The boy had stopped calling Alpha by name.
Not out of defiance, he was just quieter now, more withdrawn. He followed when Alpha moved, ate when told, but the space between them was widening. Not in steps, but in silence.
That morning, the boy flinched when Alpha reached to adjust his collar.
"I'm not a baby," he muttered, tugging the fabric away himself.
Alpha didn't respond. Didn't scold. Didn't soften. He just turned and kept walking.
But Selene noticed.
"He's afraid of you," she said, hours later, when the boy was out of earshot.
Alpha looked at her.
"Of me, or what's inside me?"
"Does it matter?" she replied. "To him, they're the same."
They sat beneath a leaning tree, watching clouds stretch across the sky like old bruises. The air smelled like storm.
Selene pulled her cloak tighter, eyes on the horizon.
"When I was young, I had a sister."
Alpha blinked. That wasn't a story he'd expected.
Selene went on, voice low.
"We were both chosen as twin-wielders. But only one of us could remain. I loved her. I still do, in a way."" But I made my choice. And she… didn't scream when I drove the blade through her."
She paused.
"Sometimes I think she understood. Sometimes I think that's worse."
Alpha swallowed, staring down at his own hands. The boy's fear. Selene's sorrow.
And the creeping sense that he was being shaped by forces older and crueler than choice.
"What should I do?" he asked. The words felt raw.
Selene turned to him slowly.
"You protect the boy. Even if he hates you for it. Even if he becomes your Echo one day."
"Because if you lose him…""Then there's no one left to remind you of who you were."
The storm hit harder than expected.
Wind screamed through the skeletal trees. Rain fell in sheets, stinging skin and soaking cloth. They found shelter in the hollow bones of a burned-out church, its roof half-collapsed, its altar long desecrated by rot and ash.
Alpha lit a fire with trembling hands. The boy didn't help. He sat in a corner, arms wrapped around his knees, eyes hollow.
Selene watched them both. Silent. Cold. Her expression unreadable.
"You've been seeing it, haven't you?" she said softly. "The Echo."
Alpha didn't answer. Didn't need to.
The hallucinations had grown stronger. Dreams that bled into waking. Whispers in the back of his skull. A reflection in the water that didn't blink when he did.
The boy shivered, still soaked.
Alpha pulled off his cloak, moved to drape it over him, but the boy flinched again.
"Don't touch me," he snapped, voice shaking."You're wrong. Something's wrong with you."
Alpha froze.
The fire crackled between them.
"Ever since that sword… ever since she showed up " the boy pointed at Selene, ", you've been different. You look at me like you don't know who I am."
Alpha sat back slowly. His throat tightened.
"I'm trying to protect you."
The boy's eyes shimmered.
"Then stop becoming the thing I need protection from."
That struck deeper than any blade.
Selene stood, the firelight catching the scar that curved along her cheek.
"I told you," she murmured. "This sword chooses echoes. Not wielders. And the more you fight it "
"The more it fights you."
Alpha didn't look at her. Couldn't.
The boy was crying now, silently, like he hated himself for it.
Alpha crossed the distance. Sat beside him. Not touching. Just… there.
"I don't know what I'm turning into," he said quietly. "But I swear to you, I'm still trying to be me."
The boy didn't respond.
For a while, there was only rain. And breath. And the slow warmth of fire.
Then, a hand, small and shaking, touched Alpha's wrist.
Just barely.
But it was there.
Selene turned her face toward the flames, and said nothing.
Dawn came like a bruised breath, gray, cold, uncertain.
The fire had died sometime in the night. Smoke coiled from the embers in sluggish spirals, like ghosts unwilling to leave.
Alpha was still asleep, curled against the church wall, Vanitas resting across his lap. His brow twitched, caught in some half-formed dream. Selene sat in shadow, unmoving, eyes open.
And the boy… was already awake.
He moved slowly, quietly. His fingers were stiff, still cold. He rubbed them together and crouched near the firepit, staring into the weak ash like it might blink first.
He glanced at Alpha. At Selene. Then down at the tiny bundle of sticks he'd gathered from what remained of the pews.
They were damp. Most of them. But one or two had stayed dry inside the old hymn books.
He tried to remember how Alpha did it. The flint. The angle. The patience. He messed up the first time. The second. The third.
