The scream that shattered the air didn't belong to any beast Riku had ever known.
It was his. Or rather—his tribe's. A perfect echo of Blackridge's throne cry—shouted back at them from across the ridgeline as the Blood Moon hung swollen in the reddened sky. For a moment, no one moved. The enemy formation held, twin to their own—same spear angles, same bracing stances, even the tilt of the bannerless shields. Every muscle remembered.
Kasrin's voice cracked as she whispered, "That's us."
Across the field, the imitation warband charged.
Riku didn't speak. His glaive flicked upward once—signal to engage—and his elites surged forward to meet the reflection.
Steel rang out, not against wild chaos but trained precision. The mirrored units mirrored strikes with uncanny precision—blocks coming a fraction too soon, counters delivered at drilled timing. The air shimmered as though rippling from heat, but there was no heat. Only the dissonance of perfect wrongness.
Sira lunged forward, her hooked blade aimed at a spearman's hip. The opponent twisted just the way she would have.
When her weapon landed, it met not armor or muscle, but air. The soldier collapsed into a hiss of red vapor, dissolving like smoke caught in the wrong memory. Sira stumbled, recoiling. Her expression wasn't fear. It was recognition.
More of the mirage-warriors burst as they were struck—burst not into blood, but mist. Glimmering, ruby-hued haze that swirled unnaturally, then retreated as though pulled by invisible breath.
"Fall back!" Riku barked. "Now!"
His warband snapped out of formation, each drawing backward while eyes still scanned the line ahead. But the mirrored warriors didn't pursue. They held their line, shifting, murmuring in low voices not their own—each voice a mimicry, like hearing old comrades through walls of glass.
Kael knelt beside a pile where one of the mirrored warriors had collapsed. The ground was scorched, not from heat but from presence. Something wrong had stood there, and the dirt remembered it. Among the ash, he found it—a mask.
Obsidian glass, etched with curling glyphs. Non-functional. Just a faceplate. But its markings…
Kael froze.
These were vault runes. His vault. The glyphs were ancient notations Riku had forbidden anyone from studying until the crown vault was fully catalogued.
He wrapped the mask in cloth and jogged it back to Riku.
Riku took it in silence, his fingers gliding over the pattern. He didn't speak right away. Then he said, softly, "This wasn't copied. It was repurposed."
"Someone got inside?" Kael asked.
"No," Riku replied. "Worse. Something got in-between."
The ground near the mirage point began to ripple again. Not earthquake, not tremor—more like the land sighed. Faint whistles of wind carried with it voices—battle cries in no language Riku's tribe used, but somehow… still familiar.
As they watched, another mirrored group appeared from the haze. But this time, they weren't charging.
They stood in formation. And then, together, every one of them raised a clenched fist.
It was the throne salute.
Not the one Riku taught. The one he used in secret.
The one he'd only ever shown his closest inner circle, alone in the obsidian hall.
Kasrin stepped back. "They… shouldn't know that."
The air rippled again.
And then the formation vanished. Not dispersed. Not dissolved. Gone—like breath exhaled into cold night.
That evening, the global chat ignited.
[Silent_Fang]: Who's leaking battle drills?![CarrionKing]: That was MY southern phalanx technique—no one outside my command knew it.[Dusk_Leech]: My spears saw mirrored units using our hollowsweep.[Cinderdusk]: Is anyone else getting mirages? Or is this coordinated misdirection?
The accusations flew—espionage, infiltration, breach. Some demanded that a system investigation be launched. But the system remained silent. It hadn't sent a message in days. The global board sat idle.
Riku scrolled through the chat under his alias—just a flick of his fingers, his expression unreadable.
Then he closed it.
Later that night, when most of the tribe was asleep and the fires had died down to steady coals, Riku stood outside the Vault's entrance. Alone.
He opened the obsidian cloth.
Stared at the mask.
The glyphs no longer looked foreign.
They looked like memory etched backward.
A shadow passed over the camp, brief and chill. From far beyond the ridge, a call echoed once more.
Not the same as before.
But still his.
Not shouted by beast or man.
Just carried. As if the air itself had learned his name—and wanted to wear it.