(Season of Reflection, Part V)

POV 1 — QUEEN ELARA: THE STRIKE THAT BREAKS THE MOONLIGHT AIR

The Citadel shook.

Dust drifted from the vaulted ceiling as Mirror alarms screamed through the halls, their crystalline resonance slicing through the air like shattered music. Elara stood at the center of the throne chamber, her fingers glowing with condensed Lunar magic, her expression carved into pure ice.

“He has breached the outer Crown Barrier!” a guard cried.

Elara’s heartbeat remained steady. Cold. Measured.

“Seal the inner rings. Evacuate all non-essential personnel. Aurel is priority one—Mary, Dyug, Reina remain with him at all times.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

The chamber rippled—the walls flickering between solid stone and fractured reflection. The Rogue Echo was not simply attacking.

He was pushing his presence into the Citadel’s structure.

Elara strode toward the central window, the vines of magic curling around her arms. Outside, the night sky warped—moonlight bending, clouds twisting into spirals of fractured symmetry.

He is not hiding. He is forcing confrontation.

The boy—the Echo—had chosen war.

Elwen stumbled into the chamber, her breathing ragged.

“Your Majesty, the distortions are spreading. He’s… he’s anchoring projection nodes across the Citadel.”

Elara’s eyes narrowed.

“Projection nodes?”

Elwen swallowed hard. “He is splitting himself. Not clones. Not illusions. They are fragments that exist independently but respond to his core will.”

Elara exhaled sharply. “He is attempting to surround us.”

“He already has,” Elwen whispered.

Another alarm shrieked.

Elara raised her arm—magic flaring like a tidal wave of silver.

“Then we begin.”

POV 2 — DYUG VON FORESTIA: THE WEIGHT OF A CHILD AGAINST THE WEIGHT OF THE REALM

Dyug braced his spear against the trembling floor as Aurel sobbed into Reina’s arms. The shockwave that hit moments ago still vibrated in Dyug’s bones. Every instinct screamed to fight—to hunt—but he couldn’t leave Aurel.

Not after what the Rogue Echo had said.

Reina held the boy tight. Mary stood near the doorway, her crystalline arms extended, forming a shimmering barrier around the room.

Dyug knelt beside Aurel.

“Aurel,” he whispered, “look at me.”

Aurel tried. Failed.

He shook so violently his hair stuck to his tear-wet cheeks.

“I saw him,” Aurel choked. “He said—he said he’s coming for the people I care about.”

Dyug placed his hands firmly on Aurel’s shoulders.

“Then he’ll have to go through me first.”

Aurel grabbed his wrist. “That’s what he wants. He wants to take you away. Because you make me strong.”

Dyug’s chest twisted painfully.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Aurel’s tears fell faster. “If you disappear—if you vanish—then the future changes. And he wins.”

Dyug forced a smile. “Then I’ll just have to be too stubborn to die.”

Aurel’s trembling eased only slightly.

Then—

The air above Aurel’s bed ripped open.

A thin crack in reality.

Dark, shimmering, silent.

Dyug surged up, spear raised.

Mary’s barrier flared.

Reina pulled Aurel behind her.

From the breach, a hand reached through—small, pale, perfectly shaped like Aurel’s but wrong in every way.

A child’s voice echoed—soft, distant, cold:

“Found you.”

Dyug struck.

His spear hit the breach—

And the world exploded.

A shockwave of fractal energy hurled him backward into the far wall. Pain tore through every bone. Mary’s barrier shattered like breaking glass. Reina screamed as Aurel clung to her, both of them thrown onto the bed.

The breach sealed.

Silence.

Dyug gasped on the floor, vision swimming.

The Rogue Echo had just tested their defenses.

And nearly broken them.

“Dyug!” Aurel cried, scrambling across the bed.

Dyug pushed himself up, blood dripping down his chin.

“I’m okay,” he lied.

He wasn’t.

The Rogue Echo had grown powerful enough to strike directly into the strongest warded room in Forestia.

That meant only one thing.

The war wasn’t coming.

It had already begun.

POV 3 — MARY: THE FRACTURE SHE MUST HOLD TOGETHER

Mary rose from the shattered remnants of her barrier, cracks running through her crystalline arms, glittering like dusted starlight.

She had never cracked.

Not even during the First Moon’s collapse.

She touched her arm, feeling the unstable resonance vibrating beneath the crystal.

“He destabilized my internal structure,” she murmured.

Reina’s eyes widened. “Can you heal?”

Mary shook her head. “Not quickly.”

She stepped toward the center of the room, eyes glowing with analytical fire.

“He is not merely infiltrating the Citadel,” she whispered. “He is rewriting its internal harmonics.”

Dyug stared, still panting. “What does that mean?”

Mary inhaled—crystal plates shifting.

“It means the Citadel is no longer resisting him. It is… adjusting to accommodate him.”

Reina went pale. “He’s forcing the Citadel to accept his existence?”

“Yes.”

Aurel whimpered. “Stop. Please stop. I don’t want him here.”

Mary knelt, her cracked arms humming softly as she touched Aurel’s shoulder.

“Aurel,” she said, her voice gentle despite its crystalline resonance, “it is time.”

Aurel looked at her, frightened.

“Time for what?”

Mary’s light dimmed slightly, as though she dreaded the words.

“For you to grow.”

Aurel shook his head violently. “No. No, I’m not ready.”

Mary cupped his face.

“No child is ever ready to face their shadow. But shadows grow when you run from them.”

