Before the man could even say something more, his eyes turned white. He spoke in a flat, monotone voice.
"Lady Phyrra is in charge of the overseeing the experiment and distribution."
"Phyrra, huh…"
Vulas leaned back slightly, lost in thought. Inside his mind, multiple voices stirred - overlapping, echoing, arguing with each other.
"Phyrra…"
"I've heard that name somewhere…"
"Who is she?"
"Wait… let me think…"
"Where did we see her…?"
Kolvar, sitting stiff beside him, felt another chill run down his back. Phyrra. Wasn't she supposed to be just a Second Order? Back then, they would curse her behind closed doors.
Now this?
Vulas noticed Kolvar's expression and turned his head slightly."What's wrong, uncle? You know something?"
Kolvar spoke in a measured tone - careful, steady. He told him everything he knew. He didn't leave anything out, there was no point in lying now.
Vulas, hearing this, fell into thought. His mind drifted back to Enira - someone who had once fascinated him, who he'd been so drawn to before… but that was before. Before that game ended.
And besides, there was still something strange about the one close to her - the human. The one he'd crossed paths with more than once. And most importantly, the other elven girl…
The day of his death, he could still vaguely remember that protection spell on her. If it was what he suspected, he didn't want to deal with it, atleast not now. It wasn't worth it. Enira had no use to him anymore anyway. As long as this Phyrra was found instead… that was enough.
Vulas drank the last of what was left in his cup. "Good. Let's go find this Phyrra."
He got up to leave, Kolvar rising right after him, following closely behind.
As soon as Vulas stepped out of the building, the man at the table snapped back to himself. His eyes blinked rapidly, throat dry. He looked around, confused. "What… what just happened…?"
He wasn't sure what he'd said or what he'd agreed to.
He turned his head slowly, hoping to see the others still sitting in the dim room. But all he saw made his breath catch in his chest.
They were falling apart.
One by one, the figures at the other tables cracked open, like glass blocks fracturing under hidden strain. Their bodies, once whole, now split into neat, unnatural pieces, blocky segments drifting slightly apart, like broken parts of an unfinished shape.
It reminded him of a half-finished puzzle collapsing back to shards. Or an old toy glitching out in real space.
A quick scan through his sense told him what his eyes already saw, there was nothing left.
He stared at the flickering mess, breath caught between fear and sick disbelief.
Their entire being… even their consciousness… shredded apart like a child's game…
On the other side…
Enira slept soundly, a gentle smile curling her lips. She dreamed of a simple, rustic life with Ian, quiet days, tender nights, a child in coming. She could almost feel the warmth of tiny hands against her skin.
But before the child in her dream could take its first breath, the warmth vanished.
When she opened her eyes, she was standing once more in that familiar endless white space.
Enira's shoulders slumped as she let out a soft, theatrical sigh. "Couldn't you have waited until the baby was born?" she muttered, folding her arms in a small pout.
A golden sphere of light floated into view, hovering in front of her. Its voice was high, halting, half-childlike, half-broken.
"Dream baby… fake. Real baby… I get…"
Enira just shook her head, lips twitching in reluctant amusement. She said nothing more, what was the point? Strange as it all was, this arrangement suited her. She'd accepted it long ago. All she wanted now was to keep Myrra safe from the Quiet Testament, and to spend her days with both of them, Ian and Myrra, however she could.
She reached out, cupping the softly pulsing orb in her palms, its warmth seeping into her skin. She sat down in the empty white nothingness and murmured, "Alright then… shall I keep telling yesterday's story?"
The golden light flickered, as if thinking, though 'thinking' was never quite the right word for how it worked. Sometimes it spoke like an oracle, other times like a lost child. It knew too much in one breath, then forgot the simplest things in the next. So Enira talked to it, told it stories, explained the world piece by piece as if teaching a stubborn toddler how to dream.
But before she could begin, the orb pulsed brighter. "No story… today transfer… my part… to you."
Enira blinked. "Transfer? Now?"
The light bobbed. "Yes. Medium ready… now… don't know when next…"
She hesitated, brushing her thumb along the warm glow. It had mentioned this before, needing a new home, somewhere to transfer a part of its consciousness. She'd thought they had more time. Maybe she should ask Ian first… but in her heart she already knew what she'd say.
She exhaled, steadying herself. "Alright. I'm ready."
The light shivered in her hands. "Starting now…"
The golden sphere quivered in Enira's hands, warm as a heartbeat. She held it close to her chest, feeling its tiny pulses echo against her skin.
A hush fell over the endless white expanse. Slowly, threads of soft light unspooled from the orb, thin as silk, drifting like strands of dawn. They coiled around her fingers, then slipped beneath her skin, sinking deep until she felt them blooming inside her mind.
She closed her eyes. For a moment, there was only warmth and a soft whisper like distant birdsong. Then, within the dark, quiet folds of her consciousness, she saw it: a small, glowing fruit. It pulsed gently, cradled by the deepest part of her mind, round and golden.
