Discordant Echoes

When unchecked virtue reigns alone, harmony decays into discord. Desire without wisdom consumes, courage without balance destroys, wisdom without compassion despairs. Only equilibrium can calm the tremors within and without. - The Republic Codex

In the hours that followed the Uninstrument’s shattering, an uneasy calm settled over the sanctuary. Rain dripped steadily through the broken dome, pooling on the mosaic floor in shimmering puddles. The scent of damp stone and ozone hung in the air. We moved gingerly through the ruins, each of us wrestling with the new reality imposed by the shards embedded in our bodies.

I sat on a fallen beam for a moment, breathing slowly and examining the star - shaped sliver protruding from my chest. The initial shock had subsided, leaving a strange awareness in its place. The shard’s warmth pulsated gently, and with each pulse I caught glimmers of thoughts that didn’t feel entirely mine. If I concentrated, I could perceive faint threads of emotion from those around me: the confusion of Malkeos’s soldiers as they huddled by the cloister archway, the mingled awe and fear of the monks as they whispered prayers of thanks for survival.

Zara found me there, lost in thought. She had pried off the remains of her ruined bindings and rolled her sore shoulders. Aside from scrapes and bruises, she seemed physically unharmed. The shard in her abdomen shone through her tunic like a captured flame. She approached, arms folded tightly as if holding herself together.

“Jameus,” she said softly, ensuring no one else was close enough to overhear. “Tell me honestly - how do you feel?”

I managed a wry half - smile. “Like I’m carrying a piece of the sun in my chest.” My voice quavered despite the attempt at levity. “You?”

Zara huffed a soft, uneasy laugh. “Like I’ve got a war drum in mine. My heart’s racing and I can’t tell if it’s fear or… something else.” She shook her head. “It’s taking all my willpower not to - ” She made a vague, frustrated gesture. “Not to just do something. Waiting around like this is agony.”

Her usual patience had always been thin, but now I sensed it was nearly nonexistent - burnt away by the shard of Courage amplifying her natural boldness. She was jittery, a foot tapping restlessly against the wet floor.

I rested a hand on her forearm, feeling the tension thrumming in her muscles. “We have to be careful, Zara. These things… they’re throwing us off balance. I can feel it too.”

She closed her eyes briefly and nodded. “I know. It’s just - ” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Every time I look at Malkeos, I feel this surge, like I’m not afraid of him at all, like I could march right over and put my knife to his throat to end this. And it’s taking everything in me to hold back.”

My blood chilled at her admission, not because I doubted her restraint, but because I realized she was echoing what I myself struggled with in a different form. Where she felt reckless courage, I felt a detached clarity that threatened to tip into cold indifference. I had caught myself looking at Malkeos and calculating outcomes with dispassion, as if people were pieces on a board. It scared me.

Before I could respond, a crash echoed from across the sanctuary. We both jumped. One of Malkeos’s soldiers had knocked over a metal candelabra while pacing nervously. The clatter broke the fragile stillness, and everyone’s eyes turned briefly toward the noise. Malkeos, who had been leaning against a pillar catching his breath, snapped something in irritation at the man, then winced and clutched his shard - infused chest.

Even from a distance, I saw Malkeos’s hand trembling when he drew it away from the fragment. The man who once projected invincibility now wore exhaustion on his face. The shard of Desire embedded in him might be sustaining him with unnatural energy, but it was also clearly causing him pain. He was like a boiling vessel, barely keeping the lid on.

Tarin, ever watchful, was already approaching the site of the disturbance to help set the candelabra upright. He muttered calming words to the jittery soldier - something about the shard’s effect, I later learned - and the man managed a shaky nod. Tarin had a gift for cool - headed steadiness which, at this moment, was sorely needed.

Brother Centris and Sister Lora, freed from their restraints, circulated among monks and soldiers alike, quietly tending to injuries. A few of Malkeos’s men recoiled from their touch at first, perhaps ashamed or confused by the gentle aid, but the monks persisted. I watched as Sister Lora pressed a damp cloth to a gash on a trooper’s scalp, murmuring a prayer. The trooper, a young man no older than me, blinked back tears - whether of pain or gratitude or emotional overwhelm, I couldn’t say.