But on the fourth strike, A flicker. A spark.
He held his breath, cupping the ember like it was something sacred.
Selene watched from the dark, silent. She made no move to help.
"I can do it," the boy whispered to himself.
And he did.
A small flame bloomed to life. Tiny. Fragile. But real.
He sat back, watching it grow. The warmth touched his face gently, like a memory of comfort.
Alpha stirred. His eyes blinked open. He looked first at the flame… then at the boy beside it.
For a moment, neither of them said a word.
Then,
"You lit it," Alpha said softly.
The boy didn't look at him.
"You were tired."
Alpha nodded slowly.
The boy glanced over at him.
"You were crying in your sleep."
Alpha stiffened. His gaze dropped.
"Was I?"
The boy nodded. Then added, without quite knowing why:
"I didn't leave. Even though I wanted to."
Alpha's chest ached.
He looked at the boy, the dirt on his cheek, the soot on his fingers, the hollow beneath his eyes that shouldn't belong to someone that young.
"Thank you," Alpha said. And meant it.
The boy didn't smile. But the next time the fire popped and sparks jumped, he didn't flinch.
Selene turned her gaze to the growing light.
"He'll be stronger than you, one day."
Alpha glanced at her.
"I hope so."
The fire crackled softly now. Warm enough to chase off the edge of the chill, quiet enough to let the silence stretch and settle.
Selene knelt beside the flames, her eyes reflecting gold and shadow. Alpha sat across from her, his back against the wall, the boy between them, arms loosely wrapped around his legs. No one said anything for a while. And for once… that was enough.
Eventually, the boy broke the silence.
"You said the sword chooses echoes," he said to Selene. "What does that mean?"
She looked at him, surprised.
Not many dared to ask her anything. Not directly.
Selene's voice, when she spoke, was low. Almost gentle.
"Every sword with a name remembers its past. Vanitas remembers too much."
Alpha glanced at the blade. It lay still now, no pulse, no tremor. But even in its silence, it seemed to watch them.
Selene continued.
"In the oldest stories… before the cities fell, before the war cracked the sky, there were two kinds of wielders. Light bearers, who carved order into the world… and Shadow binders, who unraveled it. But both were chosen. And both were cursed."
She touched her chest, just above her heart.
"The Echo is the price. A mirror of you. Everything you deny. Everything you forget. Everything you bury."
The boy swallowed.
"And it comes for you?"
"It doesn't need to," she said softly. "You bring it with you, every step. It only needs to… wake up."
Alpha's breath caught.
His dreams. The shifting reflections. That voice whispering things he never remembered saying.
"Did yours… wake up?" he asked her.
For the first time in days, Selene looked uncertain.
Her eyes dipped to the fire. Shadows danced across her face, softening the sharpness, curling her mouth in something that wasn't quite sadness. Or maybe it was.
"I had a twin," she said. "Real. Not just a reflection."
Alpha straightened slightly.
Selene's voice stayed low.
"We were both chosen. Two wielders. Same blood. Same face. We trained together. Fought together. Survived together. Until…"
The flames shifted, casting light upward like memory trying to surface.
"The Ritual of Severance. The Old Rite. One Echo must die, or both will fade."
The boy leaned in slightly, eyes wide.
"And you killed her?"
Selene looked up.
There was no rage. No pain. Just the hollow shape left by them.
"No. I didn't."
Alpha blinked. The boy stared.
"She chose me," Selene said.
Silence fell like ash.
"She stepped forward when the blade turned," she whispered. "And she smiled. I didn't understand then."
Her eyes glistened, but nothing fell.
"I do now."
Alpha stared into the fire, heart tightening. The boy shifted closer, pressing slightly into his side.
"Do you hate yourself for it?" Alpha asked softly.
Selene didn't answer at first.
Then,
"Every day. But I try to honor what she gave me… by being more than I was."
The fire crackled. The wind had died outside. The world held its breath.
The boy looked at both of them, then down at his own hands.
"I don't want to lose anyone," he said. "Not again."
Alpha placed a hand on the boy's back. Firm. Steady.
"Then we'll fight to make sure you don't."
Selene didn't speak again. But for the first time since they'd met her… she didn't feel quite so far away.