The girl sat in a dark room, her long brown hair falling to the arms of the red velvet chair she was seated on. She didn’t know where she was, and she felt like that should concern her, but she didn’t really have enough understanding of the situation to be concerned. So she sat.

“Do you know who you are?” A feminine voice asked. The girl looked up. Standing in between infinite corridors was a woman with long platinum blonde hair that cascaded over one of her eyes, the one that was visible had a strange glowing red symbol instead of an iris and pupil. She was dressed in a red velvet gown, and most notably, she had a pair of horns growing off the sides of her head.

“Of course I-” The girl paused, and came to a sinking realization. “No, no I don’t.” She tried to grasp at her memories, but there was nothing, she didn’t know how to feel. She felt like she should scream, but there was nothing but loss, she felt empty.

“That’s okay.” The strange woman smiled. The girl felt strangely comforted by her, she had neither memory nor understanding, but she felt… familiar. “I’m going to give you a book, can you read it for me?” The woman asked, with a kind tone.

“I- Yes.” The girl began to say something, but settled for a simple answer.

“Fantastic!” The woman handed her a book. “It might be a little scary, but its very important that you read it, okay?”

“O- okay.” She stuttered.

The woman handed here a red leather book, with an eye just like hers on the cover. The girl flipped through the first page which merely read “Volume I”. She wondered how many others there were, but continued on. She read quickly, faster than she would have thought possible, but before she knew it she was no longer reading, she was there.

“Reynard! Reynard! Again!” She cried out, a boy several years older than her was facing her. It was a warm spring day.

“Okay, but just once more, okay?” He pulled out a small silver wand, and the world came to life. Translucent glowing koi fish, flames, and sparkles all swam around her, a phantasmagoric display of magic. She giggled, she laughed, and she felt truly and utterly happy.

“You really love magic, don’t you Cece?” The boy asked. The scene melted away, and she was back in that dark room.

“My name’s Cece.” The girl remembered.

“Yes! Excellent job!” The woman cheered. “Could you read another for me.”

“Yes.” Cece was still confused, but the books were something that fixed that feeling.

The woman handed her the second volume, it looked the same as the first, but she had a complicated expression on her face. Nonetheless, Cece read.

“Father, please I’m tired of the tests!” Cece begged. A man was dragging her through the hallways of the estate, her estate. He had dark hair and a gaunt, taciturn expression, but he had a similar look in his eyes as that strange woman. His eyes were normal of course, but the way they seemed to look at every detail of you.

“Cecelia, you are going to do the tests. Do you want to be able to cast or do you want to embarrass the Silva name any further.”

“I want to cast.” Cece said through tears.

“Then you will behave.” The man glared.

Cece was led to a white room, where a man, her Uncle Cornelius, was waiting.

“Come sit Cece, we can do this quickly.” The man smiled to her. His hair was silver, but his face was that of a man in his late twenties or early thirties. He stood at about five feet and eleven inches, and had a lithe build. He took her blood, before administering a series of medications. She didn’t think she knew what they were, but some strange part of her did. They would have had different ingredients, but they shared one, pure elemental silver. They were disgusting to drink, but that wasn’t her real issue with them. They burned, the concentrated magic overpowering what little clung to her living flesh, it felt like being burned alive. She screamed and flailed, but they had already strapped her to the chair. The last thing she saw was the look of pity in her Uncle Cornelius’ eyes.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

When Cece realized she was back in that dark room again, the strange woman had her arms around her. She flailed still feeling phantoms of the pain.

“It’s alright, you’re safe here.” The woman said. She pulled away, and as she did Cece saw her face. It was the strangest thing, the eyes she thought looked so much like her father’s, now looked just like her Uncle’s. Looking closer, she realized she looked similar to Reynard.

“Are we related?” Cece asked.

“Something like that.” The woman laughed, as the pitying look disappeared from her face, a faint amusement replacing it. She looked like she was about to speak, when a strange sound came from outside. She looked out the window. Had there always been a window? It didn’t matter, the landscape was an apocalyptic a storm of blue light and burning trees. She trembled slightly.

