The council chamber had long since emptied, but the shadows refused to leave.
Evelyne stood alone beneath the fractured stained-glass dome, eyes lifted to the amber-tinted light filtering through the depiction of the World Tree—branches cracking with the subtle signs of age and new magic. The quiet should have been a comfort, but her skin prickled with unease.
She wasn't alone.
The presence was faint at first, like a breath drawn in the dark—a tug at the edge of her awareness. Not hostile. But watching. Familiar.
She turned. "You can stop hiding now."
A shimmer in the air fractured like a mirror catching the light wrong. A ripple, and then a figure stepped forward from the empty space where no doorway stood.
Evelyne's breath caught.
It was her.
No, not quite.
The woman before her had the same face—the same bone structure, the same intense gaze—but her bearing was different. Colder. Calculated. Her gown was darker, tinged with a metallic gleam that shimmered like obsidian armor, and a sigil pulsed faintly at her throat: not the crest of the New Concord, but something unfamiliar and sharp.
The other Evelyne tilted her head. "So. You're the one who lived."
Evelyne stepped forward slowly, mind racing. "You're from another timeline."
"Close enough. I suppose it was only a matter of time before one of us bled through. The Rift may be sealed, but its echoes remain. And the world... doesn't forget the scars."
The two stood facing one another, mirrors bent by fate.
Evelyne felt Alaira's presence at her side before she even saw her move. The other version's gaze flicked toward her and narrowed slightly.
"Interesting," the alternate Evelyne murmured. "You still have her. That must be what made your path... viable."
Alaira didn't flinch. "State your purpose."
"To observe. For now."
Evelyne's voice was steady. "No. You came through for more than that."
Silence stretched, the tension between them crackling like unspent lightning.
Finally, the doppelgänger sighed and folded her hands. "Very well. I represent a faction—a remnant collective called The Continuance. We exist in timelines undone, realities abandoned or overwritten. Most of us are fragments, ghosts. But some, like me, survived enough to act."
"The Continuance," Evelyne echoed. "Are you trying to restore your version of the world?"
The other woman smirked. "Restore? No. It was already collapsing. But salvage? Yes. Perhaps we can extract meaning from the rubble you left behind."
Evelyne took another step forward. "What do you want from this world?"
"I want nothing. They do." She gestured vaguely toward the shadows behind her. "You've rewritten fate. Stabilized it, yes—but imperfectly. There are... cracks. And from them, we come."
Alaira's voice was low. "Then this is a warning."
The double smiled. "A conversation. But take it how you will."
She turned, and for a moment Evelyne felt an ache—some resonance between them that hurt in a place too deep to name.
"You'll find," the woman said as she stepped back into the shimmer, "that not all reflections want to fade."
And then she was gone.
The silence returned, this time heavy with aftershock.
Alaira exhaled. "She was... you. But not you."
Evelyne nodded slowly. "A version of me that didn't make it. That blames me, maybe. Or sees me as lucky. Or weak."
"What now?"
Evelyne turned back toward the window, the fractured World Tree above them bleeding light in strange patterns. "We find out how deep this goes. Who else is bleeding through. And we prepare."
Later, in the war room beneath the palace, Evelyne assembled her most trusted allies.
"The Continuance is real," she began, tracing a mark on the table—an echo of the sigil she'd seen at the woman's throat. "And they're organized. These are not timeline phantoms or broken souls wandering at random. They have goals. Structure."
Thane, the former knight turned commander of reconstruction forces, frowned. "How did they survive? If you sealed the Rift—"
"They were outside the seal when it closed," Alaira said quietly. "Or inside something else. The Rift wasn't a door. It was a network."
Scholar Lys, who had been poring through the Lost Library's fragmented records, looked pale. "There were notes. Mentions of mirrors that didn't reflect true. Forgotten selves that spoke in dreams. We thought they were metaphors. Now... I think they were warnings."
"Or blueprints," Evelyne murmured.
The map before them shimmered slightly—an arcane overlay revealed several flickering points of instability. Not in the same locations as the old Rift disruptions, but close enough to matter.
"This is our new battlefield," she said. "Not one of armies or rebels—but of memory, reality, and intent. These intrusions may seem small now. But if the Continuance gains foothold..."
"They'll rewrite your story," Lys whispered.
Evelyne looked at her, eyes hardening. "Then we make sure they can't."
Later that night, Evelyne stood with Alaira beneath the stars.
"Do you think she was right?" she asked quietly. "That having you made the difference?"
Alaira was quiet for a long time.
Then, "Yes."
Evelyne blinked.
Alaira took her hand, warm and steady. "But that doesn't mean you needed me. It means you chose to trust someone. To love. That's what saved you. That's what saved this world."
"I wonder what she chose," Evelyne whispered.
"I think we'll find out," Alaira said grimly. "And soon."
As they watched the stars, a new one flared faintly on the horizon.
Not natural.
Not safe.
The war had ended. But the story was far from over.