The shard in the furnace-eyed figure’s hand burned like a star, gold and blue woven together. Jason’s chest ached as if a hook were tearing through what remained of his ember.His body swayed, ash drifting from his arms where flesh had begun to split into light. Yet he did not falter. “Aria,” he rasped.The figure smiled, and the storm around them hushed to hear it. Her voice rolled across the void like molten bells.“I am she, Jason. Not a shard, not a fracture, not a broken echo scattered across dying realms. I am her whole. All of her, without contradiction. Stronger. Perfect.”Jason’s throat constricted. For one heartbeat, just one, he believed. The tilt of her head, the curve of her lips, the rhythm of her breath, they were Aria’s.Not imitation, not mere shadow. Real. And yet, His fists clenched. “No. You’re missing something.”Her golden eyes flared. “And what is that?”He swallowed hard, his body threatening collapse. “Her doubt. Her fear. Her stubbornness. Her fragility. Her

Jason’s chest was splitting. The shards burned inside him like coals shoved beneath his ribs, each one pulsing to the rhythm of her voice.But it wasn’t his name she called. Over and over, clear as light through glass, he heard her whispering another. Soft. Tender. Sometimes frantic. Sometimes furious.He didn’t recognize it. That made it worse. Jason staggered, one hand pressed against the jagged scars of light carved across his chest. “It’s not real,” he muttered.His voice shook, half to himself, half to the shards gnawing at his ember. “It’s the Ancient playing tricks. It’s not her.”But the warmth of one shard, the memory she’d never meant him to hear, throbbed against his ribs like protest. And he couldn’t ignore that either.The rift ahead yawned wider, spilling light so sharp it cut. The shards dragged him toward it, tugging like chains inside his flesh. Jason gritted his teeth and stepped in.The fracture opened into a corridor of stars collapsing one by one. They burst into

The chamber shook with her voice. Jason staggered under the weight of it, the sound wrapping around him like fire and silk, unbearable in its beauty.Aria. Alive. Clear. He wanted to collapse, wanted to weep, until he heard who she was speaking to. Not him. “You came. I thought I was lost.”Her words carried warmth, relief, a softness Jason had prayed to hear again. But they weren’t for him. They spilled toward the silhouette standing in the blaze.Jason’s lungs froze. The shards inside him thrashed violently, each one trying to tear itself free. He clutched his chest, gasping against the fire.“No,” he whispered. His voice cracked like glass. “I’m here. I’m the one”The chamber pulsed, and her voice drowned him out. “I can’t fight alone anymore. Please. Please, don’t let me disappear.”Jason roared her name, but his cry was swallowed by light. She poured everything toward the faceless shape. Confession. Rage. Begging.The torrent of words was alive, rich, tangled in all the contradic

Jason’s body was a battlefield. Every shard inside him screamed to look, to rip the mask of light away and face whatever truth stood before him. But Aria’s voice rang through him like a chain wrapped around his ember: Don’t. If you love me, don’t.So he kept his eyes shut, kneeling on the burning floor, chest heaving. The silhouette leaned closer, its radiance spilling across his skin. He felt its heat like breath against his face, but he refused. The chamber did not forgive him for resisting.A sound like glass cracking split the silence. Jason flinched as the walls around him fractured, light dripping down like liquid fire. Through the fissures came visions, stabbing straight into his skull.He saw Aria, but twisted. Her smile, turned cruel. Her tears, turned to laughter. Her whispers, not his name but the other’s, spoken with hunger.The shards in his chest flared, vibrating like blades, trying to force his eyelids open. Jason clenched his fists until blood spilled into the light.

Jason tumbled through the rift like a shard caught in a hurricane. Light and void twisted around him until there was no direction, no up or down, only the tearing pull of possibility. His ember screamed in his chest, but he forced himself not to black out.When the fall broke, he hit ground that wasn’t ground at all, black glass, cracked and endless, reflecting not his own face but Aria’s.Hundreds of Arias. Thousands. Every reflection a different version. One wept, One smiled, One turned her back, One bled, One kissed a stranger’s shadow. Jason staggered to his feet, fists trembling. “What is this?”The unface was already walking across the fractured plain, shards swirling in its hollow sockets. “Her choices. Her might-have-beens. The weight you cannot bear.”From the glass, one reflection peeled free, stepping into the rift as flesh and breath. It was Aria, but thinner, frailer, with eyes hollowed by surrender. She looked at Jason with exhaustion.“Why fight?” she whispered. “Why bu