“Here goes ‘nuffin, if my beloved divines start giving you a headache, I’ll make sure to lock them out again for a minute,” he said. Then, I heard him mumble something, and tap his staff on the floor.

My ears popped again, and I felt presences descending down on my mind, five of them. No, six, one of them was very faint. It… spoke first, surprisingly, and felt much more intimately connected to me than the others.

[I’m back, Bell! Divines, I missed you so much!]

Somehow, even mentally, she managed to convey giving me a hug, which was honestly impressive. The feeling quickly vanished though and was instead replaced by a heavy baritone pressing against my mind. ‘Errant warrior, your mental fortitude is weak. Your mind must be as sharp as your blade, your path unerring, you-’

‘Oh shut up Ru. Hello young sprout. I am Argus, god of nature and artistry. I am sorry for the situation you find yourself in, it is regrettable,’ the second god told me. His voice was soft, and fluid, like a stream or a swirly stalk of grass.

‘Our measures are what we believe is best, even if they appear crude. Please, allow us to explain ourselves, spark,’ I heard another voice. She sounded calm, and somewhat calculating, yet comfortable. Like the smell of books in a library, and at the same time, the appearance of a mathematical formula on a sheet.

‘What is best hardly matters here, does it, sister? My siblings, as always, fail to say that they are fallible, as are we all,’ the last unfamiliar voice spoke. Perhaps voices would be more accurate. This one seemed like a chorus spoke at once, whispering promises of peace and calm. ‘In our arrogance, we forget to apologize. In all our names, we are sorry.’

For a moment, I felt another god, Ru, attempt to speak up, but he was quickly shut down by the divine equivalent of an elbow to the ribs. I blinked a few moments, turning to Orvan for an explanation, but the old man simply watched on. He’d probably only step in if I genuinely needed help.

Since they’d taken turns speaking, my head ached less this time, and for that I was thankful. Still, I wanted this conversation to be as short as possible.

‘Just… why? Why let me live?!’

‘To watch you fight,’ Ru said.

‘For you to grow,’ Argus told me.

‘To see what you will do,’ the calm voice replied, who I guessed to be Archiva.

‘Because you deserve it,’ spoke the chorus, Hir.

‘So you may heal the world,’ Lurelia finally said.

This time, they had spoken all at once, leaving my head swimming for a moment. Then the wizard scoffed.

“Way to put expectations on one person, eh? Real divine of you, with all the action you’re taking yourselves,” Orvan commented.

I felt some ire turn towards him. Ru, unsurprisingly, and Argus. He stood taller as they faced him, hands resting on the wooden staff. He breathed in, then out, and the tension in the air settled. His eyes opened, still as firm as they had been all the time before. Somehow, he seemed even refreshed by the encounter.

Then, the divines turned back to me. ‘Ask, child, what you wish to know,’ Lurelia assured me.

‘Why?’ I asked.

For a moment, I felt Archiva press forward, but she soon backed down, barred by all the other gods. ‘It is a fine question,’ Argus sounded in my thoughts. ‘There have been a handful like you, admittedly not many. Mirror gateways fused to someone fall apart when their host dies. Recovering gateways lost to usurpers has been impossible, even when they have been killed,’ he explained.

‘We hope for you to remedy that,’ Ru added. ‘Fight them, defeat them, then claim your spoils and take their gateways into yours. You will be close, so if you are swift, the gateway should not decay.’

‘Yours may mend faster,’ Archiva warned. ‘But the keepers will not pry it off you until it is healed. Once your gateway is fully restored, absorbing others should grow it. Make it more a part of you.’

‘I hoped to give you a layer of protection by forcing a keeper to be generated. Cass has already shown herself to adapt, and protect your mind. But shielding you from the keepers and us at the same time overtaxed her. Perhaps, in due time, she will become your shield,’ Lurelia said with a smile.

‘What we are telling you, Fio, is that we hope for you to find a way forward for yourself. It saddens me to see that you must struggle with your path, but it is what you were saddled with. If you strengthen your connection to the gateway, then there may be a time at which the keepers can no longer take it from you. When Cass and you grow strong enough to fend them off. Then, your destiny will be in your own hands again,’ Hir explained gently.

