Harmony’s Mirror

To walk the halls of one’s own soul is to face both angel and beast within. In the mirror of harmony, all that is hidden shall be revealed, and all discord laid bare. - The Republic Codex

At first, I could not tell if I stood or floated. A luminous haze surrounded us - blue and silver, like moonlight diffused through water. Gradually, shapes coalesced in the glow. I found myself upon a smooth, mirror - like floor that reflected the starry expanse of a sky above. Yet when I looked up, there was no sky - only an endless void of swirling light and shadow. It was as if we were suspended in the night sky itself, on a platform of polished glass.

Zara was beside me, her hand still clasping mine. On my other side, Malkeos’s grip was cold and trembling in my own. All three of us were present, still linked, our shards shining brilliantly in our chests. In this ethereal place, the fragments’ light was no longer contained - each of us was encircled by a faint aura: golden - red around Malkeos, fiery orange around Zara, and soft blue around me. The colors intermingled at the edges, but did not yet merge.

“Is this… real?” Zara whispered. Her voice echoed softly, as though we stood in a vast cathedral.

“It’s as real as it needs to be,” I answered, though I wasn’t entirely sure myself. I sensed we were in a realm of the mind or spirit - a shared vision forged by the Uninstrument’s power. Harmony’s Mirror, I recalled calling it, and now here we were, inside that mirror.

Malkeos released our hands abruptly and took a step forward. The mirror - floor rippled like water under his boot, but held. “A construct of the relic,” he said under his breath, scanning the horizon of darkness and distant glimmers. “Remarkable.” Despite the bravado of his tone, I could hear it wavering. He was unsettled.

We slowly formed a small triangle, facing outward. In every direction, the mirror - floor stretched, sometimes reflecting our figures, sometimes reflecting something else entirely: I caught glimpses of movement beneath the surface, as though scenes played out deep below the glassy sheen.

Zara peered downward and gasped. “Jameus - Malkeos - look.” She pointed.

Beneath our feet, the mirror’s reflection shifted and came into focus. I saw an image of Zara, much younger - perhaps ten years old - huddled in a narrow alleyway. Rain poured down (tiny droplets seemed to splash against the underside of the glass beneath us). Little Zara clutched a scrap of cloth around her shoulders for warmth. Her face was dirty, eyes hollow with hunger. She was alone.

Zara inhaled sharply next to me. “That’s me… in Aurin, when I was a child. The night I nearly…” She trailed off.

The scene played on. The young Zara curled up behind a barrel as a group of rough - looking men passed by, arguing loudly. One swung a fist at another and they began to brawl, stumbling into the alley. Little Zara flinched back, knocking over a tin can. One of the men heard and rounded on her hiding spot, drawing a knife. “Who’s there?” he snarled. The child pressed herself against the wall, eyes wide with fear.

The thug advanced - only to be stopped by a swift blur dropping from above. An older teen, a girl with a mane of tangled hair and fierce eyes, landed protectively in front of the younger Zara. She brandished a broken shard of glass like a knife.

I felt a jolt of recognition - was that also Zara? No, likely an older street urchin who had taken pity on her younger self.

The thug, nursing a bruised jaw from the surprise attack, cursed and retreated with his drunken companions, deciding it wasn’t worth the trouble. The older girl turned to little Zara, who was shaking. She knelt and gently brushed wet hair from the child’s face. “It’s alright. They’re gone. What’s your name?” she asked softly.

Little Zara stammered her name. The older girl smiled. “I’m Leena. You shouldn’t be out here alone, Zara. Come on, you can stay with my crew tonight. We look out for each other.”

Zara - our Zara - was trembling beside me as she watched this memory she had never spoken of. Tears gathered in her eyes. “Leena,” she whispered. “I’d almost forgotten her face…”

The image rippled and dissolved like ink in water, the colors mixing back into the mirrored floor.

Before anyone could speak, another image surfaced a few paces away, this time beneath Malkeos’s feet. He stiffened as we looked down to see a dim study lined with books. A much younger Malkeos - perhaps twenty, with no scars and eyes bright with idealism - stood over a table strewn with maps and parchments. Beside him stood another familiar figure: my father, Aldren.

I sucked in a breath. They were both novices at Oratorio, I realized, during their studies under Master Keldan.

“…cannot risk it, Malkeos,” Aldren was saying firmly, rolling up one of the maps. “The Uninstrument’s wisdom is not a weapon to brandish. Harmony must be cultivated, not enforced by shock and awe.”

Young Malkeos paced like a caged wolf. “Meanwhile people butcher each other outside these walls! We sit here reading philosophy while the Republic’s remnants burn. If we have the means to restore order, we must use it!”

