The room that I entered felt both lavish and lifeless. No expense was spared yet no care was given. New furniture was arranged neatly around the room and paintings of men and women I didn’t recognise were hung up on the walls. I sat on a mahogany chair that probably cost more money than most Regulars would earn in a lifetime and waited. As I stared at a portrait of a red-haired man with pitch-black eyes, I activated my Gift and focused on the conversation in the other room. I could feel Vera’s mind, her uncertainty as she talked to the Seer. But for some reason, I couldn’t fully read her thoughts. The Seer’s mind was black and empty but that wasn’t unexpected. I focused on Vera’s mind.

I didn’t want to control it. I lacked the incentive or ability to do so. Instead, I wanted to see through her eyes. To have it as though I was her. Only without the ability to control anything. I didn’t know if it was even possible but I tried anyways. I felt the same resistance I did when I first tried reading minds. The slight pushback reality gave when it found out you were trying to change it in unnatural ways. When I was younger, some of the people around me liked to say that I was a freak of nature. That my Gift wasn’t a Gift at all, but a mistake made by a mistakeless God. I wondered if the nobles with Gifts went through the same thing, but I doubted it. Gifted nobles were more common in numbers, and nobles were generally less prone to superstition.

I pushed harder, but reality resisted, pushing back against me. I felt it bend, but it didn’t break; a bubble that changed its shape but didn’t pop. I didn’t stop though, trying to fully enter Vera’s mind. Then, just as I thought I wasn’t going to be able to do it, I appeared in Vera’s mind. I looked through her eyes, inhaled through her nose and listened through her ears, but I wasn’t her. I felt like a spectator that couldn’t make any change in the world; only observe it. I could see the Seer through her eyes.

The Seer paused what she was saying abruptly, and squinted at Vera.

“What?” I asked though it wasn’t me who said it. I felt as though my body was being controlled even though I knew that wasn’t the case. I wondered if this is how someone would feel if I took over their body. Would they become a spectator, or wholly dominated?

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“I didn’t think you'd learn that so quickly,” the Seer said. "Didn't think to look into the future regarding your progress."

“Learn what?” Vera said.

“But,” the Seer continued, completely ignoring Vera as she spoke to me, “it’s time for you to go. These conversations are private after all.”

Her eyes glowed a faint white and I felt my mind get pushed out of Vera’s body. Just as suddenly as I had left it, I reappeared in the room I was in before. I stared at the portrait and steadied my breathing. Now that I looked at it more, I vaguely recalled a similar-looking face. Before I fully place my finger on it, I heard the sound of space bending beehin me, and a voice interrupted my train of thought

“I didn’t know you were interested in the major figures of Choron,” the voice, who I now recognised as the Ruler, said. “But you’re right. That’s the Creator.”

Who? I thought, but I didn’t express my confusion out loud. Instead, I read through the Ruler’s mind as quickly as I could without making it obvious. “Of course,” I said, not missing a beat. From what I could tell, the Creator was one of the three Council members, along with the Ruler and the Seer. He had the power to create autonomous creatures and as a result, was the person who single-handedly carried the manufacturing industry in Ravnehein.

The Ruler looked at the portrait sombrely. “These portraits are of everyone who’s graduated from the Academy. Only half make any real impact on the world. I haven’t seen or talked to the Creator for months let alone any of my other classmates. The Seer hates me too. Wants me dead.” The Ruler looked into my eyes. “What kind of life do you want for yourself, Kira? You’ll come out of this Academy stronger but not necessarily happier.”

Normally, I would have considered his words, but I was panicking. I connected the dots between the Seer and the Ruler. I remembered the way she had laughed when she said I was going to kill “Him”, and how the Ruler said the Seer hated him. That’s what the Seer meant. I was going to kill “Him”. I was going to kill the Ruler.