The air grew chilly. Thick gray clouds rolled in, lingering primarily above the cliff Revan and Dayana occupied. The rest of the Kingdom remained bathed in sunlight.

“A beautiful sight, is it not?” Dayana said in a silky voice.

“You know how to pick your spots well,” Revan answered, somewhat in jest.

The wooden table and embroidered cushions Dayana had set up for them was concealed by surrounding black rocks, boulders, and greenery, but they were allowed a decent view of the ocean waves roaring along the coast. Fisher boats floated lazily along the water, and small ships drifted to and from the port.

The cave’s dark, gaping entrance was a few yards away. Reena’s tall statue stood in front of it, her hands clasped together in front of her. The painted symbols had mostly worn off, but the figure held up fine. Dayana had once grudgingly described her as a youthful beauty with round eyes and pronounced lips. Her hair was as bright and as long as a bride’s veil, with never a knot or tussle in sight. The statue displayed her image accurately.

“She is a sight to admire, isn’t she?” Dayana asked smoothly. “Even as a statue.”

Revan smiled thinly. “All statues and idols modeled after her are so carefully crafted. It is obvious that she is very well respected angel.”

Dayana took a sip of coffee, her face smug. “Yes, ‘angel’. She’s the worst.”

Revan already knew the details of Dayana’s old feud with Reena, and he didn’t care to hear or think of it any more. He happily took the plate of cocoa cake offered to him, once again eyeing the ominous-looking cave behind the statue.

Long ago, the cave had been a prayer site for Reena, one of Lady Lilith’s most loyal subjects and a brilliant healer to all living beings. But due to the rise of conveniently located temples, the cave was all but forgotten and left unmaintained. Revan had not stepped inside to see the state of it, but from the puddles of muddy soil surrounding the opening, along with the faint echoing drips and the frequent skittering inside, it was likely now decrepit and uninhabitable.

“How are the cakes, dear?”

Revan had his mouth stuffed, so he could only nod. He hadn’t realized how much he missed Dayana’s berry and chocolate cakes. He poured himself some more coffee.

Dayana smiled at him like he was still a boy under her care. “Good. I was worried I lost my touch.”

Revan swallowed. “Why? Have you not made them since I left?” He stopped himself, chuckling. “No, no. I didn’t leave. You did.”

She shrugged, unbothered. “I had you fully trained by then, didn’t I? What more use was I to you?”

“It couldn’t have been about that. You know I wanted to work with you, always. We still have the same goal.”

“Well…no, Revan. We didn’t. I’m old. My purpose has permanently sewn itself into my heart. Pumps through my veins. You, however, were young and still so easily swayed by the comforts of human life.”

Revan frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You married again. She had a baby on the way. And this wife…she wasn’t like the others. You cared about this one. Your final one. Did you really think you could have kept up with me?”

Revan did not respond. He was too numb to.

“I don’t slow down for anyone, Revan. You made your choice to settle with a family again. That was fine by me. I figured I could count on you later on, when all that was over and life among humanity had all but worn you down. Spouses, children…those pesky things always get in the way. I did not wish for you to seek me out.”

“So you blocked me.”

“I did. Back then, your mind, your magic…none of it was in tune with mine. You had lost yourself in the solace of mankind. There, you didn’t have to be different. You didn’t have to be a monster. And for me, it was as good as a betrayal.”

“Betrayal? That’s nonsense, Dayana. I was always a monster,” Revan muttered with a derisive snort, bringing the warm coffee to his lips.

Dayana smirked. “Yes. I know this well. I admire that side of you. But with her…I won’t say her name out of respect to you. But with her, you were no monster.”

Revan set his cup down with a light clink. His hands no longer shook when memories of his past life collided with the present, which he was grateful for, but this was not what he came here to discuss. He didn’t wish to stroll down down a road to places and people that no longer existed. He instead made himself aware of what did lie in front of him: himself, Mistress Dayana, this strange island with its high cliff and its black cave looming over him, with Reena as their witness.

Further away from him walked his young apprentice and her new spirit-infused friend. He suddenly had the urge to check on how—and more importantly what—they were doing.

“The girls are fine,” Dayana assured. “I’m sure of it. They should be safe near the temple sites, where you dropped them off.”

Revan narrowed his glare at the woman as she brought her own cup to her lips. She sipped calmly, not letting her steady gaze roam away from his.

“Hm. You haven’t looked at me like that in ages,” she commented.

“That is because I haven’t seen you in ages,” Revan pointed out rather dryly. They could do this all day, really. It was starting to frustrate him.

“I am happy to see you like this, by the way. Out of your dreadful Sorko form. You have grown very handsome.”

“Do I not look the same?”

Dayana nodded, eyeing his dark wavy hair that had grown shoulder length, the neatly trimmed beard on his slim face, and his wide shoulders accentuated by his gold-embedded black coat. “Almost. But there lies a quality of determination and certainty in you that is appealing. It seems you’ve come back from wherever your body and your mind have been dwelling for the last seven decades.”