Aurel’s breath trembled.

“I’ll be with you,” Mary whispered. “Reina too. Dyug most of all.”

Dyug stiffened.

Mary continued, voice low:

“You must evolve faster than he does.”

The moment hung heavy.

Aurel clutched Reina’s sleeve.

“I’m scared.”

Mary touched her forehead lightly to his.

“I know. I will hold your fear for you.”

Outside—

A new alarm began to ring.

Slower.

Deeper.

Darker.

Mary’s head snapped toward the door.

“That is the Moon-Crown Alarm,” she whispered. “No one has triggered it in three thousand years.”

Reina swallowed. “What does it mean?”

Mary lifted Aurel into her arms.

“It means he has reached the core of the Citadel.”

Dyug froze.

“The heart of Forestia’s magic.”

Mary nodded.

“And if he corrupts it… he will overwrite our reality entirely.”

POV 4 — REINA: A HUMAN HEART AGAINST A MONSTER MADE FROM FEAR

Reina gripped her staff, her palms sweating. Human magic was limited here—thin, weak, practically nothing compared to Elven power. But she refused to stand behind anyone.

Especially not when a child clung to her clothes, trembling.

She followed Mary and Dyug as they rushed through the corridor, Aurel held tightly between them.

The Citadel was transforming.

Hallways flickered. Walls elongated or shrank from moment to moment. Stairways rippled like liquid silver.

Reina whispered:

“He’s… rewriting the architecture.”

Mary nodded grimly. “He has nested projection anchors inside the Citadel’s magical lattice.”

Dyug growled. “Speak plainly.”

Reina answered for Mary.

“He’s turning the Citadel into a place where he is the native magic, not Aurel.”

Aurel whimpered.

“I don’t want him to take my home…”

Reina squeezed his hand. “He won’t. We won’t let him.”

They turned a corner—

And froze.

An Elven guard hung suspended mid-air, caught in a crystalline stasis field—eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream. Above him, the wall was carved with unfamiliar runes—fractal symbols that twisted like vines.

Aurel whispered:

“He’s marking territory.”

Reina’s breath hitched.

This was no longer infiltration.

This was invasion.

And then they heard it—

Footsteps.

Small.

Light.

And humming.

Aurel clamped his hands over his ears.

“No no no—he’s close—he’s—”

The corridor lights dimmed.

A silhouette appeared at the far end.

A child.

Aurel’s height.

Aurel’s face.

Aurel’s silver hair—twisted with shadow-like strands.

Eyes glowing with fractal blue.

He smiled when he saw them.

Aurel gasped.

Reina stepped in front of him.

Dyug leveled his spear.

Mary gathered fractured magic.

The Rogue Echo tilted his head.

“So many obstacles,” he whispered.

His eyes drifted past Dyug—

Past Mary—

Past Reina—

And locked on Aurel.

His smile widened.

“Let’s begin.”

POV 5 — AUREL: THE MOMENT FEAR CAN NO LONGER RULE

Aurel’s knees nearly buckled.

Seeing him—

Seeing himself

—

Standing there so calm, confident, complete—

It tore through Aurel’s chest like a blade.

The Rogue Echo stepped closer.

“You’ve been waking up,” the Echo murmured. “Growing. I had to accelerate.”

Aurel tried to speak.

Nothing came out.

The Echo continued:

“You’re almost ready to take your real form. The strong one. The one that frightens even me.”

Aurel’s breath froze.

The Echo smiled.

“That is why I must take your place before you evolve.”

Dyug snarled. “You will not touch him.”

The Echo blinked slowly at Dyug.

“Ah. The knight.”

His eyes softened with something like amusement.

“You matter more than you know.”

Then—faster than thought—the Echo raised his hand.

A beam of fractal force shot toward Dyug.

Aurel screamed—

“NO!”

He leapt forward—

And for the first time—

Aurel’s power answered him.

Light exploded from his small body—soft, brilliant, filled with trembling emotion.

The fractal beam shattered.

Dyug stared in shock.

Mary staggered back.

Reina gasped.

The Echo’s eyes widened.

Aurel’s breath came in ragged bursts.

“I won’t let you hurt him,” Aurel whispered, voice shaking but firm.

The Rogue Echo’s expression flickered—surprise, then irritation, then something darker.

“Aurel,” he said quietly. “You are not ready.”

Aurel stepped forward again.

“No,” he said. “But I’m growing.”

The Citadel trembled violently—

As though reacting to Aurel’s awakening.

The Rogue Echo hissed softly.

“Then I will end this now.”

He raised both hands.

Reality split apart.

Distortions spiraled.

Shadows twisted.

Aurel felt the world collapse inward—

And then—

A voice thundered across the corridor:

“ENOUGH.”

Silver light crashed down like a falling moon.

Elara appeared—

Eyes blazing with the fury of a Queen and a grandmother.

The Rogue Echo staggered back—

For the first time, visibly shaken.

Elara stepped forward.

“You have trespassed in my Citadel,” she said softly, dangerously. “Threatened my family. Attacked my people.”

Her aura ignited—

A hurricane of lunar fire.

“And for that—Rogue Echo or not—I will unmake you myself.”

Aurel clung to Reina, heart pounding.

Dyug tightened his grip on his spear.

Mary’s cracks glowed fiercely.

The Rogue Echo’s eyes narrowed.

And the Fifth Month of Rogue Reflection—

Turned from invasion—

Into the first true confrontation.

The war for Aurel’s future had begun.