She reached for it in thought alone. The fruit felt alive, its surface smooth, humming with a faint, familiar presence. The same odd childlike voice flickered through her thoughts, softer now, almost content.
"Thank you… exhausted… sleep now… take care… we… together…"
Enira felt a flicker of ache deep inside her chest, not her pain but the weary echo of this tiny fragment she'd taken in. She remembered how desperate that voice had been when it first reached out to her - ragged, pleading, half-broken, lost. And now it rested in her mind like a child curling up in a safe bed, all its weight and trust surrendered to her care.
Outside, Enira's sleeping body was veiled in a soft halo of golden mist. The tiny fragment inside her had tried to hold itself small and quiet, folding every stray whisper of power inward so it wouldn't trouble its host. But it was still too young, its will half-formed, its edges raw and shimmering. Threads of warm light bled through Enira's skin in gentle waves, drifting into the air like petals caught on an unseen breeze.
Yeonelyth appeared at the foot of the bed, not with sound or flash, just there, as if she'd always been standing there unnoticed. Her eyes went to the stray light escaping from Enira's body. She watched for a moment, arms loose at her sides.
A thin stream of energy moved from her fingertip - pale, almost colorless, shaped into precise spell models that floated over Enira. They shifted in tight patterns, folding around the drifting golden mist. Where the haze tried to slip away, the models pressed it back in, stitching every loose thread back under Enira's skin.
Yeonelyth watched until the last curl of golden haze sank back beneath Enira's skin. Satisfied, she lowered her hand, the faint lines of her spell models fading like chalk brushed from stone.
"Still," she murmured, her voice low and almost amused, "I didn't think I would become a babysitter to…" The last word trailed off, fading into the quiet room before it could catch its own meaning.
A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, thin but real. In all the time she had shaped and watched the world's, she had never seen anything quite like this. No record of it in any archive, no mention in any buried tablet or whispered ancient-script.
A new variable for her to test, dissect, learn.
Her fingers curled once at her side, as if already imagining what new shapes that knowledge might take.
Then she vanished, not so much stepping away as slipping back into the part of the world that never remembers her presence at all.
-------
Ian woke before dawn, much earlier than he expected. His eyes opened to the faint grey light slipping through the curtains, but his mind was still half-swallowed by the flood of last night's strange dreams. Or rather, not dreams at all, but information.
It appeared suddenly, layers of knowledge pressed into his mind, waiting to be sorted. He exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand across his forehead.
He directed the rest of his parallel consciousness streams to start clearing and sorting through the flood of information, every fragment, every hidden piece. While they worked, his main awareness sat cross-legged, steadying his breath as he walked himself back through what had really happened the night before.
It must have been some time later when a small sound reached him - a sleepy voice drifting in from the next room.
"…What…?"
Myrra.
Ian blinked his eyes open and stood. He crossed the hall in a few quiet steps, pushing the half-open door wider. Morning light spilled across the room, catching on tangled sheets and bare skin.
Myrra sat perched at the edge of the bed, one shoulder exposed where her loose robe had slipped down, her hair falling in a soft, chaotic spill down her back. She looked half-dressed and entirely unconcerned about it, her legs folded under her, toes brushing the floor. Her eyes were bright with sleep and curiosity, lashes still heavy.
Enira lay propped up against the pillows beside her - hair mussed, collar slightly open, the pale line of her throat and collarbone catching the light. She looked calm, almost otherworldly, but the faint flush at her neck and the looseness of her wrap hinted at warmth still clinging to her skin from dreams not yet fully shaken off.
Myrra was peering at Enira's hand, turning it this way and that with exaggerated care.
Myrra caught sight of Ian in the doorway and beamed at him, excitement slipping into her sleepy tone. "Sister Enira… she's entered second order!"
Ian stared. Second order? He rubbed his temple once, trying to check if he'd misheard. She'd just broken through recently, and while months had passed, it was still impossibly fast. He looked at Enira, eyebrows raised in silent question. She just nodded once, calm as ever.
He exhaled and focused his mind bloom, brushing against her core. The energy fluctuations were higher, stronger, more stable, but there was something else too. Something tucked deeper, coiled and warm, not quite hers but not separate either. He made a mental note to pull that apart later.
While he was tracing her flow, Myrra, oblivious, lifted Enira's hand again and, without a hint of shame, brought it to her mouth and nipped at it.
Enira and Ian both turned at the same moment.
Myrra blinked, a faint flush creeping up her cheeks. "I was just… testing. Wanted to see what it felt like…"
Enira only laughed softly and drew Myrra closer, tucking her under her arm, coaxing her to behave with a gentle squeeze. Myrra half-grumbled but didn't resist, her teeth nowhere near hands now.
Ian ignored them, shifting his focus fully back to Enira's flow. He watched the pulses, the shifts, the small, steady signs that the breakthrough was real. After a moment, he stepped back, satisfied enough for now.
"Alright. We'll do a proper scan later," he said quietly.
Enira nodded once, her eyes steady.
With that, Ian turned and slipped from the room, the soft sound of Myrra's muffled laugh following him down the hall.