The first time Orenda had entered this room, she had been completely ignorant of the language of the high elves, the oldest recorded language of elvenkind. But now, she knew that those runes etched onto the floor were a language, and she had a decent understanding of what they meant. She also noted that they had been carved by someone who had only a tenuous grasp of the language, and was not at all shocked that they had made a mistake. The language was much more simple than common and lacked things like gendered conjugations or pronouns, but the vocabulary was much more varied, verbose, and precise. Whoever had carved the incantation on the ground had tried to copy a common text, nearly word for word, and had, as a result, done a poor job.
Orenda ignored the people who were kneeling over it, scribbling out furious translations, and instead walked to the window and gazed out over the city below, to the sea that looked more calm than it was. The ocean, Orenda thought, was an illusion: a mirrored surface that hid an abundance of life. It was the illusion of safety that she so often saw in the world.
“We call upon the darkness,” Kassie said in her chipper voice, “We call upon the fallen. We call upon the harbinger of doom. We call upon the father of chaos upon Xren. We call upon that which resides within us, the residue left from that first sin that makes us incomplete. We call upon that which has dared to defy the great creator. We call upon-”
“I can’t imagine we need every ‘we call upon’,” Orenda interrupted, “It seems redundant.”
“It’s a chant to help the magic flow,” Voron explained, “This isn’t an element any of us are familiar with. Come here, hold hands with us.”
“My god,” Orenda huffed, but to humor them she knelt and took Kassie’s hand in one of her own and Tiala’s in the other. She did not chant with them, but instead studied the flow of magic in the room. It glowed with a black light, she realized, now that she knew what to look for, and was very close to a mortal magic signature, to a mortal soul.
She could finally trace the source. It radiated most strongly from the mirror. It crackled and flowed from the glass, hit the frame and bounded back, only flowing out once it overflowed the silver. The mirror looked so much like the sea that Orenda, in that instance, saw it for what it was- an illusion that hid a life underneath.
“It’s in the mirror,” Orenda said.
“What is?” Voron asked and followed her eyeline, “Oh, god, it is. Everyone, concentrate on the mirror. It’s stronger there. What is it? I still don’t see a color… I don’t see an element.”
“You don’t see that?” Orenda asked, amazed at the inability, “You’ve had the same classes I have. It’s glowing a sort of… I’m not sure. It can’t be on the visible light spectrum, because it’s darker than that. I can feel that it goes below ultraviolet, but it looks violet, like a darkness, if darkness were light.”
“You can see it?” Kassie asked, and squeezed her hand, “Ok, then everyone channel into Orenda.”
“What? No, don’t channel earth magic into me! I’ll go mad! I’m not-”
“No one can cast in darkness anyway,” Voron reminded her, “It’s going to be out of your element either way. Please, Rendy,” She risked a glance, and saw that there were tears in his eyes, “I want to see him. I want to make sure he’s ok. It happened so fast.”
“Fine, but if it hurts, I’m cutting it off immediately, and as a result, you may all be burned,” Orenda snapped, “You remember what I did to the bathhouse! You remember what it’s like when I get emotional! I could destroy everything in here!”
“Thank you, Rendy!” Kassie squeezed her hand, “You can do it! You’re a princess!”
The three of them began to chant the words they read from the floor, but Orenda ignored it as she felt the magic of their souls flow into her. Her necklace and the stones in her ears began to light, as did all the jewelry her companions wore. She was shocked to see the staves beside them begin to glow- they weren’t touching them. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
The magic was flowing more strongly now, rushing around and inside her- she was drowning in it, and she was afraid it was all going to escape at once, as it had before. She couldn’t contain it, and they were all going to die up here, because of her, because of whatever was in that mirror-
Orenda concentrated on the beat of the stranger’s heart, stared into the mirror, and called out to whatever the entity was.
Slowly, her reflection changed. A corpse stared back at her, but it was not Tolith. It was an elf, but like no elf she had ever seen. It had grey skin, like a corpse left too long to shrivel. Its black hair had been pulled back into a bun on the top of its head. It was visible a little past the shoulders, and wore no proper clothes. Black straps of what appeared to be leather were tightened at random around the corpse flesh.
But the worst thing of all were the eyes. The eyes were not divided, as they should have been, into pupil, iris, and scalara- they were wide, set at an angle that would have been beautiful on a regular elf on that angular face, and that mockery of beauty made it all the more terrifying when it looked out at them with its black, glistening, eyes that reminded Orenda of the void between the stars- not empty, but vast and unknowable.
They were frozen as this creature stared at them, tilted its head, and spoke.
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“Who is scrying me?” It asked as if it was having difficulty making them out.
“Can you see it?” Orenda asked them, and though no one answered, she saw a vigorous nodding of heads, especially from Voron, who had twisted nearly double to see the figure in the mirror.
“Ask who it is,” Tiala squeezed Orenda’s hand.
“Who are you?” Orenda asked.