Aldren frowned, looking weary but resolute. “Master Keldan entrusted knowledge of the relic to us for safekeeping, not for folly. I feel it too - the desire to intervene, to save everyone. But some things cannot be forced.”

Malkeos slammed a fist on the table, making the candles flicker. “How convenient for you to counsel patience. I see the fire in your eyes too, Aldren. You want to help out there as much as I do; you’re just afraid. Hiding behind Keldan’s last wishes because it absolves you of actually doing something.”

My father’s face tightened with hurt and anger. “Watch your tongue. You know me better than that.”

Malkeos sneered. “I know you lack the will to act. That’s why when the time comes, I will be the one to use the Uninstrument. And I’ll show you - show everyone - that order can be created from chaos. If Keldan were alive, he’d side with me.”

Aldren looked stricken, then his expression hardened. He unhooked a chain from around his neck and slammed a small key onto the table. “If that’s truly what you believe, Malkeos, then I cannot let you anywhere near the relic. I’ll take it and leave tonight. Before you do something all of us will regret.”

Malkeos’s younger face contorted in betrayal and fury. He snatched up the key - some key to where the Uninstrument was stored? - and in a flash, the two men were grappling. Books and scrolls went flying. Aldren tried to pull the key away; Malkeos, teeth gritted, forced him back against a bookshelf.

Just then an older man with kind eyes and greying hair - Master Keldan, I presumed - burst into the room, alarmed. “Stop this at once!”

The memory shattered like glass under a hammer, fragments of the scene scattering and melding back into the reflective floor. Malkeos staggered, as if physically struck by the dissolution of that moment. His breathing was ragged, and his eyes were fixed on where the image of Keldan had appeared. “Keldan…” he murmured, the name heavy with longing and grief.

Zara laid a hand on Malkeos’s arm gently, surprising both him and me. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. Malkeos did not respond, but neither did he shake her off. His face was a storm of conflicting emotions: resentment, shame, sorrow.

Before either of them could say more, a third image formed nearer to me. I braced myself - knowing that Harmony’s Mirror would not spare me my own reflection.

Sure enough, I saw myself standing there beside that hospital bed on the orbital station. Father lay there, pale and sweat - drenched from fever, the monitors beeping softly - damn, I’m experiencing again the night of his passing.

I held his hand, tears streaming down my cheeks. “I’m not ready,” I heard myself blurt out. “Don’t leave me, Dad…”

The older Aldren reached weakly to touch my face. “Son… you are stronger than you know,” he whispered, voice failing. “The Republic’s flame now lives in you. Trust yourself. Trust the virtues I’ve seen blossom in you.” He coughed, body shuddering. “Desire for a better world… courage to pursue it… wisdom to see it through. You have all of it, Jameus.”

I watched, throat tight, as Father gave me a gentle smile with his final breaths. “I am so proud… of the man you will become.”

Then the heart monitor flatlined into a steady tone. My younger self broke into sobs, collapsing onto the bed, begging him to wake up, please wake up…

Zara squeezed my hand now, pulling me back to the present. Only then did I realize tears were streaming down my face here in the mirror realm, just as they had been in that memory.

“He believed in you,” Zara said softly. “Even then.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded, wiping my tears. The image faded.

The mirror showed stillness again - only our reflections and swirling patterns of light and dark beneath the surface like distant clouds. We three regrouped wordlessly. The Mirror had shown each of us something private, something formative.

Zara had confronted a moment of vulnerability and the kindness that saved her - a reminder that even in darkness, she needed others and others needed her courage.

Malkeos had relived the schism with my father and their teacher - a moment that set him on the path of obsession and betrayal, born from an earnest desire to save the world twisted by impatience and pride.

And I… I had faced my greatest grief and the heavy weight of expectation my father had left me - a weight I still carried, but also a love that gave me strength.

Our emotions swirled around us in this space. I felt compassion for Zara’s lonely childhood, gratitude for Aldren’s guidance, even empathy for Malkeos’s youthful desperation. I sensed these feelings echoing among us, each perhaps gleaning some understanding of the other’s pain.

Malkeos was the first to break the silence. “Is that all? Ghosts of the past?” His tone was gruff, but lacked bite. He was deflecting, struggling with the vulnerability he’d just been forced to show.

“It’s not all,” I answered gently. “There is more. We have yet to face ourselves fully.”

As if on cue, the endless void around us began to shift. The stars - or what I had thought were stars - danced and rearranged overhead. No, not stars; they were points of light that now coalesced into three large shapes looming around the periphery of the mirror - floor.

I turned slowly and realized with a start what they were: three enormous mirror surfaces, like tall standing mirrors without frames, each glowing faintly. They positioned themselves in a triangle around us, as if we were exhibits in a strange gallery.

