Chapter 19 — Fractures of the Same Face

The Convergence screamed.
Not only the storm, or the darkness—but everything. The ground, the threads, the Codex that was in the boy's hands. Yusuf clasped his hands over his ears; yet the music was not in his eardrums. But in his mind.
Before him, the figure wearing his father’s face stood unmoved. His Codex, jagged and cracked, bled ink that dissolved into shadow-things. His eyes—mirror-bright, fractured—locked onto Yusuf."You seek answers," the man stated, his voice fragmented and distorted. "But answers form ties. Do you wish to wear mine?"
The faceless boy pulled at Yusuf's sleeve, its head jerking wildly from side to side. "Do not listen. It wants to trap you."
But Yusuf's grasp eased. In a moment of insight and clarities, he recalled a scene that should have remained forgotten—himself as a younger one placed in the outdated study, his dad's back turned away from him, saying the sentence:
"History ain't for love. It's for truth."
The picture briefly disappeared, but the hurt in his chest was more than he could ignore.The impostor parent raised his Codex a second time. Leaves detached and became word-chains that assailed Yusuf with renewed violence. The faceless child slammed the Codex they bore into his hands. Its pages blazed into light, confronting the chains in a struggle that shook the whole kingdom.
"Yusuf!" said the girl. "Use Rae's shard
The shard that Yusuf was carrying throbbed as it seemed to have a consciousness. Without a thought, he inserted it into the Codex. The book let out a muted wail—not through speech, per se, but through the scrambling of a variety of incomplete inscriptions—before releasing a blast of light that broke the chains.
The man took a stumble for the very first time. Shadows escaped from his body in pieces, giving off fleeting glimpses of epidermal tissue, of body substance—only in sections.
"You…" The broken voice quivered. "You still hold her thread."
"Who?" Yusuf asked.
The man's eyes flashed with something—mourning, recognition, and anger. "She picked you. She always picked you. That is why you shall break."
The Convergence roared. Strands broke like crystal around them, reality ripping apart. The storm swallowed the square, pulling everything into a chasm stretching wide behind the man's throne.The faceless child yelled and yanked Yusuf's arm:
"We can't possibly win this. We have to run!"
But Yusuf's feet stood firm. While the storm consumed the world, he became aware of it at last,—clearly, through the chorus of shattered voices. His father's actual voice. "Yusuf. Don't forget