“You know of that too. You know it all.” Revan’s soft chuckle was that of old annoyance. He used to feel it all the time when he trained under her, and he knew Zara felt the exact same way with him as his apprentice now. It would be funnier if Revan had been in the right mood to laugh about it.

Dayana smiled. “So easily irritable.”

“Dayana.”

“Hm?”

“Why are you here? Have you taken another apprentice?”

Dayana grinned, lifting a purple pastry to her mouth. “Yes.”

Revan’s brows flew up, though he was not surprised. He’d been sensing the high and low levels of magic and had made a logical guess. He’d been right. There was another mage in the Kingdom. Specifically, within the palace walls.

“Do you sense her now?” Dayana asked with a devilish smirk. “She’s a sneaky one. Practicing on her own again without my supervision.”

“How old is she?”

“Six.”

This really did catch Revan by surprise.

“Six years of age,” he murmured. “And beyond the walls…Dayana…who is she?”

He had already made another logical hypothesis, one he knew made the most sense and would most definitely be correct. But he wanted to hear the answer from the woman herself. While he figured the identity of the girl, he had yet to find out how all this came to be, including the girl’s existence. Especially her existence.

Dayana’s dark lips curled. “Our very own Princess Yana Mazumi. Future Queen of Sanyara.” Her smile widened wickedly. “She will be the first mage ruling the Court in fourteen hundred years. By the time everyone realizes such, it will be too late.”

“…How is this possible?”

“Oh, you’re surprised? I assumed you had it figured out.”

Revan shook his head. “No, I meant…how is it possible for her to have magic at all? The royal family has no such lineage; they wouldn’t be a royal family otherwise. And with the level that I’m sensing from her already, it seems as though…”

He paused, watching Dayana smirk with glee. Which meant she was withholding important information. The dramatic woman.

“…it seems as though she’s been descended directly from one,” Revan finished suspiciously. “And it seems you are simply dying to say something about this, aren’t you?”

“I am, my dear. You are right. Her mother was a Sorceress.”

She’d surprised him yet again. So much so that he was rendered speechless at first.

“What…do you mean by that?” he eventually asked.

“I mean exactly what I mean.”

“But in this day and age…that is not possible.” Revan kept his tone quiet and steady, though his mind was racing a mile a minute.

Dayana arched a brow. “You are right about that as well. It is not possible…in this day and age. In another lifetime, it is so.”

Revan blinked. “…Another lifetime,” he whispered. A different lifetime. A lifetime when powerful mages lived to give birth to other powerful mages. There was ever only one such time—and it existed in the past.

“Dayana, did you…?”

Dayana nodded, her grin wide. “Altering time is an innate trait to me, after all. But even a mission as complex as this had required some extra effort to execute.”

Revan gaped. It wasn’t like him, but he’d always been reduced to a stunned young thing around this woman.

“You did it…” he said lowly.

Dayana nodded.

“You traveled east? The talisman and the gate…”

Dayana laughed. “I had the talisman all along. There was no need for me to go back east. After many long years of preparation, I was able to open my own gate. Right here, deep within the lonesome mountains in these very lands.” Dayana’s bright eyes filled with a distant fondness. “A messy task, but a success. I held the child right after she was born. So small, fragile. Nameless, at her mother’s request. But once I walked back through those gates, she became Princess Yana Mazumi of Sanyara, next in line for the throne.”

“Her mother knew of this?”

“Her mother and I had planned this. Over fourteen hundred years ago. Long before the final war broke out and left us all in ruins.”

“And the real Yana?”

“Dead.”

“Of course.”

Dayana shrugged. “I tossed her into the sea after I made the switch.”

Revan rubbed his temple. He had always compared Dayana to a ghost, traipsing across timelines and memories. Every instance she wielded her power, Revan couldn’t help but wonder what ripples it caused to his own timeline. He would never be able to tell when the course of his life had been altered because of her. She was such an expert at her craft though that the consequences of her time traveling were minuscule.

But this…she had brought a person back from the past. No doubt time and memory had been heavily modified because of it, but the world had not collapsed in on itself. His Mistress was truly a miracle worker. He’d been vaguely aware of such a plan back when he’d been by her side, but she’d always been tight-lipped about it for the most part. Years and years and years had dredged by, and young Revan had been an impatient boy. But older Revan understood now. A successful task like this took loads of dedication, impeccable precision, and serious patience.

The ache in his head continued to bloom. Part of his own plan to take back this land also had to do with adjusting the past. But unlike Dayana, he did not have the innate ability to do so on his own like this, even if he had a talisman with him already. No amount of training could help him in this. This was the blackest of black magic, which only Dayana’s kind could do. In his case, he would need to travel to the forbidden eastern zone of the world and find another shymastone talisman—a transparent diamond pendant that resembled a dial. Then would come the difficult journey of accessing the Realm of Time—a gate that already existed on that continent. He needed more power to harvest that energy into the talisman, which would be used to open that gate.

