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"Nexoria is the historical place where, after the Great World Massacre, a handful of surviving rebel troops barricaded themselves. When the beast Drakthor managed to break through the walls, the twelve remaining leaders and the sole surviving cohort vanished without a trace. They disappeared entirely, and no one could account for the event—not even how it happened. Along with them, the entire city's population was lost."
Aisling placed the ancient book on the dark brown table made of pear wood. She had brought it from the tablinum of their family villa, specifically from the blue room, so she could study it in peace. She was poring over this tale for a reason, shut away in the quiet of her room. And she had deliberately chosen the history of the Twelve as the focus of her final project.
Her thoughts drifted to the Third Executory Legion and its infamous commander, notorious for his cruelty. Drakthor’s personality had fascinated the young woman for years. She often dreamed about the enigmatic leader.
The Black Priests, if they had known, would have dismissed her dreams as nothing more than the fleeting fantasies of a young mind. But Aisling experienced these dreams with an intensity that went beyond the ordinary and could not escape the pull of Drakthor, even though it was absurd. This mix of fear, fascination, and curiosity bound her to the long-dead commander for extended periods.
She already knew the story of the Twelve well, yet she constantly sought to expand her collection of knowledge with new details. Her obsession might have alarmed those around her, but she hid the depth of her emotions as best as she could. The distant and obscure events stirred feelings in her that she dared not reveal.
Only one person knew, besides Aisling, that she visited Drakthor almost every night in her dreams. Upon waking, she lived in what she called her "other reality." And in this peculiar conviction, she was not alone. Rhys, with whom she had grown close during their school years through her cousin Sophia, shared the same experiences. The two confided only in each other about their surreal dream-like encounters.
During their school years, Rhys had been one of Sophia's mentors. Even in their adolescence, their bond transcended mere friendship. Now, Rhys was about to complete his year of subjugation at Sophia’s family’s Roman-style villa, where the entire family lived together. Rhys had been living with them for a year.
Aisling and Sophia were soon to begin their own year of subjugation—Sophia at Rhys’ family home, and Aisling at Fionn’s. But before that, they still had exams to complete and school to finish.
“It didn’t happen exactly like that,” Aisling murmured to herself, refocusing on her exam topic. She rested both elbows on the table and propped her forehead with her hands. This posture helped her concentrate best. Recently, she had developed the habit of diving into a frozen dream-image while awake, painstakingly extracting details piece by piece from Mirael—her dream self. She felt an urgent need to uncover something, as if failing to do so would lead to something terrible—not just for her but for the entire world she lived in.
Before long, reality dissolved for Aisling.
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She stood atop the hill, her gaze sweeping over the valley draped in the blood-gold silk of twilight. Along the narrow, winding river, only the dark green outlines of willow trees hinted to the observer that life-giving water nourished the land nearby. These dark silhouettes seemed like a row of hulking giants forming a protective wall around the water—around life itself.
"The willow is the sacred guardian of life," she thought, imagining the drooping branches, some caressing the water, as if clinging to life itself—a reminder of birth and death. Forming a cross between Air and Water, the branches evoked the cross of humankind for the contemplative onlooker: struggle and balance.
"The water is Mother Earth's blood," the still figure continued her thread of thought, a faint smile curling at the corners of her mouth.
There was something threatening about that smile. Perhaps it was the blood-red clouds and the somber mood of the scene that made her expression seem chilling. The smile accompanying her brief reflection spoke of spilled blood, of death—not the nurturing, cleansing lifeforce.
There was something unsettling about this quiet late afternoon. A tension and anticipation vibrated in the air. Only the solitary, reflective woman seemed free from restlessness. Yet it was as if the threads of the future extended from her, reflecting back on the present, their echoes growing fainter and slower as they stretched further into time. The moment froze where the thread ended, crystallizing into reality. Until that point, it was pliable, malleable, a possibility that could still be denied. But once it solidified, it became an irrevocable occurrence. Perhaps such a fleeting thought—one focused on the future and frozen at its birth—caused the disturbance. Perhaps the faint echo of an unborn thought was the source of that unsettling smile.
