As we walk through the Perennial Palace, souls bob everywhere like watery lanterns, drifting in and out of the walls. I note the thick drapes covering one side of the hallway. We come across staff installing a few of them as we make our way to the rear of the palace.

A vast cloudscape greets us when we emerge, white clouds stretching out as far as the eye can see. Closer to the palace are a series of glass bridges that span the clouds, connecting islands of green suspended on stone pillars. Willow tree branches cascade like sylvan hair down to the cloud layer. A few islands feature waterfall fountains.

Karanos points toward a flat, fenced off stretch of clouds. “That’s the skylift to mainland Cadivu.” We follow one of the elevated glass walkways to get a better look. It’s soon apparent that the fence surrounds a massive hole in the cloud bed, the edges reminding me of stuffing torn from a stuffed animal.

“I can’t see the lift,” Maria mutters, craning her neck to see over the edge. “Though I can perceive End arrows far below.”

Karanos squints. “The platform is down there, on its way up. Probably about forty minutes out.”

“Are they coming here for the celebration of mirrors?” I ask.

He considers for a moment. “Yes and no. Throughout this plane are temples that service the mortals. Each temple will hold its own celebration, so coming to the Perennial Palace is unnecessary. People still choose to come here for their own reasons.”

“Some consider it a form of pilgrimage,” Crystal adds.

I turn away from the pit and fix my eyes on the resplendent palace. Now that I have a bit of distance, winged guards stationed on the two floors above ground level are visible, their posture vigilant. Above their heads is a communication circlet that doubles as Cayeun Suncloud’s symbol: a golden diadem. Regulars swarm over the grounds like the tourists they are, uncaring or unaware of the guards’ permanent surveillance.

“What even is this celebration, exactly?” I ask. I saw the drapes in the halls, but wasn’t sure what they were for.

“Beyond the drapes are mirrors,” Crystal explains.

“But not physical mirrors,” Karanos amends. “They’re part of Suncloud’s practice.”

“Is Suncloud controlling these mirrors all over the plane, then?”

“If a god isn’t present in her temples, she is no true god,” Karanos replies simply. “I don't think anyone else on this plane has the ability to manifest the mirrors, ascendant or not. They show you the moments you’re most proud of and those you most regret, your greatest pride and shame.”

“That’s interesting, I guess,” I reply. I can see how it would be fairly complicated to do.

Could you do that, Crystal?

“Not for so many people at once,” she replies. “Perhaps for one or two people at a time.”

“Of course, Cayeun Suncloud isn’t content with something as simple as I described,” Karanos continues. “I spent some time in her palace long ago, and unless things have changed since then, the moments the mirror evokes are confounding. Looking at them, you might be tempted to sort them into categories of pride and shame...only to find yourself uncertain. Was vanquishing an enemy a moment of triumph, or one of pettiness? And memories evolve over time, of course, taking on new aftertastes as the lens of hindsight expands.”

“So they’re not just your greatest and worst moments?” I ask.

Karanos inclines his head to the side as he considers how to explain. “The moments are easy—practitioners of the mind can isolate and extract powerful emotions. The key is in the framing, blurring the lines between triumph and loss, reminding us that even in our greatest victories is sorrow; in our most dire losses, growth.”

The closest of the winged guards patrolling the grounds looks our way, her hand stroking the golden communication tiara floating above her head. White hair and wings contrast with skin the color of dark chocolate. She frowns, then proceeds forward with reluctance.

Karanos acknowledges her sharply. “Can we help you?”

The guard presses her hands together and bows at the waist, a cascade of thin white braids nearly draping to the ground. She lifts her torso and smooths out her white and blue tabard, then speaks in a low alto: “Greetings to the Void Seeker and his companions.”

“And greetings to you, seraph. What is your name and title?”

“Seraph Agathe Windflower,” she states, voice firm, her wings expanding out to the sides. “Void Seeker, your august presence is welcome in the high spire.”

“And that’s my cue to get going. I’ll meet up with you all later, ideally after obtaining a method to contact your home world,” Crystal relays, forwarding Karanos’ thoughts.

“Thank you for the invitation, seraph. I need no escort, but my companions here may be lost without me. They come from beyond this world and have never experienced a celebration.”

