A faint smile tugged at Shí'àn’s lips.

  "Good. You want to become stronger." Her eyes didn't waver.

  Slowly, gently, she lifted the mirror from Alice’s fingers. The motion felt oddly… intimate.

  But before Alice could react, before she could even breathe, Shí'àn threw the mirror to the ground.

  It shattered into a million shards, a cacophony to echo the sound of Alice's gasp.

  "Now," Shí'àn said.

  "Close your eyes.”

  Alice froze. Her heart raced.

  "W-What?" she stammered.

  "You shattered it!"

  Shí'àn remained calm, unwavering.

  "It was already broken."

  She took a step closer, her voice softening, almost tender.

  “This isn’t about fixing the pieces, Alice.”

  “It’s about learning to live without the mirror.”

  A beat. Then:

  “Now… close your eyes.”

  Alice took a shaky breath, then obeyed.

  Her eyes slid shut, a rush of vulnerability flooding through her.

  She felt strangely exposed, blind in more ways than one.

  But somehow, standing there in the inky darkness behind her closed eyelids...it didn't seem as terrifying as it should be.

  "Okay," she whispered. "Now what?”

  Shí'àn didn't respond. Instead, the silence deepened.

  Alice tried to concentrate on something, anything.

  A thought. A sound. A feeling.

  But all she heard was her heartbeat, pounding faster than ever.

  Then, a soft whisper sliced through the silence.

  "Can you hear something?"

  Alice's brow furrowed. "Hear something?" she echoed, confusion fluttering in her chest.

  "Close. Listen closely.”

  She obeyed, straining to catch something, anything, in the emptiness.

  And then, so faint it could have been her imagination, she heard it:

  A low, quiet beat.

  A pulse, steady and slow.

  "I...I think so," she said slowly, opening one eye to a crack. "There's a...a sort of...rhythm. Like a pulse, almost.”

  Shí'àn tilted her head slightly.

  “Don’t open your eyes.”

  Alice flinched, then closed it again.

  “Good,” Shí’à?n murmured. “Now, don’t name it. Don’t explain it. Just… feel it.”

  The pulse grew stronger in Alice’s awareness, a rhythm beneath everything, like blood beneath skin, or roots deep underground.

  And as she listened…

  a word surfaced from the dark:

  “Echo…”

  It was a whisper, barely more than a breath, but as it echoed through the silence, Alice felt something inside her shift.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The pulse, Echo, seemed to match her heartbeat, a strange kind of synchronization that sent a shiver down her spine.

  "I..." she began, but trailed off, unsure what to say. "It feels like...it's part of me. In a way. Like..."

  "Like a heartbeat," Shí'àn supplied.

  Alice nodded. "Echo..." she repeated.

  Shí'àn’s voice was a whisper now, just above the sound of the pulse.

  “You were never meant to find yourself in broken glass, Alice.”

  “You were meant to find yourself in this.”

  Another pause. Soft. Heavy.

  Then:

  “Open your eyes.”

  Alice obeyed, her eyelids fluttering open.

  For a moment, she just stood there, blinking in the dim light.

  There were no shattered pieces of glass lying shattered around them. Instead…

  ...the air was filled with thousands of small, crystal shards.

  Some dangled from the air, others hovered just off the floor.

  And amid the fragments, Shí'àn remained, a shadow in shadow, watching quietly.

  Alice stared around her, awed.

  There was a kind of terrible, beautiful symmetry to the shards. Each piece was broken, but at the same time, it was whole.

  The shards glittered even in the soft, grey light, sending sparks of color across the stone walls. Alice took a step toward one, but Shí'àn stopped her.

  "Don't touch it."

  Alice froze. "What? Why?”

  Shí'àn's gaze never wavered.

  "You'll understand soon. But for now, you can't touch."

  Alice hesitated, then nodded faintly. "Okay. I won't."

  She glanced up at her. "Can I ask you something?"

  Shí'àn inclined her head. "Go ahead.”

  Alice took a breath. "Why… me? Why show me all this? You barely know me. And you said we’re both broken, so why help me?"

  She paused, then added in a softer voice:

  "...Don’t you need saving too?”

  Shí'àn was quiet for a long moment.

  Then, just once, her expression cracked. Not in sadness, not in pain...but in something deeper.

  Recognition.

  "Maybe I do," she said softly.