“You’re safe in here.” The woman said. “But I need you to keep reading, can you do that for me?”

“Are the next volumes bad?”

The woman had a complicated expression, before finally sighing. “Some are, but some of them are like the first one.”

“I’ll keep reading.” Cece said.

“Thank you.” The woman said softly, handing her another book.

Cece read voraciously, becoming more herself with every volume. She no longer needed to be convinced by the woman to read them, even the awful ones where her father routinely poisons her. She still didn’t understand where she was or why she had to do this, but was overcome with the feeling that reading was the answer, and she had always enjoyed reading. The wind picked up outside, tree branches slamming against the window, but the woman seemed undisturbed by it, simply handing her more and more books. Eventually though, she hesitated. She held this book like someone held a loaded gun.

“I wish,” She began. “I wish there was a world in which you didn’t need to remember this, it’s not good, and I can’t make you read it, but it’s everything you are.”

“Then shouldn’t I read it?”

“You should, because it’s really important, but it’s not good Cece.”

“Is it scary?”

“Yes, more frightening than anything you’ve seen, well, until today I suppose.”

“What did I see today?”

“You can’t know until you’ve read that one unfortunately. Memories are linear.”

“Then I’ll read it.”

“Really?” The woman sounded surprised.

“There’s something outside, isn’t there? And I need my memories to face it.”

“You really are too smart for your own good, I’m so sorry Cece.” The woman said, lightly kissing the top of her head. Cece should have felt like that was too familiar for a stranger, but it didn’t feel wrong. She hesitantly opened the first cover of volume XVIII, with a stare not unlike someone facing their own death.

When she is back the strange woman is waiting as always, but Cece is no longer who she was. The roar of fire and the screams of her family ring in her ears and the last image of her brother’s face lingers in her mind.

“It’s just me.”

“Yes. You are the only remaining Silva.”

“Solastria will die.” Cece states, emotionlessly.

“They will.”

“Hand me a book.”

The woman simply smiles and hands her the next volume. Happy to have her partner in crime back. The younger version of herself reads like a daemon out of hell, which to be fair she is about to become, but she isn’t quite there yet. Stuck on relearning the science of alchemy and convalescing herself after Solastria’s attack, it isn’t until she gets to the memory of the first time she had used alchemy to make hair bleach that she realized.

“You’re me, aren’t you?” Cece says, slightly more grown up, and now with a head of platinum blonde hair.

“Yes. Well, part of you, and you’re part of me.”

Cece was shocked, but at the same time it shouldn’t have been a surprise, she was in her own mind being fed her own memories, it wasn’t the type of place most people could just loiter in. Unless of course you were a very particular type of mercury mage, but that was neither here nor now. She was more concerned with her appearance.

“I have horns?”

“No, I’m a different aspect of you to put it simply, and so I look slightly different.”

“So I don’t have that scary eye either then.”

“…Maybe.” The woman says sheepishly.

“No!” The younger Cece said with an exaggerated tone of shock.

“We make certain sacrifices for power!” She said defensively. “Now we don’t have time for this, read another book!” She said nearly throwing the next tome Cece’s way.

“I miss when you were nice to me.” She grumbled.

“Just read the book, it’ll be a lot easier from here after that.”

“Why is that.”

“You’ll find out, but just a warning, you’re head is going to hurt.”

Cece dutifully read the book despite the mistreatment from her other self, and couldn’t help, but feel annoyed at her for her lackluster warning. Her head more than hurt, it was a sensation unlike any other, but when she got back to the strange room she was greeted not just with a new book, but ten of them on stands.

“Now that your mind is back up to a certain level we can speed this up.” She gestured and the pages began flipping quickly, but still she understood it all, the information was much more dense, her perfect memory recording everything with extreme detail, but still the knowledge flowed into her. It flowed into her until she was wearing one of her red dresses, until a silk flower was placed delicately over one of her blue eyes, and until a pistol was holstered to her thigh. She stood across from a far more daemonic looking version of herself and smiled, but before she could say anything to her, they were one. Her eye burned familiarly, and she grinned softly, before she opened her eyes, and realized she was hurtling down towards the ground.