Chapter 650: The Women Who Were Called Lyssara

Kael did not answer immediately.

The woman in the mirror was still smiling, but now that smile looked different.

It was not the confidence of Lyssara Vharen speaking through a new body, nor the arrogance of an ancient consciousness convinced it had the right to claim the young woman kneeling in the center of the room.

It was something far more confused.

There were gestures that began one way and ended another, subtle shifts in the tilt of the head, in the movement of the eyes, and even in the way the reflected fingers rested over a dress that did not exist outside the mirror.

Six lives layered over generations had been compressed until they produced an artificial continuity, and the system, incapable of recognizing that new people had appeared within it, had solved the problem by calling them all by the same name.

Lyssara.

Kael looked at Nerya.

She was breathing with difficulty, one hand pressed against her chest while lunar lines traveled along her arms and neck.

There were no visible wounds, but the sensation inside the room was like watching someone trying to keep their head above water while another force kept pulling at their ankles.

"How much?" he asked.

Sylphie looked at the page.

"Fifty-one."

"Still decreasing?"

"Slowly."

The reflection laughed.

"She always resists more when she has an audience."

Nerya raised her eyes.

"Shut up."

The mirror’s smile disappeared for a moment.

Not from anger.

From pain.

Kael noticed.

That was important.

"You feel it when she rejects you."

The reflected woman looked at him.

"I feel everything she feels."

"That doesn’t mean it belongs to you."

"If it’s inside me, it does."

"You just used the same logic that turned twenty-four thousand dead people into pieces of an army."

She went still.

Kael advanced only as far as the first lunar line on the floor and stopped before crossing it.

"Nerya, may I come closer?"

The young woman took a few seconds to answer.

"Yes."

Kael crossed the line.

Nothing tried to expel him.

The room registered the permission, but the mirrors reacted immediately.

Six different reflections moved along the walls, following Kael with eyes that did not belong to the same person.

He disliked the feeling of being watched by something that resembled a crowd trying to occupy one face.

"Do you know who they were?" he asked.

Nerya swallowed.

"Not all of them."

"Any?"

"One."

She pointed toward a smaller mirror on the right.

The reflection there showed an older brown-haired woman with a thin scar crossing one eyebrow.

"Her name was Alienne."

The mirror trembled.

The larger woman, the one wearing Nerya’s face, turned sharply.

"No."

Nerya spoke louder.

"Alienne Vharen."

The moonlight flickered.

Kael felt the page react behind him.

Sylphie read:

"Secondary identity recognized."

The reflection lost its smile.

"She was Lyssara."

Nerya started laughing, short and exhausted.

"She hated apples."

Kael looked at her.

"Does that matter?"

"Lyssara loved them."

The reflection went completely still.

Nerya continued, and now anger mixed with exhaustion.

"Alienne hated apples. Loved horses. Was afraid of deep water and hated a song Mereth still plays in winter."

A small sound came from the corridor.

Kael looked toward the door.

Mereth stood there.

She had come upstairs without anyone stopping her.

The old woman’s face was pale.

Nerya saw her.

"You knew."

Mereth took a moment to answer.

"I knew some preferences changed."

"You called it adaptation."

The old woman closed her eyes.

"Yes."

Nerya pointed at the mirror.

"She wasn’t Lyssara."

Mereth looked at Alienne.

The reflection of that woman began to change.

For a moment, her expression stopped following the central figure, and her eyes moved toward the old woman.

"Mereth."

Mereth went rigid.

Kael watched.

"You know that voice."

Mereth did not answer.

Alienne’s reflection smiled in a way completely different from the central woman.

"You still play badly."

Mereth’s breath caught.

"Alienne..."

The central figure turned toward the mirror and shouted:

"LYSSARA."

All the mirrors vibrated.

The Inner Moon page shone.

CORRECTION IN PROGRESS.

STABILITY: 50%.

Sylphie moved immediately.

Thin roots passed through the floor and wrapped around the outer edge of the circle, not to break it, but to prevent the lunar energy from increasing.

"Kael."

"I know."

They had reached the threshold.

The system began reacting.

The six women in the mirrors raised their heads at the same time, and the figure wearing Nerya’s face began losing individual details.

Different gestures were erased.

Smaller voices disappeared.

Distinct traits were compressed into a single posture.

Lyssara.

Or whatever the project had decided to call that.

Nerya arched her back with a scream.

Kael knelt in front of her.

"Nerya."

She squeezed her eyes shut.

"I’m here."

"You don’t need to prove anything to me. Just answer whatever you can."

The light intensified.

"What do you hate eating?"

She looked confused.

"What?"

"Anything."

"Kael..."

"Trust me."

Nerya drew in a breath.

"Figs."

One of the mirrors cracked.

The central figure twisted.

"Food does not define identity."

"No," Kael replied. "But it’s a choice that doesn’t need to serve any purpose."

He remembered Edras.

The coat.

The deer.

Small things.

What existed when function had no reason to exist.

"What’s your favorite color?"

Nerya opened her eyes.

"Green."

Another mirror trembled.

"Where did you want to live when you were a child?"

"Near the sea."

"Can you swim?"

"No."

Kael almost smiled.

"That seems poorly planned."

"I was eight."

"Fair."

The lunar pressure lost stability.

The central figure slammed her palm against the mirror.

"THAT DOESN’T MATTER."

Kael looked directly at her.

"Exactly."

The reflection stopped.

"Those answers don’t matter to the project. They don’t preserve the bloodline. They don’t increase power. They don’t help House Vharen. They don’t serve to preserve Lyssara."

He pointed at Nerya.

"That’s why they belong to her."