This was where Zara would come in. He’d searched for mages far and wide and after a few hiccups, he’d found her. Unlike his other apprentices, she was still alive and under his care, and very determined to perfect her magic. Once her training was complete, her magic would be strong enough to assist him with the gate.

Saren had been a fantastic find by chance. If he could hone that spirit in her…he felt he could be limitless. His mission would run more smoothly if he gained the seer-like abilities she had.

He was relaying all of this to Dayana along with other details of his plan. She listened intently. After he finished, she waved a hand as though swatting a bothersome bug away.

“Oh I don’t know about all that, dear. It comes with so many risks, and as talented as you are I don’t know if you can handle it without driving yourself mad. I did the hard part, didn’t I? I was thinking that you can pose as a prince, and when Yana is of age, you can marry her and then you would be—”

“Enough with the jokes,” Revan interjected, his brows furrowing deeper the longer she went on.

“She is going to be a very beautiful one, Revan. Like her true mother. You’ll like her, or at least the look of her. Trust me on that.”

Revan rolled his eyes. “You are lucky her family suspects nothing.”

Dayana giggled. “They have questioned her features, as they don’t exactly match with mother or father, but they assume some of their past ancestors had lighter hair and sharper faces, and that those gorgeous traits finally blessed their little Yana.”

Revan smirked.

“By the way, you must allow me to meet those girls of yours,” Dayana said. “They have piqued my interest very much.”

“I imagine they have.”

Dayana smiled wistfully. “Yes. It would be nice to be surrounded by our own kind all the time, wouldn’t it?”

Revan couldn’t argue with that.

“Revan, I’m proud of you. It isn’t easy to train someone with lower magic, but you are doing fine with Zara. She is impressive. I do wonder of her ancestry.”

“Well, I wonder of mine, too,” Revan added.

“Perhaps Saren can help in that area…Revan?”

At the mention of Saren’s name, Revan suddenly felt like his heart had caved in.

“Huh?” He grasped his chest in confusion.

“Revan?!”

He was vaguely aware of Dayana hurrying over to his side as he slumped over and slid off the cushion, laying face-up on the grass. Dayana’s concerned expression above him faded in and out. Overlapping images flashed across his eyes, and he squinted, trying to make sense of them.

He could see Zara. She stood in a temple’s pool, naked and alluring, her dark eyes trained on him in wonder. But it wasn’t him, was it? He wasn’t with her right now.

Trickles of blood stained white fabric. Waves of hatred roiled within him.

Women and children waited in cages. Silver anklets jingled against a mesmerizing tune. Firelight surrounded an audience of leering men.

Saren held Zara’s hand, leading her through a market…across the sand…then on a stage…

They were being followed.

Zara pulled out her dagger. She was in an alley. Her dark eyes glowed. The pursuer was on his knees…

The White Sun glowed against her golden skin…

A little boy tumbled off a mountain, set aflame…

She lay in a crusty old shed with a stabbed knee. A feathery shadow with beady eyes and a cracked beak watched her be eaten alive by poisonous centipedes…

A wooden stage cracked in half, a storm ravaged the land…

The world was covered in ice and ash.

A meadow stretched on for miles, leading to a forest draped in grief…

The last few images flitted by in a haze: a golden-white crown, Zara enveloped in red and white jewelry…his admiration of the sheer vastness and beauty of the Royal Court…and of Zara herself, as she tentatively reached for his outstretched hand…

When Revan woke up, his head was in Dayana’s lap. She was stroking his hair back, asking if he was alright.

“What happened to me?” Revan asked, slowly sitting up.

“It was her,” Dayana explained. “The gem you have on that north woman.”

Revan’s eyes widened, astonished as his mind registered the odd visuals that had raced by.

“It’s starting to work then…”

Dayana nodded. “I know the experience. It will take some time to get used to at first. You probably weren’t shown very much at all, and it may not make much sense—”

“I saw them. The girls. I saw…bits and pieces of their present. But…I mostly saw Zara and…” He didn’t know what to say. He was stumped as to why he only saw visions of Zara, and none of himself. What could this possibly mean?

Revan ran his hand over his sweaty head and through his hair, overwhelmed and irritated at his lack of control. He didn’t have the mental capacity right now to analyze everything he had just seen, even though he desperately wanted to.

Dayana soothed his back. “Revan, my dear, it is like I said. You are only going to see tiny bits and pieces of the spirit’s visions first. It will take some time to control what you wish to see. For now, do you have your Mirror?”

Revan nodded, silently pulling it out of his coat along with a vial of Zara’s hair. Soon, his eyes were graced with Saren’s beautiful smile.

“Pretty girl,” Dayana murmured. “Those northern girls are a healthy size, aren’t they?”

Revan grunted.

They watched intensely as Saren led Zara through a busy market zone. Revan’s breath hitched.

This had been in his vision. It was happening now. The girls were being followed by a sinister individual. And now, all four of them sensed it.