It struck me then: we were all precariously balanced on the edge of chaos. A single act of aggression could send us plummeting. The shards’ influence made that even more dangerous; any spike of emotion from one of us bearers might resonate unpredictably.

“We need to talk to Malkeos soon. Before something happens,” I said to Zara under my breath.

She followed my gaze to Malkeos, who now paced like a caged predator despite his injury. Two of his officers hovered nearby, speaking to him in low, urgent tones. Perhaps reporting on the war outside or the condition of their unit. Malkeos waved them off brusquely. When one reached as if to check his wound, Malkeos snarled and the officer backed away, hands up.

Zara grimaced. “He’s barely holding it together.”

I stood, taking a steadying breath. The shard in my chest glowed softly, as if responding to my resolution. “Then let’s help him before he falls apart.”

We approached the cloister where Malkeos and his remaining loyalists had gathered. Tarin noticed and quickly interposed himself at our side - as both escort and guard. I nodded appreciation to him.

At our approach, Malkeos’s Captain stiffened, hand on his sidearm. But Malkeos raised a hand. “Let them pass,” he said. If his voice was a touch weaker than usual, it still carried authority enough.

We stopped a respectful few paces from Malkeos. Up close, I saw the lines of strain around his eyes, the sheen of sweat on his brow. Rainwater had soaked his cloak, and his dark hair clung to his forehead. The shard in his chest cast an uncanny light upward, making his face a chiaroscuro mask.

“Malkeos,” I began carefully, inclining my head. “We need to discuss what’s happening to us. These shards - ”

He cut me off, tone biting. “Spare me the obvious, boy. We’re all well aware of our newfound adornments.”

Zara bristled at his rudeness. “Awareness isn’t the same as understanding. Or control. You can barely stand without wincing, Malkeos. If we don’t figure this out, those things will kill you. Maybe kill all of us.”

He opened his mouth - likely to snap back defensively - but a sudden tremor rippled through the ground. The lanterns hanging along the cloister swayed. A distant rumble of thunder coincided, but I suspected this was no mere weather quirk. Everyone paused, tense.

The tremor subsided. Malkeos’s eyes darted between us. He understood: time was short.

Lieutenant Quill, the scholarly officer with spectacles, spoke up in a measured tone. “Sir, there are no reports of seismic activity in this region. It could be… related to these anomalies.” He gestured vaguely at the shards.

Malkeos’s jaw clenched. “Your insight is noted, Quill.”

I realized Quill’s presence - and demeanor - indicated not all of Malkeos’s followers were simple brutes. Some were thinkers. Perhaps Malkeos had kept him around for counsel. That could be useful.

“Lieutenant Quill, is it?” I said. “Any theories on what we should do next?”

Quill glanced at his commander for permission to speak, and Malkeos gave a curt nod. “It seems evident these shards correspond to something like the virtues from your ritual, Mr. Jameus. If balanced, they produced harmony - our initial glimpse before… the interruption. Separated, each is causing imbalance in its host.”

Zara muttered, “We’ve noticed.”

Quill continued, adjusting his cracked spectacles. “If the goal is to stabilize, logic suggests we must attempt to reunite them or at least bring them into alignment again. Perhaps a controlled recreation of the ritual - ”

Malkeos barked a humorless laugh. “You suggest we intentionally repeat that fiasco? So that we might explode into even smaller pieces?”

“He might be right,” I interjected softly. “The initial resonance was pure until it was disrupted. What happened after was like… an instrument struck wrongly, making a terrible chord. Now each of us is like a single note blaring on its own.”

Zara tilted her head, following the metaphor. “So we need to get the band back together, is that it?”

Despite the gravity, a small smile tugged at my lips. “In a manner of speaking, yes. We need to somehow play in harmony.”