I frowned and paused. Mulled it over. ‘There’s no way around these risks, is there? I have a target on my back. By the keepers and the usurpers.’

‘Indeed,’ Argus replied. ‘But we hope for you to outgrow it. As Lurelia granted you Cassidy rather than another keeper, that is what we are offering. A way forward, one to push you to grow.’

‘It is now up to you to fight.’ Ru’s voice was coarse as he spoke. ‘If you fight, and prove yourself, you may advance. That is what warriors do.’

He made me scoff a little. ‘You don’t care about my advancement though, you care about what it may bring to this world.’

For a moment, there was silence on the other end. I sneered a bit. These divines were far from selfless.

At the end, it was once again Hir who spoke. ‘Yes,’ they said. ‘I am sorry to say this, but we are divines of this world. It is, to some degree, our duty to protect it. You have a chance to do so, Fio. You can protect this world, as you have been doing.’

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Orvan sighed at them. “Alright, that’s enough propaganda, dearest divines.” He looked me in the eyes. “This. This is why we say outworlders are pawns. To the keepers, to the divines; we’re forced to dance to their tune, none more than those not from here. “Fight”, “grow”, “advance”, it’s all the same old shit.” The old wizard shook his head.

“Lady. Fio. You’re saddled with a gateway. I can’t take it away without killing you, and I’m reasonably sure there’s no one and nothing out there that could. Usurpers will come after you, and you will fight them if you don’t want to die. While this world’s divines, my divines, may be asshats about it, that’s what it is.”

“And how is she gonna do that?!” Ann suddenly yelled. I hadn’t noticed it, but her hand was now wrought much tighter around mine. “How?! If these usurpers devour gateways, and you don’t want them at your castle, what is she going to do about them?”

Once more the old wizard sighed. “Fuck if I know,” he muttered, almost defeated. “How about this: For now, you go to the nest we talked about. Spend a night here, unwind a bit. You’ve had a mighty fate placed on your shoulder, by some mighty idiots.” His brows furrowed in concentration for a moment and he took a moment to breathe deeply, the mana in the room vibrating.

I wondered how many times one person could draw the ire of the divines, but the wizard didn’t seem done talking yet. “Castle Arhan has stood for decades. As long as I live, it will stand. I can manage having some tired adventurers spend a night here. Tomorrow, you go to the nest, do your mission. If you see something dangerous, you run. Go wherever you need to go, wherever it is safe, and live.”

Then he tapped his staff a final time, and the background buzz I hadn’t even noticed disappeared. “Now then. If you need to talk to my friends in the sky again, find a temple and give a little prayer. They won’t bother you themselves anymore, not here at least, they’ve said what they need to say.” It sounded like that was him telling the divines to pipe down. “Go, talk to your team, clear things up. Go to bed. If there’s any more questions you have, let them rest until tomorrow.”

Ann’s fingers were still entwined with mine, and I could see her brows furrowed in displeasure. I squeezed her hand tightly. “Come on, Ann,” I pleaded quietly. “Let’s go for now.”

She paused for a short moment, then gave a brief nod. “Okay, Fio,” she said, forcing her voice to be soft for me. “Let’s take some time.”

We walked back to the room silently. My thoughts were already a mess. I just needed time to process it all.

Ann on the other hand seemed so… angry. She borderline stomped down the hallways. But I understood.

If I still had the energy, I would also be angry, but all the headaches and the voices had left me wobbly on my feet. By the end of the walk, I had my arm wrapped around Ann as she helped me stumble forward. Once again, I was thankful for the strange shifting glass my mirror core gave me.

At least getting to the room didn’t take too long. When we got there, Ann unceremoniously dumped me on the bed, then balled her fists and slammed them into the thick stone walls. “Aaaaargh!”

I looked at her, my eyes bleary from tiredness. “Is… are you alright, Ann?”

She turned to me, her eyes bright with anger. “No, Fio,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “This is fucked up. I’m… frustrated right now. Unbelievably so. I’m borderline livid at the divines.”

