“That doesn’t look like an Eye to me,” Sigurd muttered, carelessly stepping over Geraldine’s unmoving body.

Despite having been the one to deal the blow, Eleanor was still somewhat shaken. She didn’t think she had hit the old maid hard enough to kill and was relieved to find her still breathing.

“And I still have no idea what those runes mean! Oh, this is delightful!” The ditzy bard kept saying, disguise slowly fading away until only the handsome, if annoying, man was left.

“We should see if we can move it safely or at least send for Lady Neer before activating it,” Eleanor said, trying to plan her next few steps. She had been so concentrated on not letting the head maid realize the depth of her deception that she hadn’t thought about what to do once she finally found what she had been running around the castle for.

“Ah, you should be able to do that, right?” She clapped, speaking directly to the ground.

Below her feet, two poisonous yellow eyes blinked open questioningly.

“I know you were assigned to protect me while I went about my mission, but I’ve achieved it now. You can go and tell Lady Neer that we found the artifact, right?” She asked again. She had been told the creatures were as intelligent as humans, and though it had taken her a while to feel comfortable being under constant watch, she now barely thought about it. Yes, the idea of an inhuman being following her everywhere, even in the privy, had been tough to swallow at first. Still, after the first time she had been attacked by a man who had previously worked in the castle for asking too many questions and barely gotten away, she stopped complaining.

Also, if Damien said it was safe, then it was safe. She trusted the vicar’s judgment more than she did her own. He might be devoted to his cause in soul, mind and body, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care for her. He had shown it by taking her under his wing and teaching her what it actually meant to be a spy. All the skills she had developed were because of him. If he hadn’t been there, she would have remained a bumbling country girl writing down useless observations for reasons she couldn’t even understand.

The shadow elemental nodded slowly, showing it had understood. It still didn’t move.

“I believe it might be wondering why you don’t want to take credit personally. Summoned spirits are bound to a contract, and it’s entirely foreign to them the idea of allowing someone else to report that their mission is complete unless in the direst circumstances.”Sigurd turned around, pulling a silver lock of hair back into his messy braid.

Eleanor sighed. Even after days of working together, she still wasn’t sure she had the measure of him. It was maddening, given that she prided herself on her observation abilities. Still, she could admit he was useful.

“Very well, then. I will go and inform Lady Neer myself while you wait here and make sure nothing happens to the mirror.”

Before she could turn around and march away, a hand grabbed her arm, halting her in her tracks. “I don’t think we have any idea of what we have here yet, and giving an incomplete report seems just like a bad job.” Sigurd wheedled, leveraging the curious side he knew she possessed. She wouldn’t have run around for days on a wild hunch otherwise!

Eleanor contemplated shrugging him off and going to Lady Neer anyway. She doubted he’d stop her. Eventually, curiosity won and she sighed, “Alright, but let’s get Geraldine away from here. I don’t want her to wake up and surprise us in a delicate moment. I read too many novels to make such a rookie mistake.”

This time, when she indicated the shadow to take the maid back to the dungeons, it complied without a fuss, showing that it had no problem following her orders.

Sigurd’s smug look told her what he was thinking. Fortunately, he refrained from rubbing it in her face.

With the head maid safely out of sight, the two turned their attention back to the mirror. It was obviously a powerful artifact to be hidden this deep below the surface and in a chamber with so many mana crystals. And yet, it sat there, inert.

Frankly, I expected something a bit more mysterious. Yes, it’s a gorgeous mirror, and I’m sure it has powerful enchantments, but what can a mirror show that a normal spell cannot?

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She wasn’t necessarily afraid she wasted her time anymore. Indeed, she felt vindicated, but Eleanor could admit to being a bit underwhelmed.

“What do you think it does?” She asked, thinking of something similar to a fairytale mirror, capable of showing the heart’s desire or the truth hiding behind a disguise. It would be better than nothing, to be sure, but she couldn’t really see how it would serve the Revolution. They already had Masters aplenty and even Champions! It was said that Lady Neer could smell a lie from a mile away!

Sigurd hummed, stepping around the artifact, careful not to walk directly before it. “There are enough mana crystals here that it has to be something powerful. I thought that maybe they were using this as a strategic reserve, but no, every single crystal in the chamber is connected to the mirror. Whatever it does, it’s a thirsty beast.”

Eleanor spared the bard a glance. Every once in a while, the joking, playful personality would fade into the background and reveal something she was almost certain was ancient. When she had bluntly asked how old he was, Sigurd had gotten comically offended and skillfully redirected her attention away. More than anything, that convinced her he knew what he was doing. Well, that and Damien’s endorsement. He had been the one to suggest they pair up and convinced Lady Amelia to spare one of her servants to watch her despite their high demand.