I approached the mirror directly ahead of me. It solidified into a polished surface, reflecting not just my image but something behind me. I saw Malkeos and Zara in the background of the reflection, but their faces were oddly indistinct. Only my own reflection was crystal clear, and even as I noticed it, it began to change.

My reflection in the mirror smirked at me. I wasn’t smirking - I stood slack - jawed in astonishment - yet the mirror - me crossed his arms and cocked an eyebrow in an expression of arrogance I hoped I never wore.

“You think you can handle this?” Mirror - Jameus said, voice dripping with scorn. “You’re out of your depth, boy. Playing with powers and people you barely understand.”

I bristled. “Who are you to judge?” Even as I said it, I recognized the voice as my own inner critic, given shape.

He laughed cruelly. “I’m you. The part of you that you bury under bookish charm and polite smiles. The part that’s angry and insecure and jealous.” His eyes flickered to Zara and Malkeos behind me. “Jealous of those who are braver, or stronger, or who had the courage to take action when you hesitated.”

“That’s not true,” I whispered, but my heart pounded because some part of me feared it was. Had I not envied Malkeos’s decisiveness at times, even when I loathed his actions? Had I not felt small next to Zara’s boldness or Tarin’s unwavering honor?

Mirror - Jameus stepped forward, sneering. “Your father put all his hopes on you, and what have you done? Bumbled from crisis to crisis, relying on others to save you.”

He gestured and the mirror rippled, showing quick scenes: Zara rescuing me from Inquisitors at Aurin’s library; Tarin shielding me from gunfire at Demeter; Brother Centris giving me courage with his wisdom. “They carry you,” my doppelgänger hissed. “Without them, you’d have failed. You’d be nothing.”

My cheeks flushed with shame. Had I been merely a vessel for others’ heroism? I looked over my shoulder. Zara and Malkeos were each engrossed in their own mirrors - each confronting their reflections. Perhaps they couldn’t even hear this exchange, or it was happening privately in my mind.

Focus, I commanded myself. This was my trial. I had to face this false me - this embodiment of doubt and negative self.

“I have done some things right,” I said, trying to sound confident. “I got us this far. I deciphered the Codex clues, I brought everyone together - ”

“After your father and countless others handed you every piece,” the reflection spat. “Face it: you ride on the coattails of the dead and the brave. Without Aldren’s name, without that shard stuck in you, you’d be a scared orphan still hiding on a station.”

His words cut deep because they touched on my deepest fear: that I wasn’t worthy of the legacy given to me. That I was a fraud who had stumbled into success by luck and others’ sacrifice.

Nearby, I heard Zara raise her voice at her reflection - something about not being defined by the past. She was fighting her demon. I needed to fight mine.

I stepped closer to the mirror, meeting the cold eyes of my duplicate. “I wouldn’t be here without help, true. And I have made mistakes. But I have also made choices - my own choices - to keep going when others might have given up. I chose to trust my friends, to trust in Harmony, when it would have been easier to run or to give in to despair.”

The reflection rolled his eyes, but I saw uncertainty flicker. “So you’re humble, fine. Doesn’t change that you crave recognition and fear you’ll never earn it. You hope to rebuild the Republic and attach your name to it, don’t you? A little part of you wants the glory.”

I opened my mouth to deny it - and paused. Perhaps there was a kernel of truth there too. Vanity, pride. I did want to prove myself worthy, to be remembered. Was that so wrong? It could be, if it clouded my motives.

I lowered my gaze briefly, acknowledging the uncomfortable feeling that the reflection had dredged up. “Maybe I do want to be remembered,” I said quietly. “Maybe I do want to make my mark. But I want it for the right reasons - so that my father’s sacrifices, and all of ours, weren’t in vain. I don’t want personal glory; I want meaning. If my name is forgotten but peace endures, so be it.”

The reflection scowled. The cracks began to spiderweb across the mirror’s surface. “You say that now. We’ll see how you feel when they start calling you a hero. When they look to you for answers you may not have.”

I placed a hand on the mirror, over the heart of my reflection. “I feel terrified when they do. But I answer anyway, because someone must. And I know that I don’t have to do it alone. That’s the difference between us - I accept help and you belittle it.”

The mirror - self opened his mouth to retort, but a jagged crack split right through his face. Light poured from it. I stepped back as the entire mirror shattered into glittering shards that evaporated before touching the infinite floor.

I stood panting, tears on my face, but a weight off my shoulders. The doubts hadn’t vanished, but I had stared them down and held onto my truth.

