I turn my gaze across the black expanse of my soul sea.
There, twisting in the darkness like a serpent made of liquid gold, is the Möbius Strip.
Veilshaper.
The mark of Illusion. The power of lies.
It pulses with a rhythmic, hypnotic light, folding over itself endlessly. It has no beginning and no end, just an infinite loop of deception.
I take a step toward it.
The black water beneath my feet ripples, but makes no sound.
I take another step.
And then I frown.
I am moving. I can feel my legs driving against the surface of the ocean. I can feel the momentum of my spirit pushing forward. But the Möbius Strip does not get any closer.
It hangs there, tantalizingly just out of reach, maybe fifty yards away.
I narrow my eyes in confusion.
I break into a jog. My boots splash silently on the obsidian water.
Nothing changes. The golden symbol remains fixed in the distance, mocking me with its constant, looping motion.
I run faster. I sprint. I push the new, augmented strength of my spirit into my legs. I leap, trying to bridge the gap with raw force.
I land. The Strip is still fifty yards away. "What is this?" I mutter, my voice swallowed by the void.
The distance between the planets and stars that make up the sky of my soul seems to have stretched. The universe inside me has expanded, turning a simple walk into a journey across infinity.
Planets drift past me as I stand there, baffled.
They are huge, silent spheres representing my memories and emotions.
One passes close enough to touch a deep, angry red world, roiling with storms and magma. It radiates heat. I recognize it. It is the memory of the day I killed Avraind. It showcases anger, hate, and the dark satisfaction of revenge.
Another drifts by on my left. A deep, bruising indigo sphere, shrouded in mist. It feels heavy. It showcases pain the nights in the gutter, the hunger. A few... very few are bright. Small, fragile planets of green and blue that represent hope and happiness.
They orbit me, vast and unreachable, just like the Mark.
I reach out my hand toward the Möbius Strip, straining against the fabric of my own mind. I try to grab the golden divine light, to force it to submit just as I forced the Wolf.
But my hand grasps nothing but empty void.
The distance is absolute. It is a paradox. The faster I run toward it, the faster the space expands to keep it away.
I stop.
I let my hand drop to my side.
I sigh in resignation, the sound echoing in the emptiness. I shake my head in annoyance, glaring at the golden loop.
"Guess it would be greedy to try and unlock both fully at once," I mutter dryly. "Next time I suppose"
I close my eyes in the Soul Sea. I focus on the sensation of cold. I focus on the anchor.
I force myself to wake back up.
The transition is jarring.
One moment, I am standing in the infinite black ocean. The next, gravity reasserts itself, and the biting, sterile cold of the Proctor Dengs room washes over me.
My eyes snap open and the next thing I notice after the cold is Proctor Juliet Deng's hand. Her hand is small, pale, and freezing cold. She is still holding onto me, her fingers wrapped gently around my palm fingers intertwined with mine.
I look up and she is watching me. She is still curled under her mountain of white furs, her head resting against the back of the reclining chair. Her silver eyes are bright and she as a bright smile stretched across her face.
It isn't a mocking smile. It isn't the cruel smirk of Evanora or the disdainful sneer of Abrashi. It is a small, genuine curve of her pale lips. It looks... proud?
I stare at her.
In the dim light, with her silver hair falling across her face and her silver eyes shining like stars, she looks breathtaking. The ethereal, fragile beauty of her hits me harder than the cold.
I feel the heat rise up my neck instantly. I blush, the color flooding my cheeks and I suddenly realize I am still holding her hand. I pull my hand away as if I've been burned, letting go before she can feel the clammy sweat starting to form on my palm.
She rustles underneath her covers, adjusting the bear skin around her shoulders.
"I can see that it worked, young Ayato," she says softly.
'You can?"
The choir has stopped screaming, hasn't it? Now they are just... humming." she murmurs.
She is right. The voices are still there in my mind, but they aren't as chaotic. They are a low, unified thrum of power in the back of my mind. They feel like a weapon sheathed at my hip, ready to be drawn, rather than a knife pressed to my own throat. They no longer wrap around my mind seething trying to force me to murder everyone around me. They are once again chained to my control.
I look at her, and for the first time since I arrived at this Academy, I feel a sense of profound, unblemished gratitude.
I don't just nod. I don't give the half-assed, neck-only bow I give the other Proctors.
