Blade Without Mirror

Some battles are fought with steel. Others with silence.
Kendra Kelly has learned to wield both.

In my newest short story, Blade Without Mirror, Kendra and her bonded companion Nova face their first true trial together. Sent into the ruins of a forgotten monastery, they discover not just ghosts, but memory made malignant—a nest of fractured monks caught in an endless ritual, desperate to become something more. Illusions falter. Strength alone is not enough. Only by deepening their bond through the Well of Affinity can Kendra and Nova unravel the loop before it births into an Echo.

This story is a bridge in Kendra’s early arc. It follows her induction into the Sacred Ordinance (Salt, Silence, Shard) but comes before the events of The Drowned Beneath. Here, she is not yet the seasoned Veiljumper we meet in the first novel—she is still learning, still testing the edges of her Ash Scars, and still discovering what it means to share her fate with Nova. Together, they become the blade the Canticle foretold: sharp, unanchored, and dangerous to both sides of the Veil.

The title is drawn directly from the Canticle of the Hourless Path, one of the central prophecies in Shadows of the Lost. The Canticle is a fragmented text believed to encode the fate of Echo-bearers, the collapse of the Mirrorlock Array, and the path toward Arkadian itself.

No one knows who first composed it. Some say it was sung by those who witnessed the Moment of Sundering, when Velin Thorne fractured himself into thirteen Echoes to seal Ark’a’dien. Others whisper it was later compiled by the Curator as fragments surfaced across shattered realms.

The Canticle is not a single prophecy but a weave of verses, riddles, and warnings. Each line can be read as fate, memory, or recursion. Within the Sacred Ordinance, lines are adapted into mantras for fieldwork. Among common folk, corrupted versions echo in children’s rhymes, proof of how deeply it has sunk into the world’s subconscious.

One verse speaks directly to Kendra’s stage of the journey:

“A blade without mirror, a name without thread,
She walks through the places where time has bled.”

It felt right for this story. Kendra here is unmoored—no Mirror, no Echo, only a girl scarred by ash and the companion she must trust completely.

Blade Without Mirror will appear alongside my other Kendra Kelly shorts in the upcoming collection The Girl Who Dreamed of Ash. This volume gathers her earliest trials—her origin story, her acceptance into the Sacred Ordinance, and the first missions that shaped her bond with Nova.

If you’ve been following the Shadows of the Lost project, this new story is an important piece of the chain. If you’re new to the series, it’s a haunting entry point into a world where illusion is survival, and every reflection carries a cost.

More soon. For now—step carefully. Some mirrors remember more than they should.

Kevin Arms | Author & Educator