"Not every mirror shows your face. Some only show what you tried to forget." - Harama Academy Inscription, Old Courtyard
The lake lay at the edge of Evalia, where the forest thinned and the stars could breathe. It was said that long ago,, when the ley-lines of Tilbara were first sealed, the water here had turned to glass - and on certain nights, it remembered everything that had been lost.
Ken stood at its edge now. The rippling surface shimmered faintly, catching the moon's reflection and splitting it into dozens of fractured halves.
He crouched down, letting his fingers graze the water. The cold stung, but it wasn't the kind of cold that came from wind. It was the cold of silence - the kind left behind after too many names were spoken for the last time.
Behind him, the wind shifted.
"You're not supposed to be here," Reka-sensei said. His tone wasn't scolding - more tired than anything.
Ken didn't look back. "Neither are you."
He stepped beside him, folding his arms as he watched the reflection of the moon tremble. "I thought I'd find you here. You've been restless since Kabe left."
"I don't like waiting," Ken said quietly. 'He's out there with a handful of scouts while we just… talk."
"Sometimes talking saves more lives than fighting."
Ken gave a small, humorless laugh. "That's what we said before Durama fell."
Reka didn't respond right away. He reached into his cloak, drew out a small crystal orb, and set it on the ground. The orb projected a faint light - a ghostly map, showing Tilbara and the sea beyond.
"Look," he said, pointing. "Each station, each trail - they're not just roads. They're scars. Every one of them built over a ley-line wound from the lakes reflect like this. They're memory pools. They don't forget."
Ken stared at the map. The lines pulsed faintly, like veins beneath skins. Then, faintly from the orb, a sound - a low resonance.
Rudhana stirred inside him.
"These lines… they pulse like my kin once did. The land remembers pain the way your heart remembers loss."
Ken clenched his fist. Rudhana, he thought, if the land remembers… what about us?
The spirit's voice was deep, echoing through him like a second heartbeat. "You ask if you'll forget. But forgetting is mercy, Hiroki. I have lived too long to crave it."
The orb flickered, and for a moment the reflection on the lake shifted. Ken saw not his own face - but Durama's walls burning. Tina-sensei standing in the firelight. Qinglua on his knees before the broken seal of the Compact. Then Kabe, reaching into a sea of white light, something vast and , mechanical staring back.
Ken gasped and dropped the orb. The vision shattered. The lake went still again.
Reka's hand gripped his shoulder , steadying him. "What did you see?"
Ken looked at him, eyes wide. "The sea isn't sleeping. It's watching. Whatever is out there - it knows our names.
Reka frowned, but before he could respond, the surface of the lake rippled again.
This time it wasn't reflection.
A figure rose from the water - translucent, barely human, as if carved from glass. Its eyes glowed like embers seen through frost. When it spoke, its voice sounded like the merging of many.
"The Trails will reopen. The compact will bleed. Balance must break for memory to mend."
Then the figure vanished, leaving only faint rings on the water.
Reka stepped back, stunned. "Was that-?"
Ken nodded. "A myth echo. Or worse. A message."
He stared at the ripples spreading outward, knowing that somewhere far to the north, Kabe had seen the same light beneath the sea - and that both reflections were part of one truth Tilbara had long refused to face.
The myths weren't returning.
They had never left.