Murmurs started quietly around the circle at first, then grew louder as everyone repeated the name of their patron Shevira. Rose started by calling Ket'ha's name. Ket'ha, the crown. Then around the circle, people called on their own patron Shevira. Hokra, the wise. Tzalel, the understanding. Sak'hed, the kind, Khavura, the mighty. Tiferat, the glorious. Netzanel, the victor. Mik'hod, the splendid. Yebrail, the foundation. Malfron, the dignified.

I didn't say Ket'ha's name, though. It didn't seem like it'd be necessary to say the name of your patron Shevira aloud. Rather, it seemed like the type of spell that worked just fine if you were chanting their name in your mind or even just focusing on the idea of them. In this kind of situation, it was hard not to think about Ket'ha.

Gerard--the actual Gerard who lived in this body all of fifteen years before me--had been very devoted to Ket'ha. Prayed to Ket'ha every night for Father's love and attention. Thanked Ket'ha every morning for another opportunity to be worthy of the Viscoti name.

But what did Ket'ha ever do for that Gerard? I'd argue absolutely nothing since I'm Gerard now. That and Ket'ha had done nothing for me so far to my knowledge.

I'd humored the idea that Ket'ha was the one responsible for the time loop. Maybe all of Gerard's prayers paid off and he didn't have to go through all of this. Instead, I had to go through it all as him. Maybe Ket'ha answered his prayers while punishing me at the same time.

I didn't think I deserved punishment though. No one I'd killed in my original life hadn't deserved it for worse things they'd done. I'd just gotten to them before the authorities, and maybe ended their life instead of wasting tax dollars letting them rot in jail, but that wasn't bad enough to be worthy of dying this many times. Everyone I'd killed since then had deserved it, too, except maybe a few people here and there. People see things they shouldn't. People talk when they shouldn't. People get in the way even if you tell them to get out of your fucking way. There were consequences for those things in my world.

If Ket'ha was punishing me for my last life, then saying that name right now would do me no favors. I couldn't help thinking about the Shevira though--all of them. Because there was also something inherently exciting about possibly meeting something akin to a god.

From what I understood, the Shevirat were pure Energy divided into ten and united into one. That Energy was called Nix Fin Lux, lightless light in the Divine Tongue. I didn't really understand that. Or what they called the Universe System. Just sounded like a pantheon to me. That was hopefully what the books I'd checked out from the library would help me understand.

[Notice]

Congratulations!

You have completed the first part of your Quest [Meet Your Patron Shevira]. Your Perception has increased by 5.

The whispering died down, and in the growing quiet, the room also grew colder. The candlelights flickered and then went out. It seemed straight out of a horror film. A bad one. But the hair on my arms still raised, and the back of my neck tingled uncomfortably. Next to me, Rose's breathing became more labored. The person on my other side was panting. Somewhere else in the circle started to sob quietly, then another joined nearby.

Time seemed to go so slowly. Or maybe the add to my Perception made it feel more like it was passing more slowly. But either way, clearly nothing was happening. It hadn't worked. Any time now, Rose would start laughing and say it was all a joke. Or if it wasn't a joke, she'd at least stop waiting for something to happen. What was supposed to happen even?

I looked at the mirror and its flat black surface. With my Perception, I could barely make it out in the dark. But then it wasn't just a flat black surface. It was reflecting something. Or perhaps it was acting more as a mirror to somewhere else.

But where? Another plane? Maybe we were looking at the Plane of Shevirat or the Plane of Souls. There were a lot of paintings and works of art about the different Planes, but never any of the Shevirat. Would we recognize one if we saw one?

Small, dim lights began glowing in darkness on the other side of the mirror. Red flecks, like the tail end of flames reaching into the night sky. The lights grew brighter, but then I realized they were just coming closer. And it wasn't silent anymore, there was a dull sound like wind, but it was growing louder.

Even I was having trouble breathing normally. I couldn't deny now that something was happening. Something was definitely happening, but I didn't know what. Were we supposed to hear an answer to the question of life in the wind? Were the lights going to come out of the mirror and relight all the candles in a show of fireworks?

I couldn't take my eyes off of the lights in the mirror though. As they came closer, the image of the other side was easier to see. Seemed like a forest. And the trees were black but veined with little lights that dotted up the trunk and down the branches. Rather than light coming down from the sky, it seemed to come up from the ground but only in little patches, like light escaping from a crack in the ground. The darkness was so oppressive though that nothing else was lit up by it except the ground immediately next to it.

Then these lights that were growing closer, they were part of a darkness as well. Not like the trees, a different shape. A more human shape. The largest light sources were where the head would be, where both lungs would be, where the stomach would be. Some were just those four bright lights while others were clusters of bright light. Mostly red, some blue.

I didn't like what I was seeing, and my instinct was screaming at me that this was toeing the line.

That's when what I was seeing really came into focus. A black sky made a dull red by the light pouring out of the cracks in the black ground. Light like fire that roared like an inferno burned bright and faded into orange and then red and then purple. In the near distance there was a forest. Every tree had veins of light.

A beautiful hellscape if I'd ever seen one. Was this the Plane of Souls? Why did it look like hell then? The dark figures were coming out of the forest. A lot of them. And they were walking toward the mirror. Were these the Shevirat? Why did they seem to have horns and tails and legs like demons?

One of them took the lead. They had only one light. A large blue light in the middle of where their chest would be in a cluster of other blue and red lights. And they seemed to have two blue glowing eyes. Behind them a trail of apocalyptic fire followed.

They ran forward, but they were so fast that I could barely see them. I knew they reached the mirror only because the frame caught on fire. A magical fire that burned bright white, orange, red, and purple like the other side of the mirror.

Someone screamed. Rose grabbed onto my arm. I was moments away from getting us the hell away from the mirror when the fire went out suddenly. The candles flickered with new flames. The air returned to room temperature. Whatever was happening had ended just like that.

My heart was pounding in my chest. Whatever that was had been very real, and I didn't think those were the Shevirat. Looking around at the relief flooding the room, that was nothing something I needed to say. Rose laughed, and then suddenly everyone was laughing. They started talking enthusiastically about how exhilarating it always was to take a peek at the Divine.

I didn't laugh, but I played the part of Rose's arm candy the rest of the night as if I'd found everything that'd just happened hilarious as well. It was as if they'd all seen something completely different than I had.

Or they all thought their gods lived in hell.