Rise Of The Mirror King

Chapter 14: The Space Between

I waited until I was alone before I let myself fall apart, just a little.

Astrid had bought the "I'm fine" for about as long as it took her to finish her sentence about moonroot elixirs, which was to say, not at all. She'd walked me to my room anyway, made me drink water like that fixed anything, and left only after I promised — badly, unconvincingly — that I'd sleep it off.

I had no intention of sleeping.

"Grey."

The screen flickered to life at the foot of my bed, patient as ever, infuriating as ever.

"Yes, Lord Symon."

"I need you to explain something, and I need you to actually explain it this time. Not the version where you say three words and let me sit in existential crisis for a week."

"I make no promises."

"Grey."

"Very well. What would you like explained?"

I sat forward, elbows on my knees. "I was standing in the guild hall. One second I'm listening to Astrid talk about moonroot, the next I'm in a hospital bed on Earth holding my mother's hand. Then I'm back in the hall like nothing happened, mid-sentence, same conversation."

"That is an accurate summary."

"That's not an explanation."

"You didn't ask a question yet."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Fine. What just happened to me?"

"You experienced a consciousness shift."

"Groundbreaking. Keep going."

"Time does not move at the same rate in both worlds. What feels like six days on Earth may equate to several weeks in Odbeara, or the reverse, depending on conditions I am not fully able to calculate."

I sat with that a second. It matched — horribly, precisely. Six days in that hospital bed. Weeks of my life spent here, walking, talking, killing, grieving a sister who wasn't technically mine and somehow entirely was.

"Okay. So the clocks don't match. Fine. That's — actually, that's not fine, that's deeply unsettling, but continue."

"Additionally, you do not travel between the two locations."

"I felt myself go somewhere, Grey."

"You experienced the sensation of transition. Physically, you remain in both places at all times. Your soul is not divided between two locations — it is singular, and it is present in both. What shifts is which location currently holds your active awareness."

I stared at the fire in silence for a moment, trying to make that land somewhere reasonable in my head.

"So my body's just sitting in that hospital bed right now. Empty."

"Not empty. Simply unattended by your conscious mind. Your body on Earth continues functioning at a baseline level — breathing, heart rate, autonomic processes — the same way your body here would continue standing upright for a few seconds if your attention shifted away mid-conversation, which," Grey added, with what I could have sworn was a note of dry amusement, "it did, earlier today, in front of several guildmates."

"Wonderful. Add that to the list of things making me look deranged in front of new coworkers."

"You held eye contact and appeared to blink normally throughout. Miss Astrid noted only a brief change in your expression."

"Small mercies." I dragged a hand down my face. "Okay. New question. Who's driving the switch? Because it clearly isn't me. I didn't decide to visit my mother mid-lecture. I don't imagine I'll decide the next time either."

A pause. Longer than I liked.

"I do not know."

"You don't know."

"I do not control the shifts, nor do I have the ability to predict them. Based on available data, they appear to correlate with moments of significant emotional or physiological intensity on either side — but correlation is not the same as cause, and I cannot guarantee that pattern will hold."

I let that sit, turning it over, looking for the part that was actually going to ruin my week.

There it was.

"So if I'm mid-fight here," I said slowly, "and something happens on Earth — my mother has a bad moment, a doctor says something, anything intense enough — I could just. Leave. Mid-swing."

"That is a possibility I cannot rule out."

"And if I'm unconscious on Earth, and something happens over here intense enough to yank me back—"

"Your body on Earth would remain as it currently is. Machines are, I am told, quite capable of maintaining a body without active consciousness."

"That's not comforting."

"I did warn you I make no promises."

I stood, paced to the window, stared out at the two moons hanging over land I still hadn't fully learned the shape of. Somewhere out there, wards held back things with claws and axes and mana that could turn five bodies into one screaming creature. And apparently, at any moment, with zero warning, I could just — blink out of the fight entirely, leaving whatever was left of me standing there to fend for itself.

"Great," I said, to no one in particular. "So I'm not just running on borrowed time. I'm running on borrowed attention."

"That is one way to phrase it."

"Is there a better way?"

"Not one that would improve your mood."

I almost laughed. Almost.

"Grey."

"Yes, Lord Symon."

"Next time this happens — mid-fight, mid-anything — is there any way to warn me? A countdown, a headache, literally anything?"

"I will monitor for patterns. I cannot promise accuracy."

"That's the most Grey answer you've ever given me."

"I try to remain consistent."

I turned back toward the fire, and for a long moment I just stood there, letting the weight of it actually settle — not the sadness of the hospital room this time, but the colder, sharper fear underneath it. I was on two worlds with one attention span, and absolutely no say in when it moved.

"Note to self," I muttered. "Try not to die in either location. Apparently I won't get much warning either way."

"A reasonable goal," Grey said. "Though I would rate your odds as moderate, at best."

"You're really not helping."

"I am helping. You dislike the help."

I sat back down on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing, and thought about my mother's hand around mine, and the sound of a heart monitor that had, for one strange, fractured moment, felt more urgent than any sword swing I'd survived in Odbeara.

Two worlds.

One version of me, stretched thin across both.

And no idea, none at all, which one might need me next.