Chapter 136: THE INTERLUDE: A QUESTION THAT SURVIVES

Late Seventh Continuance - Twelvefold Settlement.

Ilyara Sen stood on perfectly still water.

Thirteen constellations filled the dark sky above her. Their reflections were also beneath her feet, scattered across the water like there was another sky below, and it only took Ilyara a few seconds to realize she was dreaming.

That part was nothing special.

She had been conscious inside more dreams than she could remember. Usually, the moment she realized where she was, she would start changing things. Sometimes she changed the weather. Sometimes she covered half the sky just because she could. There had been one dream where she stopped everything around her for what felt like several hours and another where she rebuilt a memory she had almost forgotten.

This time, she raised one hand and tried to pull the water upward.

Nothing happened.

Ilyara stared at her reflection.

’Hmm?’

She tried again.

More Pisces Authority followed this time, although not nearly enough to damage the dream. She only wanted the water to move. Even a small ripple would have been enough.

Still nothing.

The reflection beneath her feet remained so clear that she could see the constellations above her through it.

Ilyara slowly looked around.

There was no other presence. She knew what another Astrant forcing their way into her dream felt like, especially another Pisces. There should have been pressure somewhere, a disturbance, or at least the feeling that another consciousness had entered something belonging to her.

She felt none of those things.

’So...’

There was another possibility.

A prophecy.

Ilyara did not immediately accept that answer either.

The House of Pisces had enough prophetic records that she knew better than to call every strange dream one. Some lasted only a few seconds before the dreamer woke up and forgot half of what happened. Others returned again and again until enough pieces could be compared.

This one was simply too peaceful.

Then, she began walking.

Her feet never sank. Wherever she went, the reflected constellations followed beneath her, and after some time Ilyara stopped paying attention to whether she was walking over the sky or under it.

There was no land anywhere.

Strangely, the place did not feel empty.

The air was warm. Not uncomfortably warm either. If she ignored the fact that she could not control anything around her, she could have mistaken the whole place for one of her better dreams.

’Almost.’

Ilyara eventually stopped and studied the constellations more carefully.

She recognized them.

All thirteen.

That immediately bothered her because several should not have been visible together from the same position.

She tried moving one, but nothing happened. She exerted a little more of her Authority. Still, the same result.

"Very strange."

Her voice traveled much farther than it should have.

Before Ilyara tried anything else, something began forming beneath the constellations. At first, she thought another reflection was appearing in the water, but the image slowly rose until an unfamiliar world floated in front of her.

Cities covered parts of its surface. Roads crossed dark landmasses, and millions of smaller lights gathered around places she could not identify.

Then, a number appeared over the world.

366.

Ilyara read it twice.

’The last day of a leap year?’

The lights across the unfamiliar world dimmed.

The number changed.

367.

Every constellation above her brightened.

All thirteen.

Ilyara woke up sitting upright in bed.

Three attendants rushed into her chamber so quickly that the first nearly caught his foot on the doorway. He apologized several times before Ilyara finally got him to stop long enough to answer her.

"How long?"

"Seven minutes, Lady Ilyara."

Only seven.

The dream had felt considerably longer.

Ilyara reached for the water beside her bed and drank before pointing toward the youngest attendant. A translucent display had already opened above his wrist.

"Record exactly what I say. Don’t clean up the wording."

He nodded.

"Thirteen constellations. Thirteen Signs. An unknown world. Final day of a completed leap year. Another day came after it."

The attendant hesitated. "An impossible day?"

Ilyara looked at him and replied, "I said no interpretation."

His attention immediately returned to the display.

There was a reason Pisces recorded dreams before discussing them. People remembered things incorrectly all the time. Fear made it worse. Expectations made it worse. Sometimes someone would repeat an interpretation enough times that, years later, people remembered the interpretation instead of what the original dreamer had actually seen.

Ilyara had complained about that problem more than once.

She did not expect to become part of one of those records herself.

The following night, she returned to the same water.

’Again?’

The thirteen constellations were still there, but now twelve structures stood beneath them.

Ilyara did not need anyone to identify them for her. One carried the balancing geometry of Libra. Another was paired beneath Gemini. Leo was impossible to mistake even in a dream.

Twelve Signs.

Twelve structures.

Under the thirteenth constellation, there was nothing.

Ilyara started toward it.

She walked for what felt like several minutes and eventually realized she was no closer than when she started.

"Of course."

She stopped and tried something else.

A doorway began forming beneath the thirteenth constellation. She was not trying to create a House. She only wanted to know whether the empty place was part of the dream itself or something her own expectations had created.

The frame almost finished forming.

Then, it broke apart and disappeared into the water.

Ilyara woke up annoyed.

By the third night, the House of Pisces had people outside her chamber. By the fifth, three <anno data-annotation-id="b4b2a72f-b1f3-158d-3394-90496010b2d2" data-title="Mindsea Regents">Mindsea Regents¹</anno> were present every time she slept, while another Astrant entered a controlled dream nearby and attempted to find her from outside.