Malkeos was unconvinced. “Harmony,” he repeated with disdain, but there was a hint of longing buried in that word coming from him. “And I suppose you plan for us to hold hands and sing a hymn?”

I steadied myself and met his gaze. “Not exactly. But we must cooperate, Malkeos. Whatever our differences, this is now literally bigger than us. If we let pride or fear stop us from working together, these shards could unleash something far worse than what we just survived.”

As if to punctuate my statement, a distant shouting came from the direction of the sanctuary’s outer gate. One of Malkeos’s soldiers who had been posted there came jogging into view, helmet off, eyes wide. “Commander! The armies outside… they’ve gone quiet!”

Malkeos frowned. “What do you mean, quiet?”

The soldier swallowed, glancing warily at me and Zara (who stood at Malkeos’s side now as quasi - allies - surely a bizarre sight to him). “Sir, the battle sounds ceased a while ago. Scouts report both sides are just… holding position. There was some kind of strange light and - ” He trailed off, unsure how to even describe it.

“It reached them,” Tarin said quietly, looking at me. “The shockwave or resonance or whatever it was. It must have swept over the battlefield too.”

I recalled the wave of raw harmony that blasted out when the Uninstrument broke. It had made Malkeos’s hardened troopers weep and pray, even as it drove him nearly mad. If such power washed over thousands of soldiers steeped in rage and bloodlust… the emotional whiplash might have been overwhelming. No wonder the fight ground to a halt; they were likely reeling, perhaps terrified by what they felt.

Malkeos cursed under his breath. Perhaps he realized that his plans for conquest were crumbling with each passing minute of that ceasefire, but he also must have realized that if he couldn’t harness the shards, he had no means to capitalize on anything anyway.

He waved the messenger away, who returned to his post.

For a moment, Malkeos stood silent, rain dripping off his shoulders. The tension in him was palpable. Desire incarnate, being forced to wait. I could almost feel his frustration as a pressure in my own shard - as if the virtues resonated subtly against one another even at a distance.

“We will attempt your solution,” Malkeos said at last, each word bitten off. “If only because I refuse to die whimpering in this ruin while the galaxy watches.” He fixed me with a hard stare. “But mark me: if this is a trick, or if you think to use this opportunity to turn my own power against me, I will not hesitate to drag you all into the abyss with me.”

Zara rolled her eyes, clearly resisting the urge to say something cutting. I spoke before she could. “Understood. No tricks. We all want the same thing right now - balance.”

Lieutenant Quill cleared his throat. “Ahem. We should prepare, then. Perhaps the main sanctuary floor where the mosaic is intact? The resonance began there originally.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “We’ll need the resonant stone again.” I gestured to the black round stone set in the center of the mosaic, miraculously unharmed amid the cracks. It had been the focal point for the ritual’s sound. “And we should… remove potential hazards.” I eyed the partly collapsed scaffolding and shattered glass overhead.

Tarin snapped into action. With a purposeful stride he began directing a few of Malkeos’s more able soldiers to clear debris away from the mosaic area. Initially, they balked at taking orders from an enemy knight, but when Malkeos barked “Do as he says!”, they jumped to work.

Within the hour - though time felt elastic and strange as we labored under the shard’s influences - the sanctuary was as ready as it could be. The rain had stopped, and late - afternoon light slanted through the broken dome, illuminating the cleared mosaic in a golden glow.

We had taken a brief respite to tend to ourselves. Zara insisted on finding fresh clothes; she returned in a plain grey tunic borrowed from the monks, one that wouldn’t restrict her movement. Tarin had bound his head wound tightly and flexed his sword arm (though we hoped no swords would be needed). I had drunk a cup of water and wiped the grime and blood from my face, trying to clear my head.

Malkeos had quietly instructed his medic to bandage his chest over the shard as best as possible. Though nothing could staunch the glow, at least the bleeding around it was cleaned. He refused any herbal sedatives offered by the monks.