Windflower’s heart speeds up. “I will attend to them.”

Karanos smiles. “Excellent.” Without missing a beat, he strides off into the crowd, leaving us with the seraph.

The woman looks at us like we’re an exotic species of animal. “You all come from beyond?”

“While regulars in other planes, like Furemarn, frequently travel abroad, the people here do not. They live and die in Cadivu. And because of Cadivu’s rather remote position in Eternity, those that visit are few and far between.”

Why do people not leave?

“If they leave, they leave their god. Such a thing is heresy, and they will be unable to come back as they were.”

My eyes widen slightly at Crystal’s explanation.

“Cayeun Suncloud likes power,” Maria asserts through Crystal. “Not allowing people to leave strikes me as a glaring insecurity, like the action of a petty despot. People called me a dictator and I gave my citizens far more freedom.”

“Maria and I come from beyond Eternity,” I explain, probing to see how much Windflower understands.

“I confess I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Windflower replies. “Eternity is everything–there is no beyond.”

We’re not here to make the seraph question her entire life, so I take a step back. “It’s just a figure of speech,” I demure. “Regardless, we come from a place far away. This is actually our first time seeing people with wings.”

“Far away, indeed,” Windflower murmurs.

—

Windflower devotes the rest of her afternoon to showing us around the Perennial Palace, taking on the role of tour guide. She points out all of the palace’s renowned frescoes and takes us through the history of its many statues and portraits.

About two hours after she takes us under her wing, we’re in the garden courtyard learning about the history of a seraph general. I’m not particularly interested in Cadivu’s history, but Windflower is a good storyteller.

Suddenly she tenses up and looks back at the palace, her arm reaching for the crystalline staff on her back, positioned between her wings. “I let time get away from me–it’s time for the celebration. You all can either proceed forward on your own time to the palace or accompany me.”

We elect to follow the seraph to her post. At this point the palace’s population has swollen from bustling to bursting, people filling the hallways to the brim.

When we re-enter the palace, each wall covered in a drape is different than before. Where earlier I could sense the stone under the curtain, now I sense nothing, my vital vision confounded. The souls that floated freely about the palace are absent from the hallway entirely. Hundreds of people fill the cramped space, leaving little room in which to maneuver.

Windflower flexes her wings, pumping them once, the white feathers slightly iridescent in the low light of the hall. People notice the seraph immediately and duck out of her way, granting her cramped passage through the palace halls.

“This is why it pays to be early,” she mutters under her breath.

After pushing through several turns and twists, Windflower stops. “Alright everyone, my post is in this coming hallway. Though we are now on good terms, do not interrupt me during my duties. And while I know that outsiders lack appropriate reverence for the Suncloud, do remember to be respectful.”

Having said that, Windflower nods and excuses herself, traipsing forward through a crush of bodies. When she reaches the center of the room she stops and closes her eyes, hands pressed together as though in meditation.

What is she waiting for? I wonder.

“The seraphs await the Suncloud’s command. The celebration takes place simultaneously across the entire plane. Unlike on a true planet, there are no time zones, so everyone is operating on the same schedule.”

A few more minutes pass before Windflower opens her eyes. A subtle pressure comes over the hall and the chatty regulars fall silent.

“This seraph has come to see herself anew,” Windflower states, gracefully lunging forward, her knee at a perfect ninety-degree angle. Her head drops to her waist while her wings spread out to the sides. Her white and blue tabard drapes over her chest and between her legs, while her metallic greaves and gauntlets glisten in the hallway’s low light.

“The right is yours, Seraph Windflower,” a woman’s voice resounds. Where is it coming from? It feels like it’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

“That is Cayeun Suncloud herself,” Crystal explains.

Windflower stands and steps to the right-most edge of the curtain. She withdraws the gleaming staff from across her back; with the click of a button, a hook extends out the top. She waits for everyone in the hall to kneel in supplication, their faces toward the ground.

“You’re not supposed to look,” Crystal transmits, sharing Karanos’ thoughts nonverbally. “If you were a regular, you would be more affected by Suncloud’s oppressiveness. These mortals act not out of reason but instinct.”