The ominous sensation subsided, but the tension lingered a few moments longer. That smile did not belong in the tranquil stillness of the landscape.
The woman no longer followed the river with her gaze; she had forgotten the willows as well. Her eyes were fixed on the road, which ran straight and unwavering—unlike the serpentine river—on both sides, framing the valley’s sinuous flow. A narrow bridge spanned the river, connecting the two roads with precise symmetry. Her gaze lingered on this bridge, as if awaiting someone’s arrival.
Beyond the roads, no trace of humanity marked the valley. The sun passing over the land illuminated no houses, tents, or huts. This was a place of transition.
"The perfect place Kaelen could have found," she thought, setting off with measured steps toward the narrow bridge. There was still time to get there.
As she walked, alone and deliberate, yet purposeful, toward the small bridge in the desolate valley, she cut a surreal figure. It was as if she had transcended time once again, but this time her thoughts did not disturb the landscape’s peace. Her mind was entirely attuned to the present. The unreality lay in her presence itself.
It was present in every breath she took, in the solemn way she accepted the caress of the breeze on her skin, the contact of her lavender silk slippers with the hard ground. She remained unbothered as her long, dark purple dress snagged on the occasional thorn. With a graceful movement, she freed the fabric but spared no thought for removing the stubborn plant clinging to her garment.
She turned her face toward the sun and, without altering the rhythm of her steps, closed her light green eyes for a fleeting moment, as if to etch the sun's golden warmth into her memory for eternity. The sunlight played with the deep brown tones of her long hair, and the solitary woman seemed like an actor rehearsing on an unusual stage, perfecting her performance for the final show.
Her appearance itself was surreal. Who would choose delicate silk slippers for what was evidently a long walk?
She knew no one was following her, so she did not look back even once. Perhaps there was no one to run after her, to call her back, to wait for her return. Perhaps looking back, even in thought, would have been too painful. She had resolved to see it through.
She had to.
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Aisling was awakened by the door's calling chime. She flinched at the unexpected sound. Her senses were still lingering in that other world, where she had been approaching what she felt to be a fateful event in her purple gown, but her awareness was cruelly dragged back into this reality.
"If I don’t write it down quickly, I’ll forget," she thought gloomily. Lifting her purple bracelet to her lips, she gave a firm command:34Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI2Fp43N39K
“Activate!”
Before the closed door, a hologram of a young, brown-skinned man in a simple white toga appeared.
“Rhys! I’m so glad to see you!” the girl exclaimed, her eyes lighting up with genuine excitement.
“Sorry to bother you—I know you’re also gathering material for your exam, but this is really important. I managed it again using your method, and I wrote it down,” the boy blurted out in one breath.
“Will you come over?” Aisling asked, her tone now calm and composed again.
“I can’t, not right now. I have to join the others, but Sophia also wants to talk to you separately about the Mentor Farewell and, of course, the Martyrs’ Celebration. They were just about to come to see you earlier with Ulf and Thana, but they headed to the peristylium a few minutes ago because my entire family will be arriving soon to discuss the Martyrs’ Celebration. You know how it is,” he explained hurriedly, with little elegance.
Since Aisling didn’t share her thoughts on either the Mentor Farewell or the Martyrs’ Celebration, the boy continued after a brief pause.
“I wrote down the experience. I’ll send it to you through the holoway now.”
He needed to join the others.
“Shall we discuss it when your family gathering is over?” Aisling asked. She was more interested in Rhys’s experiences than in her mentor peers’ visit and the Martyrs’ Celebration combined. “I’ve also come up with more experiences to share today.”
“I have a meeting arranged with Sophia late tonight, I can’t cancel that. But tomorrow, we could go to the Millennium Oak,” he suggested quickly, unable to hide his own impatience for the discussion.
“Alright, then please send the writing now,” she replied, smiling warmly at him.
“Kaelen isn’t exactly a model figure,” Rhys said, grimacing, “but I didn’t sugarcoat it.”
“You know Mirael isn’t either,” Aisling added in a hushed tone.
“I really have to go,” Rhys said, waving goodbye regretfully.
Aisling didn’t even have time to respond before Rhys disconnected the holo on his end. The moment his image disappeared, a green rectangle began flashing on the door.
