.”

Reina froze.

Her blood turned to ice.

Standing at the far corner of the room—

Eyes glowing faintly with dark fractal light—

Was the Rogue Echo.

Reina didn’t dare breathe.

He tilted his head, studying her.

“You make him weak,” the echo said softly. “Comfort makes him hesitate. Hesitation is death.”

Reina placed Aurel gently on the bed and stood slowly.

Her voice trembled.

“You stay away from him.”

The echo blinked.

“No.”

Reina took a step forward.

“I won’t let you hurt him.”

The echo’s expression flickered—curiosity, confusion, calculation.

“I won’t hurt him,” he said finally. “I will replace him.”

Reina lunged—

But he vanished.

Not with magic.

Not with speed.

Just… gone.

Like he had never been.

Reina gasped, heart pounding, and rushed to Aurel’s side.

He slept—peaceful, unaware.

But tears streamed down her cheeks.

“He was here,” she whispered.

The guards burst into the room seconds later—but Reina knew the truth.

The Rogue Echo had chosen his first target.

Not Aurel.

Not Dyug.

Her.

Because she was the one who held the child when he was weakest.

Reina wiped her tears.

And for the first time since arriving in Forestia—

She felt fear curl into fury.

POV 5 — AUREL: THE DREAM OF THE FUTURE THAT WAITS

Aurel slept.

And he dreamed.

He stood in an endless white field—soft, silent, empty. The air shimmered like Moonlight frost.

“Hello,” a voice said gently.

Aurel turned.

The Rogue Echo stood a few feet away.

Not menacing.

Not hostile.

Just… there.

Aurel’s chest tightened.

“You came,” the echo whispered.

Aurel swallowed. “Why?”

The echo stepped closer, his motions smooth as liquid glass.

“Because,” he said, “you will become stronger soon. And when you do… I will no longer be able to reach you.”

Aurel froze.

“What do you want?” he whispered.

The echo smiled faintly.

“To survive.”

Aurel blinked.

“You aren’t supposed to exist.”

The echo nodded.

“Yes. That’s why I must take your place.”

Aurel’s fists clenched.

“I won’t let you.”

The echo’s eyes softened—not kindly, but knowingly.

“You will try,” he said. “But you are not ready.”

Aurel felt a tremor ripple through the dream.

“I will be,” he whispered.

The echo tilted his head.

“Yes,” he agreed. “You will be. That is why I must act soon.”

Aurel’s heart thudded painfully.

“What are you going to do?”

The Rogue Echo smiled the saddest, coldest smile Aurel had ever seen.

“I am going to take from you the one thing that makes you strong.”

The world shattered.

Aurel jolted awake—screaming.

Reina rushed to him.

Dyug burst through the door.

Elara and Mary followed seconds later.

Aurel sobbed, clutching Reina with trembling arms.

“He’s coming,” he cried. “He’s coming now.”

Elara knelt.

“For what, Aurel?” she whispered.

Aurel looked up, eyes wide with terror.

“For the people I care about.”

He grabbed Dyug’s arm.

“He’s coming for all of you.”

Silence.

Cold.

Heavy.

Then—

A sudden shockwave tore through the Citadel.

Lights flickered.

Walls trembled.

Mirror alarms screamed.

Mary’s crystal eyes widened.

“He’s here,” she whispered.

Aurel buried his face in Reina’s chest.

Elara rose, magic burning through her veins.

Dyug drew his spear.

Reina held Aurel tight.

Mary stepped forward, aura igniting.

The Rogue Echo had chosen to strike.

And the Fourth Month of Rogue Reflection

had just become war.