The morning sun spilled across the stone terrace outside the gate chamber, warm and steady, casting long shadows through the carved pillars. Below, a line of clouds clung lazily to the city's lower terrasses, muffling rooftops in a soft, silver cushion - like the haze of dreams before waking.
Fengyu stood at the gates landing in his new ceremonial robes – the Commander of Interdimensional Affairs. The absurdity of the title sat uncomfortably on his shoulders, but today he was determined to wear it with grace. After all, this was his first guest - Master Kaelji of Mytharok. The mind behind the equations that create, quite literally, the fate of worlds.
He had heard of Master Kaelji during his time in Mytharok. The man was a legend, or a cautionary tale, depending on who you asked. Some called him a genius who conversed with the cosmic currents more fluently than with people. Others said he had once spent an entire season in silent contemplation, staring at the spiral of a snail's shell, claiming it held the key to a collapsed dimensional theorem.
Fengyu had even glimpsed him once, drifting through the corridors like a misplaced cloud, his gaze several thoughts ahead of the present. It had been a shock then - the man behind some of the most crucial interdimensional calculations looked like he might forget how to open a door. But it also suited him in some inexplicable way, as if the laws of practical existence bent slightly around him, allowing for that absentminded disarray.
And now, that same man was stepping through the gate into Solirae, and Fengyu was the one sent to greet him.
The gate flared open. The mountain air shifted with the strange pressure of space folding in on itself, and through the liquid ripple stepped a tall, slender figure draped in Mytharok's layered greys and blues. He moved like someone more accustomed to thinking than walking, his long hair bound in a scholar's braid. His eyes were keen even behind the fogged lenses of his spectacles.
Fengyu stepped forward, his posture practiced.
"Master Kaelji," he said, bowing with Soliraen formality.
"Welcome to Aethoria. I'm Commander Fengyu, and it's my honour to receive you."
Kaelji blinked once, adjusted his spectacles, mustered him from head to toe, and offered a faint nod - openly amused.
"A pleasure," he said slowly. "I was warned the local geometry here had… attitude."
Fengyu raised a brow, caught off guard.
Was he talking about him? That is a new level of a joke! Oh, he was up to it!
"Well, we try to keep the sharper angles sedated for formal occasions."
Master Kaelji gave a soft, rasping chuckle, apparently pleased with his quick thinking and not giving up.
The gate behind him stayed in its liquid form as if somebody else was coming.
Fengyu glanced at it, uncertain.
"Are we awaiting somebody else?"
"Ah yes. Seer Joy will be joining me," Master Kaelji said as if recalling something only mildly relevant. "The high monk concluded it might be… difficult for me in a foreign environment, and insisted on an attendant."
He paused, "surprisingly, this one offered himself voluntarily."
Fengyu raised an eyebrow. "Voluntarily?"
"It's rare," Kaelji murmured, "for seers to leave their department. Rarer still to venture into another world."
The seer stepped through the gate and Fengyu recognized him at once - the same one who had guided him through the Seer's Department on his first visit there. That tour had taken an unexpected direction in the end.
He'd seen him again afterward, in passing, quiet glimpses across the department's halls during his errand for Mokai. Each time, there had been that same lingering gaze, the feeling of being watched like a curiosity.
So, his little stunt in the Nyx Void hadn't gone entirely unnoticed, or forgotten.
The seer bowed slightly, the gate behind him stilled with a final ripple.
"Commander Fengyu, I am Seer Joy. It is an honour to see you again."
At first glance, he looked exactly as Fengyu remembered - tall, composed, draped in the same layered monochrome robes that blended so well with the endless corridors of the Seers' Department. But here, outside that sterile vault of the department, he seemed… lighter. Not physically, but in presence. There was something in his bearing that felt looser, unburdened. His movements, though restrained, held a quiet confidence. Even his face, once indistinct, now held sharpness and individuality. His eyes were clearer, his expression open, and when he bowed, there was something sincere in it.
The name Joy might not be such a contradiction after all.
Fengyu inclined his head, but his mind skipped between prepared responses, not finding the passing one.
Commander. The word landed strangely in his ears, wrapped in robes and formality. Was that irony? How absurd this moment truly was? How quickly the world had shifted beneath his feet, how effortlessly his position now tied him to this strange assembly of minds and customs. How many people were actually pleased? This last thought raised resistance in his soul. He really did not like to be used.
