It had only been a slightly tense evening—but all had been well; I had my brother and my teacher with me.
Now, it was just a frightened young lady and me—
a cracked mirror surrounded by smoke.
The forest no longer felt like a place of life. It had become a river of drifting wood, trees stripped bare, their bark grey as bone. The air burned with frost and distant ash. My Qi reserves were draining fast—too fast—but maybe that was why I clung to Miss Victoria's hand. Her fingers were stiff, her legs trembling where she stood, her eyes wide and unfocused.
"She probably can't hear me anymore," I thought, watching her blank expression. "Even the effect's wearing off."
I gripped her arm tighter and dragged her forward—any direction that wasn't toward the town, or the paths the others had taken. I couldn't see them anymore, but I had a fair idea of where not to go.
"The Qi in my Dantian's down to about thirty percent," I muttered under my breath. My chest heaved, the winter air lighting a match inside my lungs. Each breath felt like swallowing knives.
"We should—"
The forest began to thin, light bleeding between the skeletal trunks.
"Ah… seems the effect of Spring Silver Rippleis fading too," I murmured, looking at my trembling hands. My heartbeat slammed like a drum against my ribs.
"—Heiwa."
Her voice barely rose above a whisper, but it was enough to make me look back. Her eyes were filled with confusion—fear, too human to be soothed by any ripple of Qi.
"My goodness," I thought, scanning the desolate stretch ahead, "what do we do? I need to replenish my Qi."
"Heiwa!" Victoria's voice cracked through the air as she yanked my arm.
The pull was sudden, desperate. We both stumbled and hit the ground hard.
And just like that, the spell shattered—its remnants scattering like broken glass.
"What—" she tried to speak, but the rest dissolved into dry heaves. She fell forward and began vomiting.
I pressed my palms against the rough bark of a nearby tree, fighting the tremor in my fingers. The bark bit into my skin, grounding me, becoming my new Dantian—the only anchor I had left. My Qi flickered weakly, like a dying ember in a storm.
Victoria's sounds were ragged, broken—sobbing, retching, shivering as the Ripple's calm faded, leaving her naked before the horror it had buried.
I could do nothing. My own legs were numb, my breath shallow, the weight of everything pressing into my bones.
Every instinct screamed to collapse, to weep, to surrender.
I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood and dust.
Don't let her see.
That façade—that fragile sense of control—was the only thing keeping us both alive.
"Oh, my goodness," I whispered to myself, barely holding back a sob. I couldn't afford to fall apart. Not yet.
"Victoria," I said, forcing my tone into something steady, logical—something that sounded like leadership. "We need to keep moving. We don't know if those people are still after us."
She turned her head slowly. Her eyes were rivers of red and glassy reflection, her lips trembling as if to speak, but only silence came.
I pushed myself upright and reached for her hand again. She followed, barely conscious of her own movement. We both knew we couldn't run, not truly, but the lie of motion was easier than the truth of helplessness.
For a long moment, the world was just breath and snow and distant gunfire. Then—quiet.
Listening closely, I realized the fighting wasn't coming this way anymore. That didn't calm me, but it loosened the knot in my chest.
"For now," I told myself, "we're safe. Relatively."
Victoria stumbled beside me, her steps slow, heavy, her spirit dimmed to a fragile ember.
"I've no idea what those three were arguing about," I thought, "but from the look of it, we were only caught in the edges of something much larger."
"Victoria," I said softly, tugging her arm, "come on."
We kept walking through the skeletal remains of winter. Above, the pale sun showed its cold, indifferent face.
Every shadow looked like a soldier waiting to strike. Every gust of wind sounded like a whisper of the dead.
Eventually, when the forest thinned into a fogged wasteland, we came across a natural ditch—a shallow wound in the frozen earth.
"Victoria," I gasped, my lungs raw, "we should rest there."
She didn't answer. I didn't expect her to.
I held her arm tighter, afraid that if I let go, she'd vanish into the cold.
I guided her down into the ditch. We collapsed together into the damp hollow, the mud cold against my palms. Her hands were like ice when I took them again, her pulse faint.
"Victoria," I murmured, keeping my voice low, as if I could mimic the fading calm of Spring Silver Ripple.
"My Qi's too low. I can't move us any further safely. We need to rest. If I can recover even five percent of my Dantian, we can keep ahead."
Her silence wasn't consent—it was shock. But that was all the permission I needed.
The wind moaned softly through the trees, carrying the faint smell of gunpowder and ash.
I looked up, and for a heartbeat, forgot to breathe.
The sky had split in two.
Beyond the violet bruising of dusk, something shimmered—a pale, false light.
Rise of the second sun.
But it wasn't warm. It wasn't kind. It was watching.
It hung too low, too still, as if reflecting something it shouldn't.
My Qi pulsed faintly, reacting in quiet unease.
"An omen," I whispered, unsure if the word was mine or the world's. "Or maybe just… a reflection."
I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing.
One inhale for life.
One exhale for death.
And another to keep the illusion that I could tell the difference.
Victoria shivered beside me, clutching her knees, whispering something I couldn't catch—maybe a prayer, maybe a name.
The second sun lingered above us, like an eye refusing to blink.
And for a moment, I wondered whether it was the world watching us…
or merely our own broken images reflected back, distorted, waiting to see which of us would fade first.