The page reacted.

AUTONOMOUS PATTERNS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH PRESERVED IDENTITY.

INCONSISTENCY INCREASED.

Mereth entered the room.

"Stop the correction."

Nothing happened.

She stepped farther inside.

"I am Mereth Vharen, head of the House. I order Inner Moon to halt the correction."

The entire house trembled.

But the system answered:

ADMINISTRATION NOT AUTHORIZED TO INTERRUPT PRIMARY PRESERVATION.

Mereth went pale.

Kael looked at her.

"You never had control."

The old woman looked across the mirrors.

"No."

That seemed to devastate her more than any accusation.

All her life, Mereth had believed herself the guardian of a tradition.

Now she was discovering that her family had not controlled Inner Moon for generations.

They had merely prepared bodies for it.

Nerya groaned.

The page marked:

49%.

Sylphie closed her fingers.

"Kael, it’s starting."

Moonlight passed through Nerya’s body.

The six smaller mirrors responded.

Memories appeared in the air.

A child running through a forest.

A woman giving birth during a storm.

Another kneeling before a grave.

A young woman kissing someone while hidden behind a statue.

An old woman staring at her own reflection and saying a name no one heard.

Lives.

Not one life.

Kael understood.

"Don’t fight them."

Nerya opened her eyes.

"What?"

"Don’t fight the women."

"They’re trying to erase me!"

"Not them."

He pointed at the central figure.

"The system is."

The reflected expression changed.

For the first time, fear.

Kael stood.

"You said you are every time you survived."

"Yes."

"Then tell me the name of the second."

Silence.

"The third."

Nothing.

"The fourth."

The reflection clenched its teeth.

"Lyssara."

"That was the first woman’s name."

"I am Lyssara."

"You’re incapable of remembering who came after?"

"There was no after."

Kael pointed at Alienne.

"She just spoke."

"Fragmentation."

"Then why do you remember the apples?"

Nothing.

Mereth looked from one mirror to another.

Suddenly, she walked toward a blonde woman reflected on the left wall.

"This..."

Her voice failed.

Kael turned.

"Who?"

Mereth moved closer.

"My mother."

The reflection looked at her.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then the woman raised her hand.

Mereth did the same.

"Liora."

The mirror trembled.

The page recorded:

SECONDARY IDENTITY RECOGNIZED: LIORA VHAREN.

The old woman began to cry.

Not uncontrollably.

Only silent tears running down her face as she finally looked at what she had spent decades calling Lyssara.

"My mother’s name was Liora."

The central reflection screamed.

All the mirrors shook.

Sylphie strengthened the roots.

Umbra emerged behind Kael.

"She’s losing cohesion."

"It isn’t her," Kael replied. "It’s the name."

He turned toward the page.

"Show the transfers as separate subjects."

CORRECTION:

SINGLE IDENTITY.

Kael breathed slowly.

"Challenge."

The page stopped.

"Did Alienne Vharen exist?"

Silence.

"Yes or no."

RECORD CONTAINS MEMORIES ASSOCIATED WITH ALIENNE VHAREN.

"That isn’t what I asked."

The First Archive hesitated.

Kael saw Sylphie smile faintly.

He continued.

"Did Liora Vharen exist?"

RECORD CONTAINS...

"Person."

The page went still.

Nerya raised her head.

"Person."

Mereth repeated, almost in a whisper:

"Person."

Alienne in the mirror touched the surface.

Liora did the same.

Then a third woman moved.

A redhead.

Her mouth opened.

"Sa..."

The central figure tried to absorb her.

Umbra acted.

Her shadow crossed the room and separated the shadows of the six mirrors from the central shadow, without touching the consciousnesses themselves.

The red-haired woman managed to breathe.

"Sarena."

The page wrote:

SECONDARY IDENTITY RECOGNIZED: SARENA VHAREN.

Another mirror awakened.

"Velis."

Another:

"Maura."

Another remained silent for a long time, until Mereth looked at it.

"Arieth."

The woman nodded.

Six names appeared on the page.

LYSSARA VHAREN.

ALIENNE VHAREN.

LIORA VHAREN.

SARENA VHAREN.

VELIS VHAREN.

MAURA VHAREN.

ARIETH VHAREN.

Kael counted.

Seven.

He frowned.

"That’s seven before Nerya."

Mereth went still.

The page corrected itself:

COMPLETED TRANSFERS: SIX.

ORIGINAL SUBJECT + SIX TRANSFERS.

Kael exhaled.

Now it made sense.

Seven women had been compressed into Lyssara.

Nerya would be the eighth person.

The seventh transfer.

The page changed.

PRESERVED IDENTITY: UNSTABLE.

CONTINUITY MODEL: INVALIDATED.

The moonlight failed.

Nerya fell forward.

Kael caught her before she hit the floor.

"I’m here," she murmured.

"I know."

"Am I still me?"

Kael looked at the mirrors.

Seven women were watching.

None of them wore the same face anymore.

"Ask yourself."

Nerya closed her eyes.

Then breathed.

"I am."

The page trembled.

CURRENT SUBJECT: NERYA VHAREN.

It was the first time the project had written her name.

Mereth brought a hand to her mouth.

Sylphie smiled.

But Kael did not relax yet.

"Now comes the difficult part."

Nerya opened her eyes.

"What?"

Kael looked at the seven women.

"We saved you."

Then he faced the mirrors.

"Now we need to ask what they want."

The figure of Lyssara, finally separated from the others, remained still in the largest mirror.

And for the first time in more than two hundred years, when she spoke, she used only her own voice.

"I want to die."

No one was prepared for that.