The storm clouds hadn't broken yet, but the air inside the Echo Monastery felt heavier… as if gathering its own rain.
Sol walked through the open courtyard, sandals brushing against the stone tiles. The lanterns Ya Zhen had lit earlier swayed gently, their soft vermilion glow painting the pillars in long strokes of red.
She sensed him before she saw him.
Ji Ming stood at the far side of the courtyard, beneath the ruined arch where ivy had reclaimed the walls. His blades lay at his feet. He was practicing breathing forms; slow, steady, and controlled. A discipline meant to calm the qi.
But the tension in his shoulders betrayed him.
Sol approached quietly. She didn't want to disturb him. Yet something in the way he stood, too still, too perfect… made her pause.
It wasn't calm.
It was control.
A brittle kind.
"Ji Ming," she said softly.
His breath didn't break, but his eyelids lowered. "You're awake."
"I couldn't sleep." She stepped closer. "The echoes… they're restless tonight."
He opened his eyes and finally looked at her. The courtyard lanterns caught the faint blue undertone in his gaze, storm-shadowed as always.
"You shouldn't wander alone," he murmured.
Sol smiled faintly. "I didn't wander. I walked straight to you."
Something in his expression flickered, brief, almost invisible.
"What happened?" she asked.
Ji Ming didn't answer immediately. He bent down, picking up one of his sabers. The blade caught the lantern light, reflecting it in a thin silver line.
"Sol," he said quietly. "We need to talk."
She waited.
"When the Mirror woke," he continued, "when it… reached for you—"
His jaw tightened.
"I wasn't fast enough."
Sol blinked. "…Fast enough for what?"
"To stop it."
Her chest tightened. "Ji Ming—"
"Every instinct in me said to strike. To cut it before it could touch you."
She shook her head. "You didn't need to."
"That's the problem." His voice was still soft, but there was something hurt underneath. Something personal. "You keep stepping between danger and mercy. And you expect the world to choose the one you believe in."
She took a slow breath. "What I expect… is that we don't repeat what broke the first Twin Hearts."
He stared at her. Really stared.
"You saw something," he said quietly. "Something you didn't tell me."
Sol looked down at her hands. The echoes of the vision from earlier still clung to her skin like frost.
"Not something," she said. "Someone."
Ji Ming's voice dropped. "The woman in the corridor."
Sol nodded slowly.
"What was she?" he asked.
"I don't know yet." She lifted her gaze. "But she wasn't hostile. She wasn't a threat."
Ji Ming exhaled sharply, not in anger, but in fear he didn't want to name.
"That's the danger, Sol. Not every reflection with a gentle face means mercy. Not every echo wants to be understood." His voice softened, the way an actor murmurs a truth meant only for one person. "I don't want to lose you to something you believe you can heal."
A quiet wind stirred the lanterns. Their glow dimmed, flickered… then steadied.
Sol stepped closer, closing the distance between them until she could see the strain in his posture.
"You won't lose me," she whispered.
Ji Ming looked away. "You can't promise that."
She placed a hand over his, lightly, gently, like placing trust in someone else's palm.
"I'm promising I won't walk into danger blind," she said. "And you're not alone in protecting me."
He didn't pull away. But he didn't relax either.
Silence stretched between them, not hostile, not cold… just full.
Sol had felt many silences in her life: the quiet of meditation, the quiet of grief, the quiet of waiting. But this was different.
This silence was made of all the words they weren't ready to speak yet.
"Sol," Ji Ming murmured, "you saw her again, didn't you?"
"…Yes."
"And you didn't call for me."
She hesitated. "…I didn't need to."
He flinched, so slightly most people wouldn't have noticed.
"I see." His voice was controlled again. Carefully measured. "Then at least tell me what she showed you."
Sol lowered her gaze. The vision of the lake… the lotus blossoms turning into glass… the scream swallowed by the sky…
"I can't yet," she said softly. "It wasn't clear."
"That's not why," he replied quietly.
Her breath caught.
He saw through her too easily.
"It scared you," he said. "And you didn't want to bring that fear to me."
Sol swallowed. "…Yes."
Ji Ming took her hand, not forcefully, not even firmly… just enough to stop her from drifting away from him.
"Next time," he said, "share it with me. Even if you think I can't help."
Her heartbeat softened. "I will."
He let out a slow exhale, shoulders easing a fraction. "Good."
Ya Zhen's voice drifted from the far corridor before either of them spoke again.
"The world isn't ending without you two, right?"
Sol jumped slightly. Ji Ming didn't.
Ya Zhen walked into the courtyard, fan tapping against her shoulder. "Because you're both staring at each other like you're about to rewrite fate with eye contact."
Sol flushed. "We were just—"
"Talking," Ji Ming finished calmly.
Ya Zhen raised a brow. "Talking, hm… Is that what you kids are calling it these days?"
Sol choked. "Ya Zhen—!"
Ji Ming gave her a single flat look. "We were discussing the echoes."
Ya Zhen's smirk softened. "Ah. The heavy things."
She walked closer, gaze shifting between them with the ease of someone who saw more than she let on.
"Whatever you two aren't saying," she said, "say it before the mountain does."
Then she turned and left as abruptly as she had arrived.
Sol stared after her, flustered. "…Why does she always know?"
Ji Ming sheathed his blade. "Because she sees what we try to hide."
Sol looked back at him. "Are we hiding?"
A pause.
Long, soft, deliberate.
"No," Ji Ming said. "Just… learning how not to."
He picked up his other saber. "Come. We should rest before the echoes grow restless again."
As they walked back toward the hall, Sol glanced once more at the ruined arch where Ji Ming had been practicing.
A faint reflection shimmered there; her white-haired woman, watching them with a knowing smile.
Sol's breath hitched.
When she blinked, the reflection vanished.
But its meaning lingered between them… quiet as a promise… heavy as the things left unsaid.