“Receive,” Aisling commanded the purple bracelet in the same familiar manner. Following her command, the green rectangle displayed a sheet of paper. The girl stepped toward the door, placing her palm in the center of the rectangle. The holoway accepted her identification.
Aisling’s hands trembled as she picked up the paper. Without moving away from the door, she began reading it immediately.
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Kaelen reached the small bridge first. He had covered about eight miles without stopping, walking alongside the river. Now, he sat down on a patch of grass to catch his breath, placing his shepherd's staff beside him. He had carved strange symbols into it during nights spent by the fire under the starry sky. His companions had laughed at him, even mocked him at times, but none of that bothered him. He always did his job thoroughly, without emotions, without desires. He knew he didn’t belong here, and while watching the sunsets, he imagined himself in another future. He had been waiting quietly for two years, hiding in insignificance, until one day he received news from the woman who had finally obtained the missing information. They could finally set off.
Now the time had come. He was passing through this valley for the last time, and only a quarter of an hour separated him from the sunset and the beginning of the journey. He, who knew the secrets of life and death, and who could grasp the moment when existence shifts poles, could hasten or reverse the natural course of death, had not used his abilities for two years. These two years had passed between sunrises and sunsets, like grains of sand falling from an outstretched hand, indistinctly, one grain after another, but while the falling grains of sand brushed against the palm, allowing them to slip down to the earth, the days that had passed had not touched Kaelen's soul. They had all remained equally meaningless and insignificant to him. Endure, endure—that was his motto. With the uncertainty of not knowing which day would be his last.
He no longer needed to wait, but he had grown used to waiting. No one would miss him. His companions might search for him, but before they left, he would remove his coarse peasant shirt and leave it, along with the shepherd's staff, by a stone a few paces away. If they did look for him, finding this, they would conclude that he had gone swimming and drowned in the river. His body would be carried away by the water, never to be found. Only his flute, which he had carved out of boredom during the long days, would be with him now. He had created strange melodies on it as he closed the endless days.
It was more likely they wouldn’t search at all. Who would miss him? He had to remain unnoticed, gray.
His companions would decide he had grown tired of the shepherd’s life and, just as he had once exchanged his wandering life for a shepherd’s role, he was now returning to the wanderer’s staff. He had to think simply. No traces left behind.
He still had time to take one last dip in the river, the small stream whose winding paths and hillsides he knew well after having passed through them countless times over the past two years. He also knew the oak forest at the top of the hill, whose trees had often provided him with cool shade. He had a favorite tree. He had carved his shepherd's staff from one of its thinner branches. He had rested under that tree when he first saw the massive flock of sheep. Not that it had been unexpected.
That day, a lady traveling alone had sought refuge at the lord’s castle, and that was the day he had joined the lord’s service. The lord’s eyes lingered on the lady asking for shelter, but he never met the new shepherd.
Kaelen dismissed his desire to bathe. With furrowed brows, he looked to the east, up the path, where he heard the sound of horses’ hooves.
“They betrayed us,” he muttered, clenching his fist. “Mirael, your emotions have caused the fall of the Company.”
That was when he noticed the woman in the purple dress approaching calmly, and nothing made sense anymore. If Mirael was here, why was that rider coming?
“Hurry!” he called out to the woman, but it was in vain, for she acted as though she hadn’t heard him.
A few minutes later, the woman stood beside Kaelen. Though he was angry, he didn’t express his emotions in any way.
“We must wait for the sunset, and then he’ll be here,” she said, her voice suspiciously indifferent.
“How do you know?” Kaelen asked, his eyes flashing.
“She’s suspected for a while, ever since she caught me reading in the hidden library room. I had to be careful, you know, since she kept an eye on me, and if I had acted suspiciously, I could never have gotten the symbol,” she replied calmly.
“That’s why we stayed here for two years instead of two months, because you messed it up,” Kaelen shot back.
“Two months, or two years, it doesn’t matter to us. Our time is endless,” she replied, admonishing him.
“Sure, sure, you were enjoying your time, but I was out in the wild,” Kaelen grumbled.
