The sorceress of Foresight resembled Meera's elementary math teacher, Mrs. Gill if Mrs. Gill had long raven locks and could pass for a model. Another major difference was that the woman before her was black, but it was the eyes. They both had a similar look in their eyes that betrayed their craziness and hunger for knowledge. Meera remembered that if Mrs. Gill found something interesting, even if it was a children's collectible card game, she would stop to question them about it and, most of all, why it interested them so much. She prayed this woman was not like Mrs. Gill because, for all her niceties and good intentions, Mrs. Gill got annoying real fast.

Firaan looked left and right, pulled Meera into her room, slammed the door shut, and took heavy breaths. "You came to me at the perfect time. A moment too late, and my overzealous colleague would have taken you, just like she did your friend."

The woman spoke so fast as if she was firing every word from an assault rifle, but thankfully, Meera caught every word.

"Firstly, she's not my friend, and second, I know," Meera said.

Firaan raised an eyebrow and looked at Meera's forehead. "Oh, that makes sense."

"Did you just read my mind?"

"Yes. Sometimes, talking takes too long, so I just read the other person's mind." Firaan smiled as if that were the most normal thing to do.

Meera squinted at her.

"Oh, don't judge me so harshly. I promise not to look too deeply," she said as she stared intently at Meera's head. "Tell me, is this Narikas, the prince Narikas of Azeria? You sure think about him a lot."

"W-What?" Meera felt heat on her face. "Get out of my head."

Firaan raised her hands. "Sorry, sorry. I can't help looking. Force of habit. Now, you're here to get information on your brother."

Meera moved to answer, but the sorceress raised a hand. "No need to answer that. I already know, and yes, he was here. Quite a dashing young lad. We practically had to pry some of the sorceresses off him."

"He's sixteen!" Meera exclaimed. Her motherly instincts jumped to the forefront. "None of you crones better have laid your filthy paws on him."

Firaan laid a gentle hand on her. "Relax, Meera. I know in your world, this Earth, the age of adulthood is eighteen, but in our world, it is fifteen. In other words, it was perfectly within—"

"I don't give two shits about the age of adulthood. Neel is just a kid. You better start naming names. I have body parts to collect."

The sorceress half closed her eyes, and a slow smile spread on her lips. "Calm."

A sense of calmness spread through Meera, and she stilled like the waters of a lake in the stillness of the morning. It was like all her worries and stress just fell off her.

"There, that's better, isn't it?" Firaan said in a gentle voice.

Meera smiled and gave her a nod.

"You don't need to worry about anything. I will give you all the answers you seek. But I seek something too, nothing traumatizing, just knowledge. You will do that for me, will you not?"

Again, Meera nodded. What was the harm in that? She would get all her answers and needed to give her some in return. A fair trade, and she had done this sort of thing with the witch in her blasted game.

The witch…Meera's right eyebrow twitched. The waters of the lake rippled.

She's been caught. She's going to tell them about me.

Someone skipped a stone over the lake, causing more ripples.

Firaan frowned, and her grip tightened on Meera's shoulder. "Stay calm, Meera. Staying calm is so nice, isn't it? Let's go back to that."

She had that Edwyn torture and murder so many people and animals like Shade, Cinders, and Onyx.

Someone just threw a boulder in the lake.

Meera slapped Firaan's hand aside. "Touch me again, and well, you can read my mind what I'll do."

The sorceress pulled her hand back. "That's gruesome."

"My brother. Talk."

"Remember, our deal that you will answer some of my questions, and I will answer yours."

Meera pulled off a chakram and started spinning it on her finger.

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"Okay, okay. Patience doesn't run in the family, it seems."

"And it's running out fast."

"Yes, evidently so." Firaan's demeanor changed now that she wasn't in control. There was ice in her tone. "The Champion was here to get the Miravane repaired. Though, he wouldn't divulge where he found the ancient relic."

"And you couldn't read his mind?" Meera asked.

"Contrary to what most believe. I'm not omniscient. There are limits to my skill, which he figured out quite fast, and he even started throwing me off when we questioned him. Though, what was on his mind about the girls here was evident to everyone."

"And did you fix the Miravane for him?" Meera asked. Not wanting to hear more about Neel's intention with the sorceresses.

"Of course. Anything for the Champion. After all, our survival depends on the success of his mission," Firaan said with such sincerity that Meera couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not.

"That's it?" Meera asked. "That's all he came here to do. He said nothing else. No plans of where he was going. Who he was going to meet? Anything?"

Firaan smiled. "You sound desperate? But I would be desperate, too, if it were my brother destined to save or end the world. But before all that, can you tell me more about those chakrams? I can see why The Lady of Mirrors would give you such a powerful weapon. With you being the Champion's sister, you will have a part to play in our impending doom. But still, it pales in comparison to your brother's."