Slowly, I nodded. “Me too.”

“This whole thing is insanity, Fio!”

“Yeah.”

“And I can’t believe they’d put all of this on your shoulders! It’s unfair!” She struck the walls again.

“It is.”

“We should have never gone to the sands, fuck!” Dust flew from the stones.

“Ann…”

“WHAT?!” she yelled, whipping back towards me from the two craters she’d made, then her face fell. “Oh, no, I’m… I’m so sorry Fio. I shouldn’t have…”

“Hey, it’s alright,” I spoke slowly. My tongue felt like lead, but I somehow pushed myself up into a sitting position. “Come here for a sec.”

“No, I…” she stammered.

“Please, Ann. It’s fine. Come here.”

She stood there frozen for a few more seconds, and then gave me a shaky nod, tears in the corners of her eyes. I patted the bed next to me, and Ann made mechanical steps towards me. She sat down.

I reached over and wrapped my arms around her, resting my head on her shoulder. “Alright, Ann. It’s alright.” One of my hands was on her back, the other in her hair. I ran my fingers through the short mess of red, then kissed her salty cheeks. She sobbed.

“It’s okay,” I said, feeling my own voice crack as I started crying. “I- I’m upset too, you know? But it’s… it’s okay. We’ll- We’ll make it through, right?”

I felt Ann nod in my arms. “Mhm Yeah. We… We will. We have to.”

I snorted at that, patting her head. “Exactly.”

Slowly, bit by bit, I felt Ann grow a bit calmer in my arms. I patted her head, and she ran her fingers across my back. “We’re gonna be okay, Ann,” I assured her, receiving a weak nod in reply. Then I just held onto her, occasionally whispering reassurances.

I held onto her the entire time, minutes ticking by one after another. My mind felt blank, just focused on the moment, focused on Ann’s shaky breathing. I kissed her, once, lightly. Her breath tickled my face.

Then, eventually, Ann felt asleep, and I started going numb. Gently, I placed her down in the bed next to me, and thought. I thought on what to do now, on what my master would do, and all I could hear were the rules, the tenets he gave me to uphold. Number six. The mirrors couldn’t eat me, but despair could.

Bit by bit, breath by breath, I took the feelings, and tried accepting them. And just a bit into the exercise, I heard another quiet voice in my head.

[Fio?]

Cass. She was so fleeting I could barely even tell she spoke at all. ‘Yeah, Cass?’

[Do you… have a few seconds for me?]

‘Of course, Cass,’ I told her, taking another deep breath. ‘What’s up?’

[I’m sorry Fio… if you just hadn’t gotten that mirror, none of this would’ve happened at all…]

She sounded so… sad. I couldn’t help but empathize. ‘It’s okay Cass. You have nothing to be sorry for.’

[But I do, Fiooo…] she whined. [This is all my fault! If you just hadn’t touched the mirror, none of this would have happened! I- I’m sorry… I’m sorry I was born!]

I froze for a second. ‘No. Cass, no, this isn’t your fault at all!’ There were new tears forming in my eyes. ‘Please, please don’t blame yourself. I couldn’t have gotten a better keeper than you, Cass. I mean it.’ Panic raced through my head. Why would Cass blame herself? She was as much a victim here as I was, born from my memories, to be hated by her entire race immediately.

And the poor thing blamed herself for it? No. She shouldn’t. Should never have to. ‘You’re okay, Cass. We’re in this together. No blame on you, please, you’re okay.’

[No, I mean, this is all just… I-]

‘Listen, Cass. I mean it when I say this. You’re not at fault. This hasn’t happened because of you. Without the gateway, I’d be dead. Without you, I’d be dead. I’m really, really glad I get to have you around.’

[… you mean it?] she quietly asked back.

‘I do. Promise.’

There was a short pause. [Okay...] Cass mumbled.

There were a few more sobs through the connection, soft little noises that chipped away at my heart. Somehow, mentally, I managed to pat Cass’ head as well, just as I had done with Ann. Doing so, I slowly laid down and wrapped my arms around my girlfriend.

Then, the three of us cried wordlessly just a little longer.