“I risked the most, don’t forget, what would I have paid if they’d discovered my secret?” Mirael responded calmly.
“You would’ve been stuck in this time, and at the end of your life, you’d have lost all memory of yourself, of us, and you’d have been reborn as an ordinary mortal, with the light no longer preserving this form, and you couldn’t assume this shape again,” Kaelen retorted.
“Right, in short, I would’ve lost everything. And the Company would’ve suffered that loss, too…”
“Because without you, we can’t precisely aim for the future and the past,” Kaelen continued.
“And if one of us gets lost in the whirlpool of time, the Company’s consciousness weakens,” Mirael picked up the conversation again.
“Until we take the Oath again and initiate someone else into the Company…”
“If we both know so well what would have happened if I’d messed up the search, why are we arguing over meaningless years?” Mirael asked, growing tired of the debate.
Kaelen, too, was tired of the endless back-and-forth between them. They always argued over something when they were alone together.
“Pfft! It was your meaningless years that made me fear betrayal,” he muttered, throwing it at her, but she didn’t reply to his remark. Silently, they watched the rider approaching at a gallop, the dust cloud trailing behind.
“It’s not him,” Kaelen spoke up.
“Let’s begin, the sun is setting,” the woman suggested.
Kaelen nodded silently.
“Focus your mind on that point.”
“Xewith is keeping the mind awake from afar, and we leave this form behind, bathed in Light.”
The transition points, and the moment of transition... Kaelen used everything that helped him concentrate. They would vanish from this place with the sunset, as if they were becoming air. Their consciousness would be preserved, and they would be reborn in the era to which their task called them.
“Xewith is galloping toward us! Without her, we can’t do this!” Mirael exclaimed, losing the calm she had maintained throughout the argument.
“We’re going to miss the moment,” Kaelen lamented.
“Xewith is approaching, but she’s urging her horse forward so hard, she won’t make it in time. This means more than a day’s delay. This is Xewith’s time, and if she doesn’t stick to the plan, it means something happened… Drakthor knows more… Drakthor knows about us and has already found her… Drakthor…”
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Aisling sighed in frustration.34Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJyPqtw4Jft
“We still don’t know exactly what we did back then. Without this crucial information, we might be able to take on the preserved form of light with Rhys—we already know how to do that—and even find Xewith in another time. But even this is too risky. Without him, we’ll lose this knowledge again, and we’ll have to start over in another time, in another form, in another family. It’s not even certain if it will happen in their current timeline,” she mused, pacing back and forth in the room without realizing it.
Rhys and Aisling suspected that the world in which they were born was not the only one. With every decision they made and would make, reality split and duplicated itself. They believed they had to live out every path of all their decisions. Perhaps. According to them, countless distinct and slightly similar versions of Rhys and Aisling existed across divergent and parallel realities. Instead of a timeline, they envisioned a time tree when they secretly met and practiced together. Each branch… a shared trunk leading to different offshoots… The linear and split realities formed a fascinating tree—the Tree of the Whole World.
They suspected they were experiencing one of the shared Shadow-Lines of their branches. On another branch, the Brotherhood had never weakened. They didn’t even dismiss the possibility that there existed a reality line where the Brotherhood had never existed or where Aisling and Rhys had never even met.34Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9VV5R5Dfn9
“Reality plays out every consequence of every decision and its opposite, splitting itself anew with each choice,” they once discussed long ago, starting from the philosophical dilemma of “good” and “evil.”
“No, we can’t do it yet,” she decided. Not until they found out exactly what had happened to them and until Xewith woke up somewhere. “We can certainly awaken the others,” she thought hopefully. “The bond, the Brotherhood, might still be strong. If a few of us are waking up—just Rhys and me—perhaps we can trigger the awakening of the others as well. Xewith is especially crucial. Without him, we cannot travel while retaining full consciousness of who we are and why we’re traveling. We need to know more about that event,” she thought with deepening despair. “We must gain all possible information about that moment, that starting point.”
“I want to see Drakhtor again; everything else is just a farce,” she admitted to herself with passion. “This reality and Drakhtor are my shadow world. I made a wrong decision back then, and so did he. I want to live in that other reality; instead, I’m stuck in this shadow world.”34Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7bEsiLVxbe
“Drakhtor…” she whispered the man’s name longingly, but it was futile. The man she yearned for wasn’t even the monstrous Drakhtor of her timeline’s past.