  She looked past Alice, into the drifting shards still hanging like frozen rain.

  "But sometimes," she murmured, "saving someone else… is the first step to saving yourself."

  Another pause, and then:

  “And you? You remind me of someone I failed to save.”

  The words were quiet, almost lost in the silence.

  But they hit Alice like a punch in the stomach.

  A sudden stab of emotion, not understanding, but empathy.

  A person you failed to save…

  For a moment, she was struck speechless.

  Then, slowly, she found her voice.

  "Who… who did you fail?”

  Shí'àn didn’t look at her.

  "Someone who needed help."

  There was something in her voice, a weight that went deeper than words. Alice felt a surge of questions rise in her chest, but there was something in the set of Shí'àn's jaw that said: Not now.

  She forced herself to swallow them down, pushing aside the urge to press for more.

  A new problem would arise in the form of...the Deadly Sin of Lust, who appeared in a puff of darkness behind Shí'àn.

  "Finally found you," Lust giggled, sashaying towards Alice with a dark grin.

  Alice tensed instantly, the new voice snapping her out of the strange, intimate moment. She glanced warily at the shadowy, scantily clad figure now approaching.

  "You...again... What do you want?" she asked, forcing herself to sound steady.

  "You," Lust purred, twirling a strand of dark hair around her finger.

  Her crimson eyes locked onto Alice’s with hypnotic intensity.

  “I’ve been watching you for ages,” she whispered, stepping closer, too close.

  “Such beautiful pain… such delicious loneliness.”

  Shí'àn didn’t move at first, just exhaled slowly, like a storm holding its breath.

  Then:

  “Back away.”

  Alice shivered. There was a dark, dangerous edge to Shí'àn's voice that made even her skin crawl.

  Lust paused, gaze flicking towards Shí'àn for just a brief moment.

  "Oh?" she said, arching an eyebrow. "And if I don't?”

  "Then I'll force you."

  The words weren’t a threat or a menace. It was nothing more than a calm, dangerous statement.

  And for a moment...Lust wavered.

  Her smirk faltered, just for a blink, before she tossed her head and let out a scoff.

  "Big talk. How exactly do you plan on doing that, hmm?”

  Shí'àn didn’t answer with words.

  Instead, the air shifted.

  The floating crystal shards, still hovering like frozen rain, all turned toward Lust at once, glinting with cold, sharp edges. A low hum filled the chamber, the Echo, growing louder, sharper… until it pulsed like a heartbeat in reverse.

  Shí'àn’s voice came again, soft but absolute:

  “The same way I shattered your last vessel.”

  Lust’s smile froze. Her crimson eyes narrowed, just slightly.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” she hissed, though her stance shifted, ever so subtly, toward defense.

  Shí'àn took one slow step forward.

  “Try me.”

  Behind her, the shards trembled, aligned, as if awaiting command.

  The Echo deepened, a drumbeat of broken things remembering their sound.

  Alice stayed still, caught between awe and fear…but deep down, a spark lit.

  For the first time… she didn’t feel powerless.

  Lust stared at the shifting shards, then slowly raised her gaze to meet Shí'àn’s.

  "You might try to shatter my form," she said softly, "but I'm a Sin, you can't stop me forever. I'll always come back, again and again, and, "

  "Not if I break you first."

  The words weren’t a threat. They were a certainty.

  Lust froze, eyes narrowing.

  "And how...exactly...do you intend to do that?”

  There was something cold and dark in Shí'àn’s eyes that made even Lust falter.

  "You're not the only one who can break things, Lust," she said softly, “and I promise you: if you don’t leave right now...I'll break you so badly there will be nothing left to repair. You'll be shattered into pieces so small they won't even remember being broken. You hear me, Lust?"

  A long, tense pause...then,

  "Or...you can walk away now. But know this."

  "The next time you touch her," Shí'àn said, voice low and cutting like frozen glass,

  "I won’t warn you again."

  The shards pulsed in unison, a chorus of broken echoes, sharp as knives.

  Lust’s smirk finally cracked. Not from fear, but recognition.

  She took a slow step back, eyes flicking to Alice one last time.

  “This isn’t over...I'm going to find a new, powerful vessel, and then you will be sorry,” she whispered… then dissolved into shadows that curled like smoke and vanished. Eerie silence followed.