The clearing shifted.
The forest groaned as if rejecting the two figures that had appeared. Reality rippled in waves of static harmony, distorting light and sound around them.
The Echo Twins—identical silhouettes cloaked in reflective glass—stood perfectly still. Their voices, when they spoke, did not echo—they layered, one always finishing the other's thoughts like a second voice in a song.
> "You've deviated."
"From the Codex's design."
"The Composition must resolve."
"We are the editors."
Aeren narrowed his eyes and instinctively raised the Codex.
> Codex Alert: Harmonic Threat Identified – Dual Entities.
Codename: Echo Twins. Class: Temporal Recursion.
Lyssa drew her blade. "What are they?"
"They're reflections," Aeren said. "Of choices I never made."
Without warning, the Echo Twins split—one moving forward, the other backward. Their footsteps rewrote the ground beneath them, turning soil to staves, and grass to warped notation.
Then they sang.
Aeren winced as the sound struck him—disorienting, a wave of deja vu. Every note felt like something he'd once heard but forgotten.
> "Verse Rewind: Regret Loop."
(Effect: Target relives critical failure until emotional collapse.)
Aeren collapsed to one knee, visions rushing through his mind.
His childhood. His mother's song. The night she burned for composing a forbidden Verse.
He saw himself, again and again, choosing not to act—failing to speak up, to intervene, to create.
---
Lyssa lunged at the nearer Twin, blade slicing through the air. But the Twin vanished, reappearing behind her, mirroring her movement in reverse. Each strike was predicted, countered, undone.
"They're looping us," she growled.
"No," Aeren whispered, pushing against the psychic storm, "they're using my own unresolved past as a weapon."
> "Let it consume you."
"Let it undo the Verse."
"You are not worthy of the melody you've stolen."
---
Suddenly, the Codex flared.
Not with Aeren's will—but with something deeper.
> Resonance Surge: Emotional Anchor Detected – Origin Memory.
A single, quiet melody pierced the loop.
It was the first song Aeren ever heard—his mother humming in a field of white lilies.
Simple. Pure. Real.
He stood up.
"I'm not ashamed of my past," he said. "I built my melody on it."
He sang.
Not in fury. Not in defiance.
But in remembrance.
The Verse glowed—blue fire becoming golden thread, weaving through the Echo Twins' attack. The loop broke. The reflections faltered.
> "What is this?"
"New Verse?"
"Uncatalogued…"
Aeren raised the Codex.
> "Verse One – Hymn of Becoming."
(Effect: Overrides all reflective effects with evolving resonance.)
He pointed it at the Twins and released a pulse.
Light and song collided. The Echo Twins shattered—splintering into thousands of tiny, singing fragments—then vanished.
Silence returned.
---
Lyssa stood, breathing hard.
"You okay?"
Aeren nodded slowly, eyes distant. "They weren't trying to kill me. They were trying to rewrite me."
He looked to the sky.
"But someone's conducting this whole thing from behind the veil."
---
In the Outer Verse
The Conductor smiled beneath his veil.
"So, the Composer survives his first editorial challenge. Very well."
He turned to the shadows beyond the mirror.
> "Let the Second Choir fall.
Let the world feel what happens when the Codex plays without a Composer."