“I am the cursed thing that haunts your nightmares,” the figure answered, “I am the demon who has defeated Thesis himself. I am that which walks in shadow. I am the first of the elves, the child of Xren herself. I am the guardian, the beginning, the first true elven warrior. I am Morgani Magnus.” The figure paused, and Orenda saw one gloved hand press up against the glass, “And I see you.”
“Morgani!” Orenda demanded with more authority than she had any right, but if she had summoned a demon, now would not be the time to show fear, “We have heard tell of your power! We hear that you can grant us the power to speak with the dead.”
“You have heard lies,” Morgani replied, with both hands pressed to the glass now, cupped as if he was looking through a window, trying to see something that was hidden to him. “I have no interest in the land of the dead. I am interested in the living. I walk the path of order.”
Orenda’s heart stopped.
“You…” her voice faltered, “You… you what?”
“Soko?” He asked, and Orenda felt him looking directly into her soul, “Soko is that… no… Ronnie? Are you alive?”
“Soko?” Orenda asked, more interested than she had ever been, “Sokomaur Sambrees?”
“Soko!” Morgani called, “After Xac killed Shabeel everything… are you alive? Are you still alive? Is Ronnie with you? Why can’t I see you?”
“You follow the path of order?” Orenda asked, “You…”
“Rendy!” Kassie sounded as frightened as Orenda had forgotten to be, “What’s going on?”
“Who is Ronnie?” Orenda asked.
Morgani hissed, “You would know. You’re not Soko. Who are you?”
“My name,” Orenda yelled as the magic welled within her, “Is Orenda Nochdifache!”
“No,” Morgani argued, “It’s not!” He slammed both fists against the glass, “SHIT! SHIT! COCKSUCKING MOTHERFUCKING FUCK FACE! RONNIE! RONNIE YOU DESTROYED-”
“He’s hitting the glass!” Voron’s voice was reaching a fever pitch, “Not to be that guy, but he’s hitting the glass- am I the only one seeing this!? He’s hitting the glass!”
“Rendy!” Talia jerked her hand, “You fool! You told a demon your name! Why did you do that!?”
Orenda realized too late that she was right. Orenda had given a demon her name, her real name, and all the legends said that that was the most dangerous thing one could ever give a demon. A name was an identity, and once a demon had your identity, it could cause you no end of problems.
“Orenda!” Morgani slammed against the glass again, apparently in a rage, “Your father was the biggest fool I have ever met! The biggest idiot who ever walked the face of Xren! He put you all at risk and Soko was about as stupid for going with him!”
“You don’t know my father!” Orenda snapped, “You’re lying!”
“Orenda!” Morgani shrieked as if the name caused him physical pain, “Do not go after the Emerald Knight! That’s how he died! The idiot tried to take on the Emerald Knight!”
“My father?” Orenda asked, then shook her head. It wasn’t true. He was a demon. Nothing he said was true.
“Where are you?” Morgani asked.
“Rendy, stop!” Kassie pleaded, shaking as badly as the rest of them.
“None of it’s true, Rendy,” Talia assured her, “He’s trying to get in your head.”
Orenda tried to end the scry, tried to stem the flow of the magic, but it poured out of her like a wildfire that had gotten out of control. There was no ending it now, as it crackled and popped and filled the room, from her, to the mirror and back. Talia jerked her hand away first, then Kassie, and Voron, to her amazement, stood between the place where Orenda was stuck on her knees and the maniac in the mirror.
“You’ll never find her!” He declared, “Go away! We’re ending this!”
Orenda tried to stand, but she barely felt the physical plane anymore. She was all magic, all ethereal and light. She grasped for her body, channeling all her strength into just feeling the air, the real air of the room, the real fabric of her clothes, any physical thing that she could latch onto, that she could convince herself was real.
Why hadn’t she been afraid of the demon? Why had she been so casual? Why had she told him her name?
“Orenda,” Morgani said, “Stay away from the Emerald Knight! Stay away from that fool Xandra! And whatever you do, if any object talks to you, leave it the hell alone! I put those things where I put them for a fucking reason.”
“I can’t cut it off,” Orenda said, and it took a great effort to move her tongue, lips, and vocal chords. It came out in a whisper, and she felt almost none of it.
“We have to put up a shield then!” Kassie said, “Contain her magic, like we did before.”
“MAGNUS!” Quiroris’s voice boomed through the room, and he began to speak in a language that the students only barely understood, “Begone from this scry; let us see you no more. Leave this girl and never return. I raise the earth and extinguish the flame.”
Nothing happened for a moment, then the world around Orenda began to grow heavier, as if someone had piled rocks upon her chest, or heaping shovelfuls of earth. She was already weak, and tilted on her knees before she fell forward. She did not exactly pass out, that is, she felt herself being lifted and moved, but she did not see who had done it, though it felt like at least two people. She heard Quiroris, who was as angry as she had ever heard him, but she could not make out what he was saying. She floated through life in a daze for several hours until she came to herself, quite suddenly, sitting in her study apparently in the middle of a cup of tea she had been drinking.