None of them managed it.

Ilyara kept returning alone.

Not every dream was identical. That would have made recording them easier.

Sometimes water rose from an ocean and continued upward into the sky without falling apart. On another night, Ilyara found a road ending above an empty valley. People still walked along it and somehow appeared on the other side.

Then there were the voices.

She heard them beyond the horizon several times. Whenever she tried going closer, they moved farther away.

Ilyara counted them on the fourth night.

’Twelve.’

She counted again on the fifth because she did not trust herself.

’Still twelve.’

There was never a thirteenth voice.

On the sixth night, Ilyara became tired of observing.

She destroyed the dream.

Or more like, she tried to.

She split the water apart, tore through the horizon, removed several constellations and opened enough of the surrounding dream-field that a weaker Pisces Astrant probably would have woken up from the strain.

The water repaired itself before she finished.

"What an annoying dream," she muttered.

On the seventh night, she tried something she had not bothered using since her training years. Before sleeping, she divided her awareness and attempted to leave one part of herself awake.

It should have acted as an anchor.

When she woke, the physician beside her bed told her she had never responded once during the entire dream.

That was when Ilyara stopped assuming she had simply missed some technique.

"Seal the records from the last seven nights."

The archivist standing near the bed frowned. "From the other Houses too?"

"Especially them."

"Three Mindsea Regents have been coming here every night. People already know something is happening."

Ilyara adjusted the blanket over her legs. "Tell them I’ve been having trouble sleeping."

The archivist almost smiled.

"For seven nights?"

"Then tell them Pisces discovered insomnia."

Unfortunately, that bought her less time than expected.

On the eighth night, mirrors appeared.

Two of them stood directly on the water without frames. One faced east, while the other faced west.

A girl stood between them.

Ilyara immediately tried to determine her age and failed.

She looked young. That much seemed safe enough to say, but whenever Ilyara focused on another detail, something else became uncertain. Her hair appeared pale blonde in one mirror and slightly darker in the other. Ilyara could not place her clothes either.

Even the distance between the girl and the mirrors seemed wrong whenever she tried to judge it.

The eastern mirror spoke first.

"FALSE."

It was referring to the girl inside the opposite reflection.

The western mirror answered.

"FALSE."

The girl looked between them.

"Which one?"

Nothing.

"Which one is real?"

Still nothing.

"Which one is mine?"

Neither mirror answered.

The girl looked more annoyed than frightened. Then both reflections changed. The eastern mirror showed only the girl. So did the western one.

Both answered together.

"TRUE."

Ilyara woke before she could get closer.

The archivists made her repeat the word several times that morning.

It irked her so much.

"Yes. True."

The senior archivist was still unconvinced. "Not real?"

"If I meant real, I would have said real."

They wanted the distinction preserved correctly, which Ilyara understood. She simply wished they would stop asking the same question in slightly different ways.

On the ninth night, the mirrors gave the same answer.

By the tenth, Ilyara decided to interfere with them directly.

She entered the dream before the girl appeared and removed the western mirror. Not merely broke it. She removed enough of its relation from the dream that she expected nothing to reconstruct.

When the girl appeared, the mirror was standing exactly where it had been.

Ilyara stared at it.

"Again?"

The girl turned toward her.

Ilyara froze.

Nothing inside the dream had ever acknowledged her presence before.

Their eyes met.

And she woke up immediately.

On the eleventh night, Ilyara stopped being careful and shattered the western mirror.

Pieces scattered across the water.

Some were large enough to reflect the girl’s face. Others caught only an eye, part of her shoulder, or a few strands of hair.

Ilyara waited.

One shard answered.

"TRUE."

Another followed.

"TRUE."

Then another.

"TRUE."

The intact mirror answered too.

Soon, every piece large enough to hold part of the girl’s reflection was giving the same answer.

Ilyara woke up with blood beneath her nose.

A physician was already arguing with several attendants by the time she opened her eyes. Apparently, they had reached the point where people were discussing whether she should be allowed to sleep.

Ilyara listened for a while.

"You can keep me awake tonight," she eventually said. "You cannot keep Pisces from sleeping forever."

No one had a good answer to that.

The twelfth dream came before anyone planned for it.

Ilyara had been sitting upright while one attendant changed the cloth over her forehead when exhaustion dragged her under.

The water appeared around her immediately.

’No.’

She tried waking herself up before the mirrors returned.

However, nothing happened.

She called her own name.

Nothing.

Finally, she tore open the horizon.

There was only more water behind it.

Ilyara stopped wasting Authority.

Then, the girl appeared.

This time, someone stood behind her.

A woman waited far beyond the mirrors, too distant for Ilyara to see her face clearly. At first, there seemed to be nothing unusual about her.

Then, the woman raised one hand.

Her reflection did not.

Ilyara narrowed her eyes.

Several seconds passed before the reflection finally copied the movement.

’That wasn’t normal.’