I bow at the waist. deeply. It is a formal, courtly gesture of respect one I have never given before. Even before the King and Queen I half assed formalities and I never once felt a tinge of respect for those creatures.
"All thanks to you, Proctor," I say, my voice steady and sincere.
I stay bowed for a second longer than necessary, letting the weight of the moment settle.
She smiles at me again, her silver eyes crinkling slightly at the corners.
"Hmm," she hums, tilting her head. "You sell yourself short."
She pauses, her expression turning thoughtful. She studies me with that unnerving, surgical gaze.
"But do be careful, Ayato," she warns gently. "That power of yours... it is one of the most insidious I have seen." "Three marks of power must be quite the strain on the mind. The human soul is not meant to hold that much divinity I think"
I wince slightly. "I can manage," I say, though we both know it's a lie. "I have to."
I hesitate.
There is a question burning in my mind. It has been bothering me since I've seen her. It feels rude, intrusive, but the curiosity is itching under my skin.
"Forgive me, Proctor," I say, clearing my throat. "This may be direct... but you don't seem much older than me?"
I frame the statement as a question, my voice rising slightly at the end.
The Proctor looks at me. She blinks those silver eyes, and then the smile widens.
"Well," she says simply. "That's because I'm not. I'm only twenty-two."
My jaw almost hits the floor and my eyes widen in surprise. I stare at her, forgetting my manners for a second. Twenty-two. She is five years older than me. She is barely older than the Fifth Year students who just deployed. She only like two years younger then Cain! Fuck me sideways they could know each other it's not that unlikely.
Proctors are usually veterans people who have decades of experience under the belt.
"twenty two" I repeat studieply
She shifts, looking at her fingernails. "Age is a measure of time," she says, sounding bored by the concept. "Rank is a measure of power. The Academy and Awakened in general care about power"
I hesitate, processing this. She is a prodigy and her power must be insane.
"Also," I ask, my curiosity pushing me further, "umm... how were you able to hear the voices?
She blinks slowly, like a cat waking up from a nap.
"Well," she says, "my Mark is Dreamer, as you probably remember from our first meeting back during the tests to determine houses."
I nod eagerly, remembering the Sorting and the test that got us there. Fighting that freak Weed.
She pauses, gathering her thoughts.
"More specifically, my power is akin to subconscious manipulation. Dreams are a byproduct of the subconscious, after all. They are the sludge of the mind the fears, the desires etc, the memories we repress or give less attention to."
She looks at me, her silver eyes glowing faintly.
"I can influence that sludge. I can pull people into dreams. I can control what they see, hear, and feel. I can enter the locked rooms of the mind." "We find it useful to put year ones into simulations with my power it's more effective than past years".
She gestures vaguely toward me.
"It is similar to your power, Ayato. You control and feed off fear. But what is fear? It is the subconscious screaming at you to run. The voices you hear like I said earlier they are the worst emotions of your own subconscious, given agency and voice by your Fearmonger mark.
She smiles, a knowing look in her eyes.
"Your Mark acts as a speaker system for your own darkness. And since my domain is the subconscious... of course I can hear them.
I nod slowly, the pieces falling into place.
"Is there anything else I can assist with?" she asks, her voice soft, signaling the end of the audience.
I look at her.
I look at the way the furs bunch around her neck. I look at the pale curve of her throat. I look at the silver eyes that seem to see everything.
And suddenly, unbidden, a thought flashes through my mind.
It is dirty. It is intrusive. It is the kind of thought a teenage boy has when he is alone in a room with a beautiful woman who radiates mystery.
I wonder if she...
Panic slams into me like a freight train. She's basically a damn telepath, I realize with horror. I crush the thought immediately. I mentally strangle it, bury it, and set it on fire. My heart rate spikes, terror flooding my system of sheer mortifying embarrassment.
I stare at her, eyes wide, waiting for her launch me out the window.
She just smiles, serene and unreadable.
"No," I say, my voice cracking slightly. "No thanks. Thank you, Proctor. For everything."
I bow again. Quickly. Jerkily.
"I have to go now. Qualifiers. You know don't want to be late."
I turn on my heel and practically march toward the door, desperate to get out of the range of her mind-reading silver eyes.
As I reach for the handle, I hear her voice one last time.
"Good luck, Ayato," she calls out, sounding amused.
She heard you, the voices snicker. She definitely heard you. Go back in and see.
Shut the fuck up I groan hurrying down the hallway.