Silas walked out of the mirror, and as always, all the light was disorienting after the mirror's darkness. A cool breeze rolled on by, and he had to resist the urge to shiver. He hated coming to Ealisto. This damn place is too cold.

Were it not for his mission, he would never step on this moon. He had not taken three steps, and two massive blades attached to scythes were at his throat. Two lithe but powerful arms gripped the scythes. Silas smiled at the two half-stags, half-man guards. Silas quickly scanned them.

[Cervos Warrior – Level 98]

[Cervos Warrior – Level 102]

"Who are you?" barked the darker Cervos. This one was at level 102.

Silas smiled. "At ease, brothers. I am a guest of the Great Cervi King, Mirsorus. If you allow me, I can pull out my seal of safe passage."

Cervos were unpredictable as far as creatures went. They had the head of a stag, complete with antlers, and the body of a man. As if that were not imposing enough, they usually stood around eight feet tall. The lighter one, which supported a beige coat, nodded. Silas reached into his coat and pulled out the forged seal. It was a hoof print of a stag in red wax on an old parchment. But these beady-eyed half-stags were too dumb to discern the difference between the real thing and a fake.

They bowed to the hoof print and touched it to their foreheads. Silas had to stifle a laugh. If only they'd known it belonged to a baby deer on a farm in Stagford, they would have ripped him to shreds.

They removed the scythes and handed him the seal back reverently. "You're free to enter, assassin. But do not cause any trouble, or you will be torn from throat to groin, seal or no seal."

"You will find I am not a troublemaker," Silas said with a smile.

That was close, especially because of his pesky assassin tag. He had forgotten toL in the mirror. He sighed inwardly. If only he had just selected Hunter class like Cossus but Domina wanted him to have the Assasin class for some reason. He shook his head. After all, Domina knows best.

He pulled his fur coat tighter, rubbed his hands, passed smiles to the non-human guards, and walked out into the shrill streets of Nilundra Kingdom—the second biggest power player in this world. Or, as most people saw it, the only kingdom yet to stand against the might of the Varshan empire. That was only because they were on an island of their own. This kingdom, too, would have been a vassal state if not for the glacial walls protecting them.

It was always a sight to behold how much these people—by people the stags—took their security seriously. Every human was seen as a threat, even the non-Varshan-looking ones. Families of Cervi walked here and there with humans and other non-human races mixed amongst them. And each still looked at him warily, all because his clothes did not bear the stag insignia of their king, which might as well be another Godking, given their reverence to the baby deer, who should grow up to be a powerful leader if the Varsha don't axe him first.

The houses and streets were not dissimilar to the ones found on Rhione. Except these were made of wood with several chimneys and roofs covered with snow, as were the roads. On many occasions, Silas almost slipped. If not for his Sure-Footed skill, he would have.

He passed smiles to anyone who stared for longer than a moment. It was fun to see them quickly avert their gaze. By all accounts, he should have fit right in with the other human population, he had the right skin tone and features, but it was like everyone knew everyone in this small town, and any outsider was seen as a spy from Varsha.

This suspicious nature of the Nilundrians had kept them safe so far. That and their sky-high glacial walls. It was honestly the most impressive thing about this place. He just had to look up in any direction, and there it was, a wall of ice higher than the clouds. So high you could not even see the top. It dwarfed mountains, and these people called it Frostpeak—a rather dull name for such an impressive feat of nature.

What could be expected from people with antlers on their heads?

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Silas passed more smiles as he moved through the streets toward the not so nicer part of town. It was another place he wanted to avoid, but his business was always done best in such places. Even the air felt shriller here. He rubbed his hands and blew warm air into them, which returned some feeling.

He was not an idiot that he would not bring gloves to an all-year-long winter wonderland, but he had to look the part of an idiot traveler. He was moving down the street and saw a trio—a Tauros, a Cervos, and a big man—lounging outside the building he was heading to.

Silas smiled at them to disarm them, but this was a backwater town in the Northern part of a suspicious kingdom, and he was not exactly in the nicer part of town. So, the suspiciousness of these people was even higher, but these brutes looked like they wanted trouble.