She started walking toward them.

The woman had only moved once, but whatever existed beneath her feet had responded separately.

Ilyara never reached them.

And the dream suddenly ended.

The moment she woke, she ordered every surviving record from the previous nights brought into her chamber.

She read them herself.

Then, she read them again.

By the time she finished, Ilyara had closed access to everyone who had not already seen the material.

"No representatives from the other Houses."

The senior archivist folded his arms. "Gemini already knows there are mirrors involved."

Ilyara’s eyes narrowed.

"Libra requested the original wording of true."

Of course, they had.

"And Scorpius wants to know whether you’ve deliberately concealed anything."

Ilyara looked up.

The archivist cleared his throat. "I told them nothing."

"Good."

She returned to the record before another thought occurred to her. "If Leo sends someone next, tell them the dream has nothing to do with them."

The archivist gave her a strange look. "That may make them more interested."

Ilyara considered it.

"Then tell them it’s entirely about them. Let them waste a week arguing over why."

The archivist actually smiled this time.

The thirteenth night began differently, because the girl was already there.

Both mirrors stood beside her, while the distant woman remained at the far edge of the water. Above them were the same thirteen constellations Ilyara had now seen enough times to remember without checking.

Twelve structures appeared beneath twelve Signs.

The thirteenth place remained empty.

Ilyara approached slowly.

She did not try moving the water. She did not attempt to destroy the mirrors, open the horizon, or force the dream to answer anything.

Thirteen nights had already taught her how useless that was.

Words appeared across the water.

"From the mother who is two, the Twin without equal shall be born."

Ilyara read them once. Twice.

’Mother who is two?’ she asked herself.

The girl turned toward the mirrors.

Both showed her:

"TRUE."

This time, she did not ask which reflection was hers.

She looked at one, then the other.

"If both of me are true," she asked, "which one must the world lose?"

Everything stopped.

The water that had been rising into the sky remained suspended halfway. The twelve voices beyond the horizon disappeared. Even the small glowing orbs above Ilyara seemed to stop moving.

The girl waited. So did Ilyara.

Neither mirror answered.

Something opened beneath the thirteenth constellation.

Ilyara immediately looked up.

A black circle had appeared beneath it, surrounded by thirteen broken scales. The darkness around the Mark split unevenly, almost as though it had opened over a wound in the space itself.

Ilyara recognized it.

Ophiuchus.

She tried moving closer, but the dream released her almost immediately.

When Ilyara opened her eyes, the chamber was quiet.

Nobody rushed toward the bed anymore. After thirteen nights, the attendants had apparently learned that asking questions before she was ready only made everything take longer.

Ilyara stayed still for several minutes.

Then she requested the archive record.

She dictated the dreams again while everything was fresh enough to remember properly. Whenever the archivist changed a word she did not like, she made him change it back. Whenever something had more than one possible meaning, she told him to mark it that way instead of choosing whichever interpretation sounded cleaner.

The girl’s last question came near the end.

"If both of me are true, which one must the world lose?"

The senior archivist read the completed entry twice.

His attention stopped there.

"Nothing after this?"

"Nothing."

"You woke up before the mirrors answered."

"Yes."

He kept reading.

"Could’ve been interrupted."

Ilyara let him think.

"Or perhaps they answered and you didn’t retain it."

"Perhaps."

The archivist finally raised his head. "You don’t believe that."

Ilyara did not answer.

He looked at the question again before handing the record back.

Ilyara checked everything herself. One phrase from the fourth night was wrong, so she corrected it. Beside the Ophiuchus symbol, someone had already added an interpretation she never gave.

She removed that too.

Then, she returned to the girl’s question.

"Leave this exactly as I said it."

The archivist glanced at the empty space beneath the line. "Even without an answer?"

"There wasn’t one."

He hesitated.

Then, he left it alone.

Before approving the record for preservation, Ilyara added one final instruction beneath the account.

Nothing else more than that.

Centuries later, people would apparently find that too difficult.

House of Gemini eventually kept a copy claiming that the mirrors had answered both. One Pisces school taught neither. Libra scholars argued that the girl’s question itself had been wrong because two truths did not require one of them to disappear.

Scorpius preserved a damaged transcription instead. There was an empty section after the girl’s question, which naturally caused later archivists to argue over whether something had once been written there.

More versions followed.

The girl became the True One in one archive and the Twin Without Equal in another. Somewhere else, someone called her the One True Twice. Another record used Mirrored Heir.

Ilyara had never called her any of those things.

That did not stop people.

Some claimed the girl would rule. Others decided she would destroy a House, create one, combine two of them, or erase whatever difference the mirrors were showing.

Entire schools eventually argued over things Ilyara had recorded only because they happened to be there.

Her own account said none of that.

The private copy preserved in the oldest House of Pisces archive contained the dream, the girl’s unanswered question, and only one instruction beneath it.

If the girl is ever found, ask her.

✦ END OF VOLUME I ✦