That piqued Meera's interest. She remembered the play in Belacre that showed the Champion driving his golden sword into Aetheron's heart. They never did say its name.

"Ah, you're interested," Firaan said knowingly. "I would be too. After all, it's not every day that Lord Kraldir bestows such a mighty sword on a mortal. As far as gods go, he's one of the few that keeps his arsenal to himself."

"Who is that?" Meera asked. "I've never heard his name before."

"Lord Kraldir is the god of weapons. The weaponsmith of the gods. All weapons are under his control. If he so wills it, even the mightiest warrior would fail to lift his sword. Any blade with his mark is one of the greatest weapons in all the worlds." Firaan's eyes lit up with hunger as she got a faraway look. "It was such a beauty if only the lad would've let me study it. Speaking of studying it. Can you let me study yours?"

Her long fingers reached for Meera's chakrams. Meera pulled her wrists away. "I'm sorry, but these are not meant to be studied."

"But can you imagine what I can do with them? I can unlock their secrets and tell you what sort of advancements await you, or maybe you're interested in how to unlock specific classes."

Meera couldn't lie. She was interested in that. Her previous class evolutions took into consideration what she had done in the past and gave her classes based on that. But then, she didn't receive a class upgrade at level 300. Pallas was right that there wasn't a class upgrade at every hundredth level, and only Darthin knew what and when the upgrades came.

She crossed her arms. "You think you can appropriate the powers of a god?"

The sorceress smiled. "Who said appropriate? I'm just a humble mortal. Who are we to know his will, but we can try to untangle this beautiful thing we call the system? So what do you say, Meera, Cosmarian vanquisher, will you let me study your chakram in exchange for information on your divine weapon and class evolutions?"

It wasn't such a bad offer, but one question burned in her mind. Something she had learned painfully.

"What's in it for—"

"Me?" Firaan exclaimed. "A chance to experiment on a divine weapon is reward enough. Could you imagine the secrets it holds and how we could benefit from the power of the gods?"

She sighed and shook her head even before Meera spoke.

"You mean how beneficial it will be for you and your sisters because I'm sure you will not share this knowledge freely with the world."

"Why is everyone so distrustful of us? In your case, it's Kalrina's fault for distilling a sense of distrustfulness for the sisterhood. We're not all like that tortured, vindictive woman hell-bent on revenge."

Revenge? Meera thought, but of course, the woman read her thoughts.

"I'll tell you all about it someday. That's not important. Let's talk about what I can do for you aside from revealing your class progression and even your skills if you wish to share them with me because, quite honestly, I've never seen someone with a Reflection's Shadow tag before. The most important thing I can do for you is keep you safe. Unfortunately, many in the sisterhood would try to exploit you for who you are, like trying to get your brother to return here by setting you up as bait."

"Tell me something I don't know," Meera grumbled.

"They might try to run experiments on you as well."

Meera yawned. "Since you have no new information on Neel, you all are useless to me. It's time I got out of this place." She turned toward the door.

"Wait!" Firaan cried and scurried to put herself between Meera and the door. "If you agree to stay with me for three days and let me examine your chakrams, I will share what I learn and get you a safe passage out of here."

"How can you promise that and—"

"Why should you trust me?" Firaan finished for her. "Well, you have no other choice. You don't know your way around this place. Kalrina has been caught, as you heard, then I'm willing to bet all my research that she will give you up in a heartbeat. Three days is all I'm asking, and I will safeguard you from Aksha, and I'll even sweeten the deal. The sisterhood's trackers are trying to home in on Neel's location by studying his residual magic when he teleported out of here. It's a complex piece of work as if the gods themselves had granted him the skill, which is probably true in his case. But our trackers are nothing to scoff at. So, what do you say, three days in exchange for safe passage, intricate knowledge of your weapons, and promise of some location about your brother."

It was an enticing offer, but Meera would be entirely at the mercy of this sorceress. A sorceress, she did not know, and who was to say she was any better than Kalrina? Still, as good as the offer was, she could not bring herself to trust the woman.

"You can trust me—"

From behind Meera, the stone doors smashed open, raising a small dust cloud, and as the dust settled Meera saw a woman standing there. She wore a yellow dress, which was relatively modest for this place, and it accentuated her piercing green eyes. Meera gasped, stepped back, pulled a level 2 chakram off her back, and readied herself to fight. But when she used Identify on the sorceress, her chakram nearly fell from her fingers.

[Sorceress of Rebirth – Level ???]

It was Aksha—the real one.

"Aksha, w-what are you doing here?" Firaan asked, stepping in between Meera and her sister.

All Aksha had to do was step into the room for Firaan to lose her nerves and step aside with her head bowed. She stared daggers at Aksha. "I almost had her."

Meera sneered at Firaan. "So much for trust."

"Come," Aksha said to Meera. "You have a lot to answer for."