Across the way, I saw Zara drive a fist into her own mirror; it splintered and dissolved with a cascade of echoing laughter - her inner cynic vanquished by her stubborn faith in others. She was grinning fiercely, chest heaving from the emotional exertion.

Malkeos’s trial still raged. The largest mirror towered before him, a dark silhouette within berating him in Master Keldan’s voice, then Aldren’s, then a chorus of voices:

“Murderer!” “Tyrant!” “Failure!”

He was on his knees, covering his ears, eyes shut against the onslaught of accusations. Zara and I exchanged a worried glance and moved closer, though an intuition told me we couldn’t simply dispel his demons for him.

Within the mirror, shapes of those Malkeos had harmed or failed swirled: villagers fleeing burning homes, his own younger self staring accusatorially, the little child he’d cradled, dead, in that far - off village (perhaps his first brush with war’s cruelty).

Malkeos sobbed - an animal sound of anguish. “I only wanted to save them…” he choked. “I only wanted to save everyone…”

A gentle voice cut through the din from the mirror - a new presence: Master Keldan stepping forward, laying a spectral hand on Mirror - Malkeos’s shoulder. “And yet, Malkeos, you wrought suffering. Why?”

Malkeos opened his tear - streaked eyes to see his old master’s face. He trembled and whispered, “Because I was afraid. Afraid of being powerless. Afraid of losing… everything like we did when the Republic fell.”

Real Malkeos struggled to his feet, locking eyes with the vision. “I became what I hated,” he said in a strangled voice. “I see it now. Master… I’m sorry.”

The Keldan apparition smiled sadly and nodded. Behind him, the phantom accusers bowed their heads and faded one by one into points of light.

Zara and I stepped to Malkeos’s side. He was shaking violently, but when he looked at us, I saw clarity and remorse in his gaze.

In the mirror, only Malkeos’s reflection remained now - staring back at him. It stepped forward, close, and spoke softly, “It’s not too late to choose a different path, you know.”

Real Malkeos reached a hand toward his reflection, and it did the same. “Will it atone for the blood I’ve spilt?” he asked quietly.

The reflection gave a wan smile. “Perhaps not fully. But it’s a start.”

They pressed their palms together, mirror and man. Golden cracks spidered out from the contact. Light surged.

“Live,” the reflection whispered, “and make it mean something.”

The mirror exploded in a brilliant radiance. Malkeos staggered back, caught in equal measure by Zara and me to keep him upright.

He gasped for breath, looking around in disbelief. The other two mirrors were gone. All that remained was the vast starry void around us - and each other.

Zara whooped suddenly, a joyous sound, and flung her arms around Malkeos in an exuberant hug. “You did it, old man!” she laughed.

He stood stiff, then gave one incredulous, breathy chuckle and patted her back awkwardly. I realized I was grinning ear to ear.

We stepped back and suddenly realized that our chests were glowing even brighter than before - dazzling now. The shards embedded in us were humming in resonance. No longer discordant, but harmonious - three notes seeking to become one chord.

Above us, the swirling void coalesced into a dome of light. From that dome descended a shimmering shape: the Uninstrument’s pieces, drawn back together by our unity. In this liminal space, physics was will and meaning - our achieved balance was reforging the artifact.

The core fragment hovered between us and, like a magnet drawing filings, attracted the other shards out of our bodies. They rose gently - no explosion, no pain - just an easing, like a splinter finally pulled from long - inflamed skin.

I looked down to see my chest was whole and unmarked save for a faint scar. Zara’s shard slid from her and transmuted into light. Malkeos reached to the piece leaving him - his fingers brushed it as it departed, and he exhaled a long sigh, relief and perhaps a hint of sorrow intertwined.

The fragments swirled around the core, merging in a blur of brilliance.

A pure tone resonated - familiar and glorious. It was the sound of Harmony itself.

We had done it. We had faced our shadows and rekindled the light.

The reformed Uninstrument shone with an aura of completion. It floated in the air between us, whole again, singing its gentle chord. We three stood around it in the vision - space, listening to the music of our souls in concert. I felt tears on my face once more, but these of joy and catharsis.

Malkeos stepped forward and, reverently, bowed his head. It was a gesture of humility and gratitude. Zara wiped her eyes and laughed softly, an expression of sheer relief.

The radiant dome above cracked with white lightning - a sign that the vision was ending. Our work here was done. Harmony’s Mirror had served its purpose.

“Time to go home,” I said quietly.

Zara took my hand in one of hers and Malkeos’s in the other. He gripped back firmly. We closed our eyes as the brilliance engulfed us and the world of reflection dissolved into warm, white light.

In a blink, we were gone from that place, carrying with us the unified heart of the Uninstrument - back to the waking world we had so nearly lost and now hoped to save.