Chapter 14: Two Minds, One Fate
Kael blinked, once, twice, and then pressed trembling fingers to their temple. The pain was a distant echo now. But something else stirred within them an echo that wasn't their own.
"You're breathing too fast," came Riven's voice, smooth and familiar, inside their head.
Kael startled so violently they nearly fell off the edge of the broken altar. Aeris grabbed their wrist, steadying them with a furrowed brow.
"Easy," she said softly. "You've just had half your soul remade. Try not to panic."
Kael turned to her, pupils dilated, heart racing. "He's he's in my head. I can hear him."
"Not just hear," Aeris corrected. "You're linked. Bonded. Soul-merged. This isn't a tether. It's fusion."
Thorne approached with careful, slow steps. His coral armor hummed with residual magic. "Can we unbind it?"
"No," Aeris said. "Not without killing both of them."
Kael swallowed. "Riven. Say something again."
"Are you alright?" came the reply, a whisper behind Kael's eyes, warm as candlelight and jagged as broken stone.
Kael gasped. "You… feel guilt. You didn't want this."
Riven was still slumped on the ground a few feet away, chest rising shallowly, unconscious. Yet his mind wasn't.
"I'd rather give you my power than lose you."
"Stop talking like you're dying," Kael whispered aloud, then looked at Aeris. "Can he hear my thoughts too?"
"Only when you direct them," she said. "But strong emotion… bleeds. So be careful what you feel."
Kael's pulse jumped.
They turned to Riven, knelt beside him, and pressed a hand over his sternum.
"Wake up," they whispered. "You don't get to dump your demons into me and then check out."
His eyes opened slowly. No longer silver but threaded with gold. A reflection of Kael's own.
He looked… undone. Fragile in a way Kael had never seen.
"You survived," he rasped.
"So did you."
Riven chuckled weakly. "Debatable."
Kael curled their fingers into his tunic. "You didn't ask. You didn't give me a choice."
"I didn't have time to," he said, voice hoarse. "And I wouldn't have survived long enough to explain it anyway."
Aeris cleared her throat. "We don't have long. The Vein is collapsing where the ritual was performed. We need to leave."
Thorne added, "There's a safehold not far Relewyn Keep. It's Vein-fortified. We can rest there."
Kael stood, but the ground swayed beneath them. Riven caught them instinctively and they both froze.
They felt it.
A pulse. Like two heartbeats syncing. Like magnetism snapping into place.
Kael flinched. "Don't touch me."
Riven let go immediately.
"I'm sorry."
"I know," Kael whispered. "I felt that too."
Relewyn Keep was carved into the mountainside, hidden behind veils of enchanted fog and locked with blood-signed runes.
Kiel and Laeth scouted ahead, their forms flickering between wolf and human as they leapt across the cliffs.
Inside the Keep, the group gathered around the hearth, silence thick between them.
Kael sat on a cushioned bench, staring into the fire. Riven leaned against the far wall, eyes closed but not asleep.
Aeris watched them both.
"Do you feel different?" she asked Kael.
Kael shrugged. "Yes. No. I don't know. There's… weight in my chest. Like I swallowed a star. Or a nightmare."
A chuckle echoed in their head.
"It's a bit of both," Riven's voice said.
Kael scowled at him. "Stop that."
Riven blinked open his eyes. "Didn't say anything."
"You thought it loud enough for me to hear."
Riven straightened slowly. "You'll get used to it."
"I don't want to get used to it!" Kael snapped. "I didn't ask for your curse, your guilt, or your voice in my head!"
Riven's jaw clenched. "Would you have preferred to die?"
"Yes!" Kael shouted. "Maybe!"
Everyone in the room stilled.
Even the fire crackled awkwardly.
Kael stood abruptly and stormed out into the moonlight, the freezing air slapping their face.
They stopped at the edge of the cliff, trying to steady their breath. The wind whipped their cloak around them, and still their thoughts roared.
"I'm sorry."
It wasn't spoken aloud.
Riven's voice inside them again.
"I didn't mean to steal your choice. I just… couldn't lose you like I lost him."
Kael closed their eyes.
"You loved someone before me," they murmured.
"Yes."
"What happened?"
Silence.
Then:
"I was the one who killed him."
Kael's breath caught.
They turned and Riven stood there, eyes downcast, the wind catching his silver hair.
"He asked me to. Before the curse overtook him. Before the madness drowned him."
Kael's voice cracked. "And now you think this is redemption? Giving me your curse?"
"No," he said. "This isn't redemption. This is punishment. And I chose it. Freely."
Kael stared at him, and for a moment they saw both Riven the monster and Riven the man. Twisting in the same breath.
"You should hate me," he whispered.
Kael's voice was quiet. "I don't know what I feel."
They turned away.
And Riven let them go.
Back inside, Aeris unfurled a scroll Kael didn't recognize.
"This came from the Moth Oracle," she said, setting it on the table. "Delivered through dreamlight."
Kael leaned over it. The ink glowed faintly.
> The mirror is cracked. The flame walks beside the void. The time to choose has not yet come, but the path narrows. Beware the voice that speaks in your own tone. One soul is not enough to hold what waits.
Kael's blood ran cold.
"'One soul is not enough,'" they whispered.
Aeris nodded grimly. "The fusion changed you. You're not just Veinborn anymore. You're something else."
"Mirrorborn," Riven said quietly.
Everyone turned.
"That's what they called me after I killed Ilias. A soul fractured by fate. A reflection of what should never exist."
Kael met his gaze. "Then we're both broken."
He offered the faintest nod.
"And now," Aeris said, "we need to decide what to do with that power. Because something's coming. Something old. And it's hunting you both."
Kael touched the runes that now bloomed across their chest, glowing faintly beneath their tunic.
"Then let it come," they said.
But inside their mind, Riven whispered:
"This is only the beginning."