Sigurd is right. It will be much more satisfying if I can bring this to the leadership’s attention having figured it out. I’m not going to do anything stupid, like hit it to see if it reacts, but I should try to understand some more. Even a vague hint should be enough.

She crouched down, running her fingers lightly over the ornate frame, tracing the unfamiliar symbols carved into the wood. The runes were intricate, their lines soft at times and angular at others, twisting in patterns that seemed almost too precise to have been made by human hands. "These symbols," she murmured, her brow furrowing, "don't look like anything I've seen before.” She was not an expert, but she had seen the Temples’ books once when she was a child taken to be initiated in Volten.

Sigurd knelt beside her, for once not running his mouth. He studied the runes closely, his eyes narrowing as he tried to decipher them. "Seventeen languages I can read," he said, more to himself than to Eleanor. "And I can recognize another twenty. But this…" He trailed off, shaking his head in frustration. "This is like nothing I've ever encountered. It doesn't even resemble any ancient scripts. Entirely alien to anything I know, and I’ve seen demonic writing.”

Eleanor flinched back.

She might not be a mage, but even she knew anything comparable to what came from the hells wasn’t good news. Those had the bad habit of corrupting the souls of those around them until they opened a breach for the demons. They always took a long time to clean up, and so soon after dealing with the Void… No, she wouldn’t be the one who started a new catastrophe, thank you very much.

“This doesn’t have a corruptive effect. I have a Blessing capable of detecting and withstanding that kind of thing. Bizarre.” Sigurd explained calmly, not nearly as worried as she was. “I thought it might be fae-related, but it’s not. There is nothing mind-warping about it, and it’s certainly not a dwarven artifact. Those boring sods would never waste their time making something this needlessly intricate when they can build more weapons.”

The more he spoke, the more Sigurd confirmed her suspicions of being something more than a simple traveling bard in the Revolution’s employ. Eleanor doubted he was malicious, as her mentor would have caught it well before her, but she still took note of everything he said. He was being much more open than he usually was.

“The only thing that comes to mind is that it might be an actual otherworldly artifact. But that cannot be. In all of Haylich’s history, no Hero has been summoned with anything other than their birthday clothes. And the ritual for that is basically divine in nature. Nothing can be gleaned from it, and it certainly cannot be changed to start summoning objects rather than people.”

Eleanor blinked, genuinely surprised at the depths of his knowledge. She had never really thought much about what went on with the Heroes before they were summoned and never about the specifics of how they were summoned. But it made sense to her that something that complicated would be very hard to change.

And why would an otherworldly artifact be in House Luster-Treon’s hands? They descend from one of the original generals of the conquest. As far as I know, they have nothing to do with Heroes and Saints.

Eleanor let out a frustrated sigh, sitting back on her heels. "We're not getting anywhere with this," she said, more irritated at her own lack of progress than at Sigurd. She stood abruptly, dusting off her hands. “You said it’s not corruptive, right? Mirrors are supposed to reflect things. Maybe we're overcomplicating this.”

Sigurd looked up in surprise as she took a step toward the front of the mirror. "Eleanor, wait—” But she was already moving.

The moment her reflection appeared on its surface, the chamber began to hum with an intense, growing energy. The runes on the mirror flared to life, glowing brighter and brighter as an incredible amount of mana was poured into the artifact, making the air vibrate with power.

"Eleanor!" Sigurd shouted, reaching out to pull her back, but it was too late. The mirror seemed to drink in the mana, the light becoming almost blinding. Eleanor felt the ground tremble beneath her feet, and a sudden fear gripped her heart. What if the castle collapsed under the sheer force of the magic being unleashed?

If that happens, we're dead. But it might be enough to kill everyone else, too. Oh, Light. Am I going to be the one to end the Revolution where the greatest generals failed? Please, I cannot.

The intense glow lasted only a few seconds but felt like an eternity. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the light faded, and the chamber fell silent once more. The oppressive weight of the mana dissipated, leaving only the faintest shimmer in the air.

Eleanor blinked, her heart pounding in her chest. For a moment, she thought nothing had changed. But then, as she glanced back at the mirror, she saw it—floating just above her reflection’s head, a series of numbers, softly glowing with the same faint light as the runes.

She took a step closer, squinting to make out the digits. They hovered like an ethereal crown. "Sigurd, look," she said curiously. “What do you think they mean?”

“Uh Oh.”

Turning around in confusion, Eleanor saw her companion pale significantly. His already white skin became so ghastly that she could have believed him to be a wraith. His pupils were wide in fear and his hands gripped uselessly at the air, as if trying to grab onto something that wasn’t there.

“Uh Oh is right.” A smooth, deep voice came, startling them so badly that they fell into a heap.