With utmost gravity, Windflower hooks the drape and tugs it to the side, all the way to the left. I realize that her arms are shaking, her entire body tense like a compressed spring, like she’s fighting just to remain standing.

Cayeun’s voice echoes out again: “Sister of dawn, behold yourself and consider the pinnacle and nadir, triumph and disgrace.”

Windflower is trembling. “My fate is to see the mirror.” I realize with a start that she’s had her eyes closed ever since she started pulling away the curtain. Only now does she open them to see beyond.

What’s happening? We just seem to be kneeling here.

“We wait for Windflower to finish; then the mirror will be open to all.”

Windflower stares at the mirror for a solid thirty seconds, then tears herself away and flaps her wings once. “I have seen myself.”

The pressure on the hall abates, the regulars stirring from their supplicant positions. As they look toward the side, they freeze, transfixed.

Time to see what this is about.

Maria stands and walks up to the wall, her brow furrowed. I sense a flurry of emotions over our connection, but mostly pride and remorse.

As I rise, I notice that Crystal keeps her vision on the floor. Not going to look?

“I will, after things die down. People’s thoughts are distracting now more than ever. It is rare to see many so contemplative.”

I keep my eyes closed as I walk to Maria’s side. Her undead body is still, preventing me from using my practice to analyze her physical reaction. The room is loud with the chatter of excited regs, so I raise my voice. “What do you see?”

The moment of Zilverna’s resurrection, and when I lost to you, she states over our connection.

I raise my eyebrows. “Both quite recent.”

For a long time, things were stable. Stability isn’t fertile ground for strong emotions. What do you see?

“I haven’t looked yet.”

She turns to me and frowns. “Look already. What have you to fear?”

Sighing, I bite my lip. Suddenly Maria’s cold hand grabs my own and squeezes. I squeeze it back, then open my eyes.

In front of me is no wall, but a vast emptiness. It’s almost like a Light illusion, except I know what I’m seeing is the product of individualized Remorse affinity.

Menocht Bay is blue and clean. The smell of the ocean is as familiar as the skyline and screeching seagulls. But there, on the horizon, I spot a large cruise ship. Storm clouds crackle over it, casting the warm waters in darkness.

On that ship I see myself as I was–confused, bloodied, trying to make sense of the skeletons and Hercates’ grimoire. Suddenly I’m on the shore, surrounded by Captain Conningway’s officers. They drag me away in chains.

“It wasn’t me–”

They force a gag into my mouth. Old me watches them with wide, uncomprehending eyes. Can’t they see that this wasn’t my doing, that I’m a victim like the people on the cruise ship? I’ve only been a decemancer for a day!

I grit my teeth, resentment brewing in my chest as the scene changes. I’m in Menocht Bay’s police headquarters in an interrogation room, my face flushed with fear.

“I really don’t know decemancy,” the me of before protests, his eyes swollen.

“Ridiculous. Why do you keep denying it? You controlled all the skeletons on that ship, ignored the cries of the captives. It’s disgusting.”

The way she looks at me...

Is how you deserve to be looked at now.

The scene ends, skipping to the next time that the ship approaches the bay. I get off early, diving into the water and swimming to shore. Just when I think I’m free, three officers confront me.

They’re going to take you away. Old me trembles with both terror and rage. If I can just get away–

Indecisive, Mother sneers. Weak.

“Stop there; we see you’re a Death practitioner.”

The confusion on my younger face is unbearable. It’s because they’re specifically tracking for users of Death energy, you idiot–and it’s all over you.

“Shows us proof of identity and your practitioner registration.”

A simple request–the officers are being quite reasonable, in retrospect. But my old self panics and runs, afraid that they’ll take him away again. Which they probably would, since I didn’t have what they were asking for.

I know what’s going to happen next. Dread pools in my gut. My heart begins to race and I forcefully calm it down, keeping a lid on my emotions. This isn’t real, I remind myself.

Part of me protests that assertion: But it was.

The officers attack, one of them freezing my feet in place. Another comes in close with a whip of air, arm snapping forward. The whip lashes me across the neck, ravaging my throat.