In Aisling’s opinion, everything began with Drakhtor. Somewhere in another timeline—not even here, where Drakhtor was a monster. She had to find the very first moment they met.
She was also curious—how could she not be?—about what symbol she had to retrieve from Drakhtor, even through deceit and manipulation, where she was the bait and the executor of a nefarious plan. Why was this symbol so vital to the Brotherhood? And most importantly, why was this symbol in Drakhtor’s possession? To fully understand the truth, they would have to achieve travel within the timeline and across its branches, retaining all their knowledge and identity. For a split second, Aisling understood why—but she had not yet succeeded in grasping and unraveling this critical piece of information.
“We can’t go, not yet,” she repeated her earlier decision.
The door’s caller chimed again.34Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8AS7tDwH1O
“Activate,” she commanded automatically.
Before the hologram appeared, she managed to force a perfect calm over herself.34Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjke8ykqDGL
“Fionn is waiting in the tablinum,” the white-haired woman stated without any preamble.
Aisling’s mother had an unusual hairstyle. She wore her long white hair in a tall updo, claiming that such a style best suited white hair. In her opinion, long hair was pointless to pin up unless it was white, as it wouldn’t look good otherwise. Had she been born in an era without pigment-erasing techniques, she might have powdered her hair with rice flour.
When she shared this opinion humorously, a larger gathering had convened at the family villa. The audience thought Lady Lívia had a wildly vivid imagination. Powdering one’s hair with rice flour? Most people didn’t even use pigment-erasing techniques on their hair or skin.
The memory of that evening returned to Aisling. She no longer dismissed the possibility that somewhere, far beyond countless time branches, there existed a timeline where certain decisions led to powdered, towered hair becoming fashionable. Perhaps in such a reality, people would also adopt near-identical appearances based on popular designs. All it would take was a demand for mass-transformation institutes and a few predefined “acceptable” nose and lip shapes, alongside aesthetic palettes for other facial and body features. Such a world would be even stranger than the powdered one. On the streets, one might see only three combinations of nose, mouth, and eye shapes. Aisling struggled to imagine a world where such transformation became a trend. What kind of decisions could lead to such a reality?
“I’ll go down to him,” she replied simply.34Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡunaPA5s730
Why is he waiting in the tablinum and not socializing in the peristyle with tonight’s guests? Or why doesn’t he come up? Aisling wondered to herself.
The hologram didn’t disappear.34Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ62zOBgp2SH
“He wants to talk to you about subordination. He said he didn’t want to disturb you recently so you could prepare peacefully for your exam,” Lívia Domina explained further.
“Ah, so it’s an official visit disguised as a meeting,” the girl concluded.
“An ephemeral-duty visit. I don’t care how you complicate each other’s lives, but make sure to join the guests tonight. Rhys’s parents have already arrived, and Sophia and her family are also in the peristyle.”
Aisling didn’t mention to her mother that Rhys had already informed her that Sophia’s family would drop by later. Nor did she mention that she had spoken to Rhys earlier.34Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsXEqXF68JK
“I’ll change and go down to him, then after our discussion, we’ll join the guests in the peristyle,” she agreed to her mother’s request.
“How are you progressing with the study of the Twelve Paths?” her mother asked.
“I’m currently researching the consequences of Drakhtor’s reign of terror,” she answered briefly and superficially.
“You’re starting with Drakhtor,” Lívia observed. “The Brotherhood of Twelve is more intriguing.”
“Not to me,” the girl muttered quietly.
“We rarely talk, my daughter. I wonder why you always answer my questions briefly and then seem disinterested in my company,” Lívia sighed. “I miss you. I don’t want us to drift apart even further.”
Aisling hadn’t even realized how much she had been avoiding and neglecting her family recently.34Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQUTIvme3gN
“My research makes me avoid and neglect everyone, but everything will return to normal afterward,” she promised, guilt-stricken, to her mother. Quietly, she resolved to pay more attention to her family and friends. Eventually.
