Dask had fallen again over Eidralune, wrapping the city in bruised light. Fires burned behind blackened windows, and banners torn by wind draped across collapsed arches. Even the stars seemed to have fled, leaving only the flicker of soul‑lamps along deserted boulevards.
Solan Maelvaran moved through this half‑dead city with heavy steps. Each footfall echoed memories he didn't own. The reliquary fragment burned in his pocket, a constant reminder of the Coast's dark secrets. Beside him, Kaelir Thorne kept pace, talon‑shard in hand, hollow‑flame scars pale in the gloaming.
They turned into the courtyard of the Pale Choir's temple—an edifice of tooth‑white bone crowned with rusted iron. Its priests lingered at the gates, chanting without words, their pale visages bowed in solemn accord.
Solan gripped the fragment. Tonight, they would reclaim what had been stolen from him: a sliver of identity and a shard of prophecy.
He entered the temple alone. Kaelir remained behind—ever the firebrand—knowing this was Solan's reckoning to bear. The great hall was lined with statues: each an empty shell carved in the likeness of Solan's face. Some wept marble tears; others had runes chiseled into their cyclopean foreheads.
At the far end stood the choir of priests, encircled around a cracked mirror suspended within a ring of chanting glyphs. As Solan approached, their voices ceased. The mirror's surface rippled like oil, then resolved into an image: himself—his face—but older, hollowed, and triumphant.
He staggered back. The chamber air flared.
Then the image stepped forward.
He was here.
The doppelgänger wore the same Mask of the Forsaken Tongue. Its chains rattled in spectral light. His eyes glowed with Solan's own hunger, but darker—unrestrained.
"You've stolen my reflection," Solan said, voice ragged. "You've stolen my name."
The twin smiled. "I've been named a thousand times. But yours… yours was a gift."
It raised a hand; runes bled across its palm—the Trial of Names sigil. Each symbol pulsed with cold fire. "Tonight, we trade. One of us leaves reclaimed. The other… broken."
Solan shoved the reliquary fragment into his fist. "I will end you."
The mirror-self laughed, and the statues' eyes lit with reproach. The priests knelt, chanting: "Silence the sinner. Bind the liar. Haunt the unspoken."
The twin raised its voice—a twisted echo: "Speak the Name, Solan. Let us both be known."
He lunged anyway.
Clash of steel and shadow—a flurry of runeblade against mirrored pulse. Each strike rang hollow, as if cutting through glass. Kaelir's voice pierced the chant from outside: "Solan!"
The fight paused. Solan's figure staggered, chest heaving. The twin raised a hand and channeled his own mask-power—a wave of unmaking truth. The statues' eyes turned black. The priests' chants grew frantic.
Solan looked to Kaelir. In that moment, he remembered something vital: fire devours lies.
He screamed one syllable—Vareth—and the reliquary fragment flared. A pulse of binding light lanced through the chamber. It struck the twin, shattering runes, forging shards of mirror that dissolved into dust.
The twin's scream fractured reality. Statues cracked apart. Priests collapsed, their bones unspoken in song. The mirror shattered.
Only Solan remained, kneeling amidst the wreckage. The reliquary fragment hung in his palm, dimming.
The aftermath was silent but for Solan's ragged breaths. Kaelir entered, face pale. "By shadow… you did it."
Solan stood, pressing the fragment to his chest. "He was me. And not me. A lore-bound phantom feeding on my stolen echoes."
Kaelir knelt. "What happens to him now?"
Solan closed his eyes. "He's gone. Now I must reclaim what was taken from both of us."
He held the fragment aloft. "This belongs to the reliquary—unshattered. We must return it."
Kaelir nodded. "Then let us finish what we began at the Coast."
Outside the temple, the wind carried a new whisper:
"One name torn, one name born."
And Solan felt a piece of himself return. A fragment of memory that had slipped away in the Trial of Unspoken Names. He remembered a lullaby. A promise of dawn. A vow spoken beneath a sea of stars.
He would not lose it again.
Together, Solan and Kaelir vanished into the night, bound by broken mirrors and reforged identities—pursuing a single truth: that some names, once spoken, can never be unlearned.