Mother’s voice croons in the background: Weak weak weak–

I have no bones, nothing to help me–what can I do? young me protests. I see the defeat on his face, the resignation.

But suddenly, something snaps. My old self reaches forward as though grasping for something in the distance and tears downward. The whip-wielding elementalist begins to choke, clutching at her throat. Ducking behind the wind elementalist for cover, old me tries to bargain with the woman’s companions. Let me go and she’ll live. It’s surreal that I thought such a plan would work, but I was desperate.

When the two practitioners dive forward in a pincer attack, the promise is fulfilled. The wind elementalist gurgles blood, her throat torn apart. It’s messy, the blood flowing over the sand and spraying my dark robes.

I watch in a mute daze as the world freezes, aside from the blood–it flows unabated into the bay. The waters were clear before, but when I look now, the bay is filled with the elementalist’s corpse. The two other officers soon join her in the water. The world turns and shifts, the sun rising and falling, iterations cycling, corpses accumulating like autumn leaves on the forest floor.

Soon the entire bay is the color of dried blood, a dark brown color like dead algae.

Achemiss’ voice whispers in the shadows like a slippery avatar of Death: They are real.

I force my emotions to heel again. You can’t afford to get upset in a crowded place like this. You might hurt someone. And aside from hurting people, I might ruin Karanos’ plan and a shot at contacting home.

The vision next shows me crafting the deathseeds and sending them against the SPU’s enemies. It shows me conquering Godora, terrorizing its cities...shows me what could have been, Corvid’s people turned to puppet corpses, bleeding from their orifices and attacking their former loved ones and guardians.

As corpses pile into the bay, vultures replace the seagulls. Soon there is no one left alive in the wasteland of the bay but me. The stench is revolting–I can’t blame people for deserting a rotten barge of death.

I broke all that impeded my path. I gained mastery over my own soul. I destroyed the leviathan riftbeast. I reversed death. I denied Euryphel. The bodies continue to mount, blood gushing like an ooze over the shore, painting the beach in gradients of red.

In the background, Achemiss’ whispers continue. Real real real real—

My eyes are fixed on the mirror wall, unable to look away, stuck in a perverse state of terror and wonder. Where is the triumph in this?

It feels like all the world’s dead have accumulated in the bay, bloated corpses cooking in the sun for days joined by the new and the rotted, corpses nearly picked clean and those that appear whole, as though the body is sleeping rather than dead. So many bodies sink that the news bodies pile up over them until they extend over the surface, the depth of the bay insufficient to contain their volume.

And there I am, overlooking the bay like an emotionless golem, my eyes flaring violet, arms held out to the sides. My back is straight, plates of bone studding the SPU’s best armor, the leviathan riftbeast soul gem crackling by my chest. Oily Death energy oozes like slow-moving flames from my body.

Out in the distance is Ari, but she isn’t crashing to the earth. She’s just standing there with her mace drawn out in front of her, oddly serene. Golden light flashes around her and I realize with a start that she’s replaced the sun–her glow casts the bay in the colors of dawn.

The two of us suddenly surge toward one another. In a much-abbreviated and simplified version of our fight–noteworthy actors like Euryphel and Maria are absent–Ari nearly destroys me, ruining half my body with a single swing.

But then I have her like I had that wind elementalist from long ago. Her body writhes like a moth caught in a spiderweb, flutters weakly like a taper in the wind.

I tear my hand to the side and her soul splinters.

Real real real real–

Weak weak weak–

Ari dies and the world descends into darkness. I hold her soul out in front of me, emotionless, shocked. Karanos comes up from behind and ignores me, treading to where Ari’s body has fallen. He kneels on the rotting dead, pulling her into his arms. Face hidden by Ari’s shoulder, he embraces her and rocks back and forth, rubbing her back.

The vision cuts off and I’m left heavily disoriented, my hands shaking. I realize that Maria has pulled me to the side so that I’m no longer looking at Suncloud’s metaphysical mirror. There’s wetness on my cheeks.

“Dunai?” Maria calls out, brows pinching together in alarm. “You’ve been looking at that wall for two minutes. I couldn’t get through to you, not even through our bond. Please say something.”

I take in a stuttered breath and turn away, closing my eyes. “I need to get out of here.”