"Someone built the fractures. Someone knew they'd crack. This wasn't chaos—it was a blueprint."—Seris-Va
Location – Kamar-Taj Archives, Kathmandu
Wong stood before an ancient scroll, one sealed in seven bindings.
It was not written by human hands.
It pulsed.
"These were left by the Daughters of Vael'Shan," he said."Chrono-guardians of the first dimension. They predicted the Collapse."
Riri leaned over the parchment.
"This symbol here—this was on Kael's suit."
Seris-Va nodded grimly. "And here... again, on Null-Kael's fracture lines."
Liora, sketching something from memory in the corner, added softly:
"That's because someone taught him. Someone built the Mirrorheart… before he was born."
Across the World – Unmarked Facility, Swiss Alps
A woman in a tattered red coat moved through a chamber of cracked mirrors and warping glass.
She wasn't old, but her eyes carried centuries.
She whispered to the walls, and they whispered back.
"They've reunited. I can feel the oscillation settling."
Her hand hovered over a console of runes and fragments of lost technology—pieces from Wakanda, Stark Industries, Kree weaponry, even fragments from the Dark Dimension.
"Good," she said. "Let them think they're healing."
Her name was Anachrys.
And she had built the first fracture.
Back at Kamar-Taj
Wong looked up, alarmed.
"We've been tracking damage. Scars in reality. But they're not scars."
He placed a hand on the scroll. It shimmered, transforming the map into a rotating lattice.
"They're coordinates."
"To what?" Riri asked.
"To a machine that doesn't belong in this universe. Or any other."
Seris-Va whispered the name etched along the edge of the lattice.
"The Architect of Echoes."
Kael stood in the doorway, steady now, his voice calm but certain:
"I've seen her. In the Between. She wasn't lost. She was waiting."
Liora looked up from her drawing.
She held a sketch of the red-coated woman—Anachrys—with a mirror shard for a heart.
"She wants you back," the girl said to Kael."Or broken."
Final Panel
Anachrys turns toward the last, deepest mirror.
In it, we see every version of Kael—dead, broken, evil, heroic—staring back.
She smiles.
"My echoes will guide you home."
❖ To Be Continued in Chapter 7 – The Ghost Machine ❖