"You there," huffed the Tauran. A brute ten feet tall, with the upper body of a bull and the lower of a man. He was a hulking mass of muscle with bulging biceps. It was a testament to their fur that he wore a sleeveless shirt.

"Yes, how may I help you?" Silas said with his ever-present smile.

"You're late."

Silas sighed, and all the tension left his body. They were Domina's men or people.

"Yes, I got late doing the job."

"Well, the other one showed up days before you."

Yes, because the other one had the luxury of moving about freely. He almost said that, but with the number of times Domina changed her base of operations, it was best to keep friendly with the local help. After all, who but she knew how long she would be here for?

"Yes, as I said, I was delayed by her orders. May I see her now? Wouldn't want to keep her waiting any longer than needed."

The bull-man snorted. "Second floor. Don't knock. She knows you're here."

"Thank you." Silas tilted his head to them and moved on inside.

Immediately, he was enveloped in a warmth that just hugged him close. He tapped his boot on the door frame to remove all the snow and moved in. As he traveled up the stairs, some feeling started returning to his cheeks. He heard the conversation from the door directly past the landing.

He raised his hand to knock.

"Come in, Silas," said the Domina, as he knew she would.

He opened the door, and Domina sat in a comfy chair. By all accounts, she looked like a regular woman. There was nothing about her that would be off-putting. She had medium-length auburn hair. She was neither too pretty nor too ugly. Her eyes were the only thing that was of note. They were gold in color, but even that could be excused. If they passed her in the street, one would not give her a second look. That is, until they scanned her.

[Oracle – Level ???]

In reality, she was one of the few oracles that remained after the culling of their kind five hundred years ago, in an event the bards called the Blood of Seers.

Opposite her, in a wooden chair, sat an annoying man. "What took you so long, brother?" Cossus said.

Silas' upper lip twitched. "Had to finish the job after you pretended to kick the bucket, all so you could get out of there early."

"I like to think that was one of my finest acts. Pretending not to breathe while the girl watched was no easy task, and besides, I could only take so much of the girl's constant pestering and dumb questions."

"So, you're admitting that you shirked your duty when you should've been there with me, helping her prepare."

"I said, no such thing." He crossed his arms. "I had to prepare her with the realities of these worlds, and death is very commonplace here, so she better step lightly. Hopefully, that went through her thick head."

"Yes, but when will it go through your thick head that you cannot die every time a job gets boring for you."

"I don't have to listen to you. You're not the boss of me. She is."

The woman snorted lightly with a light smile on her lips. "You two will never change."

For once, Cossus didn't follow up with a stupid question like if she meant that literally because, given her powers, she could mean that quite literally.

"Come, Silas, sit. Cossus has given me his report of the events that occurred until he died. Please tell me what happened after."

Being an Oracle, there was a good chance she knew what had happened, but as she told it, she saw things in the broad spectrum of things like she must have seen Cossus would 'die,' but she couldn't see how. For someone who had been practicing the seeing arts for five hundred years, that sounded like bull crap to Silas, but maybe that was just his assassin interrogator voice. After all, he had spent far too long with them.

So, he told her of the events after Cossus' funeral. She listened intently, her intense gaze piercing him, and Silas had to break eye contact on more than one occasion—another thing he was not used to.

"I see," she mused as she got a faraway look in her eye.

"So, Domina," Cossus leaned in. "Is she the one we're looking for?"

"It is far too early to say. Lorendor's workings are still shrouded from me regarding Meera, which gives me hope that she is indeed the one we've been looking for."

“Pardon me, Domina,” Silas said. "But I could have brought her here, and you could have had an easier time looking into her future."

Domina shook her head. "No, the more we meddle with her, the more likely it is that we will influence her fate. For now, we've done what we can, and we'll just have to wait until she gets stronger. In the meantime, I have another job for you two."

"Someone else stepped through Midiea's mirror?" Cossus asked.

"No, this concerns the Champion." She said in a grave tone. "He must survive long enough to be reunited with his sister, and we will make sure of it, or the worlds will end."