Brother Centris and Sister Lora gathered the remaining monks in a wide ring around the edges of the hall - close enough to observe and pray, but far enough not to interfere. Malkeos allowed it; perhaps he figured their chanting might even help re - create the ritual atmosphere.

At last, the moment came. The sun was sinking, its light turning the high windows a warm orange. We three shard - bearers stepped toward the center of the mosaic, where that black resonant stone awaited.

My heart thudded against my ribs. I felt sweat on my palms as I remembered how it had felt the first time I attempted this - how hard it had been even without an audience, without a tyrant’s life on the line, without cosmic energies swirling inside me. Could we truly do this in concert?

Zara gave me a small nudge. “You lead, Jameus. This is your show.”

Malkeos stood across from us, arms rigid at his sides. He looked as tense as a drawn bowstring, but he gave a curt nod of agreement. “Proceed, then.”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a moment, centering myself as best I could. Desire, Courage, Wisdom. I silently intoned the words. They were here now in personified force. I had to trust that, despite everything, each of us carried the seeds of the others’ virtues too - enough to find common ground.

“Stand on the triangle points of the mosaic,” I instructed quietly. The floor’s design conveniently had a large triangle inscribed in its center, encircling the resonant stone. I moved to one point; Zara and Malkeos each took one of the others, so that we formed a rough triangle facing each other.

Malkeos grimaced as he moved into place, one hand hovering near his wound. Zara flexed her fingers and rolled her neck, like a fighter preparing for a bout.

I began to chant softly the line my father had taught me: “From the one, the many; from the many, the one.”

Zara joined in immediately. A beat later, Malkeos’s deeper voice followed. Our voices were unsteady at first, out of sync. We adjusted, repeating the phrase again and again until a rhythm emerged.

As we chanted, a hush fell among the onlookers. The only other sound was the distant drip of water and a gentle breeze sighing through the open doorway.

I closed my eyes and focused inward. The shard within me pulsed, and I guided my breathing to fall in time with it. “From the one, the many; from the many, the one.” With each repetition, my voice grew steadier. I imagined the meaning: one artifact into three lives, three lives into one purpose.

The air felt charged, but not violently. A familiar vibration began to hum through the stone underfoot and into my legs.

I opened my eyes just as we finished another recitation - and saw faint ribbons of light connecting each of us to the resonant stone at the center. Blue from me, orange from Zara, golden - red from Malkeos.

Malkeos’s eyes widened slightly as he noticed the same. He kept chanting, though sweat beaded on his forehead from the effort of resisting his shard’s chaotic urges.

I gave a small nod to Tarin, who stood at the rim of the circle with the striker rod in hand. He stepped forward and offered it to me. For a heartbeat, I recalled how Malkeos had forced me at gunpoint to use this tool. Now I took it voluntarily, glancing once at both my companions. Zara’s expression was determined and trusting; Malkeos’s was pained but resolved.

The moment of truth had come again, under far stranger circumstances.

I raised the black rod and struck it down on the resonant stone.

A clear note rang out - strong and pure. It vibrated the air, and my shard responded with a thrill of recognition. The ribbons of light brightened and thickened, linking us in a triangular web of luminescence. Around us, I heard sighs of awe from monks and soldiers alike.

The sound wavered only slightly this time. I sensed discord stirring - likely the shards’ inherent opposition - but we were expecting it. We held firm, continuing the chant underneath the ringing tone, our voices harmonizing in a simple chord.

The light around us intensified. Soon, I couldn’t distinguish Zara or Malkeos beyond their glowing silhouettes, each wrapped in their respective aura. All I could perceive was that we three were pillars connected by bands of energy, forming a single shape - a triangle of light within a sphere of resonant sound.

My consciousness began to slip from the physical. I felt my eyes close involuntarily as a wave of dizziness swept me. But I was not fainting; no, I was transcending. I sensed, rather than saw, Zara and Malkeos likewise being drawn into a non - material space.

The sanctuary fell away. The voices of watchers faded. The hum of the Uninstrument’s core essence enveloped us, and we crossed the threshold into Harmony’s Mirror.