The world came back to me not with a jolt but with the gentle, persistent sounds of life. The crowing of a rooster in the distance, the chattering of sparrows outside my window—these were the anchors that pulled me from sleep. I got up, the memory of the previous day's training, and the Duchess's intense gaze feeling like a dream. I changed into my simple training clothes, ate a quick breakfast of bread and cheese under my mother's watchful eye, and with a hurried goodbye, I bolted out the door.
My feet carried me swiftly down the familiar path to the forest clearing, my heart thumping with a mixture of excitement and nervousness. I expected to see the Duke's broad back, the familiar sight of him drilling forms with his knight. But the clearing was different today.
The Duke was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, I saw her.
Duchess Mirayne stood in the very center of the clearing, but she seemed to occupy a space entirely her own. She was enveloped in a shimmering aura of pure white, shot through with veins of brilliant, solar yellow. It wasn't the fierce, cold yellow of the Duke's power; this was warmer, more ethereal, humming with a latent energy that made the very air around her seem to warp and bend. She was a statue of contained lightning.
Her eyes, those twilight pools, were closed. But as I stood frozen at the tree line, they opened, pinning me in place.
"Kairu," her voice cut through the morning quiet, clear and commanding. "Why are you standing there? Come here."
Swallowing hard, I walked forward, the grass crunching softly under my feet. The energy radiating from her was immense, a pressure against my skin. "So… isn't the Duke here?" I asked, my voice smaller than I intended.
A faint, knowing smile touched her lips. "No. From this moment on, I will be your teacher."
The announcement hit me with a physical force. The Duke was a demanding but familiar taskmaster. Her? She was an enigma, a power I couldn't begin to fathom. The shock must have been plain on my face.
Before I could form a single thought in response, before I could even take a breath, the world dissolved.
It wasn't like fading or falling. It was like being sucked through a keyhole. There was a violent lurch, a sensation of my very soul being stretched thin, and then—
Silence. Absolute and profound.
I was standing, but the ground beneath me was a seamless, polished plane of what looked like white marble, yet it emitted a soft, internal light. I looked up. There was no sky, only a vast, pearlescent expanse from which a gentle, sourceless illumination fell. There were no trees, no birds, no sun. The air was still and scentless.
"Welcome."
I spun around. Mirayne stood a few paces away. She was no longer in her practical outdoor attire. She now wore robes of flowing, silver-white silk that seemed to be woven from moonlight itself. She looked every bit the sorceress-queen of this impossible place.
"Look around you, Kairu," she said, her voice echoing slightly in the immense space. "Everything you see. Every single piece of this world, the ground you stand on, the air you breathe, the very flow of time… it is all made by me. I control it all."
She gestured with a slender hand, and in the distance, a mountain range of crystalline structures erupted from the plain, soaring toward the non-sky before melting away into shimmering mist.
"This is my Etherion. And for three week, it will be your entire world."
The sheer, terrifying scale of her power finally dawned on me. The Duke trained me in a forest. She had brought me into her soul. The real training hadn't just begun; it had swallowed me whole.
The silence of that impossible world pressed in on me, a physical weight. I stared at the Duchess, my mind reeling.
"Lady Mirayne," I finally managed, my voice unsteady. "Where are we?"
"We are in my Etherion," she stated, her tone leaving no room for question. "This is the realm of my consciousness. And you, Kairu, will be training your magic here from now on."
She began to pace a slow circle around me. "Out there, you have three weeks. A paltry amount of time. In here," she stopped, her intense gaze locking with mine, "I will make those three weeks feel like two months."
"Two months?" The word escaped me in a disbelieving breath. "How?"
"I will slow the flow of time within this realm compared to the outside world. A day out there will be nearly two in here."
The sheer scale of it was staggering. "But... how can you do that?"
A flash of pure agitation tightened her features. "Because it is my will!" she snapped, the words sharp enough to make me flinch. "This realm is an extension of me. What I decree, is. Do not waste my time with questions that have already been answered."
I dropped my gaze, the fight draining out of me. "Fine," I mumbled.
"Good." Her composure returned instantly, cool and clinical. "For your first lesson, you will manifest your Etherion. You will bring forth the aura of your inner world itself, and you will hold it. You will maintain it until I deem today's session to be over."
A wave of relief washed over me. That's all? I thought. I had done it before. It was tiring, but surely I could manage it for an hour. I thought it would be quick.
A small, knowing smile touched Mirayne's lips, as if she had heard my very thoughts. "Do not misunderstand, Kairu. In my Etherion, a 'day' is a very, very long time."
A chill of realization crept down my spine. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and reached for the well of power within me. The true weight of the task settled over me, heavy and immense. This was not a lesson. It was an ordeal.