Fengyu shook the thought away, focusing on the present. He extended a hand toward the path leading deeper into the city.
"If you'll follow me, Master Kaelji, Seer Joy, we've prepared accommodations and a workspace suited to your… intense requirements. I hope it will be to your liking, otherwise we will do some amendments."
"Oh, I am sure you will." Kaelji said as he stepped beside him.
Master Kaelji got appointed rooms in the Observatory Walk - a compound of courtyards reserved for foreign dignitaries and thinkers of high standing, quiet and elevated place, with an excellent view over the city - and extended access to archives and observatories.
"I see your architects understand silence," Master Kaelji admitted, the words sincere. "And your builders understand focus. That will suit me well."
It was in the light-drenched Audience Hall of Solirae that Lord Shengyu received Master Kaelji, later that morning.
Pale stone gleamed beneath the sun, filtered through an array of narrow skylights cut high into the ceiling. Their arrangement cast a shifting mosaic across the polished floor, like a constellation unfolding on tile.
"Master Kaelji," Lord Shengyu said with practiced grace, "Solirae is honoured by your presence. Your reputation precedes you, and I am told my brother is most fortunate to count you among his mentors."
A thread of formality tightened his words, as if Lord Shengyu was unsure what to do with a master like Master Kaelji. Ever the pragmatist, Lord Shengyu found admiration for the discipline of interdimensional study - but not patience for its peculiarities. And Master Kaelji, with his absent gaze and particular reputation, did little to ease the Lord's discomfort.
Still, Lord Shengyu did and said all the right things.
He did not speak to Seer Joy.
He did not look directly at him either - except for a brief flicker, a glance so precise in its brevity it might have been mistaken for oversight. Whether he truly didn't notice the seer or chose not to see him, no one could say. Not even Fengyu.
Master Kaelji bowed with practiced precision - not overly deep, but exact.
"My gratitude, Lord Shengyu. Your hospitality honours both myself and Mytharok," he said, voice calm, devoid of the hint of playfulness it had carried earlier with Fengyu. "The Observatory Walk is - beyond suitable."
Just as the formality of the event seemed to overstep Fengyu's threshold of tolerance, the arrival of Lady Mingyu broke the rhythm.
She entered calm, poised, and wrapped in pale blue silk that shimmered faintly in the dappled light of the hall. That she had come was rare - but, truthfully, not unexpected. Lady Mingyu was known for fondness for scholars of every shape and discipline. And while the interdimensional mathematics might not be her domain, its grandeur was not lost on her.
"I could not resist," she said. "We so rarely have minds of your brilliance cross our gates, Master Kaelji. It would be negligent not to welcome you personally."
Kaelji bowed his head.
"The light of the hall is already generous. But now it seems Solirae adds a second sun."
Fengyu barely suppressed a roll of his eyes as this exchange.
But the presence of his sister-in-law raised an additional question mark. Was she here really on a whim? Master Kaelji could barely be compared to her usual collection of protegees. Neither could he join, nor provide advice or support, being a scholar of such an absurd discipline. Whatever the scheme, still it fit.
Fengyu paused, as he caught the current of his own thoughts. Why? Why did he suspect a scheme lurking behind every interaction, every move and every gesture? He had never been one to play the part of the paranoid. The grand schemes were always something others cared for.
Something had shifted. He'd become more aware of the politics surrounding him. He felt its weight now. More and more, he was becoming a part of that game.
Something subtle drew Fengyu's eyes toward Seer Joy. The seer had moved, just a little, not enough to intrude, but enough to break the current of Fengyu's spiralling thoughts. His presence acted like a silent anchor, pulling Fengyu back into the present moment.
Fengyu realized, he had drifted, completely spaced out. Before him, Lady Mingyu and Master Kaelji were still in conversation. Somehow, impossibly, the topic had changed - all the way into interdimensional mathematics... Lady Mingyu was nodding thoughtfully to Master Kaelji detailed explanations. Fengyu blinked. He had missed at least three conversational leaps.
The corners of Seer Joy's lips quirked slightly upwards. Knowingly.
Fengyu's daily drill didn't change overnight - but it shifted, almost imperceptibly at first, as though the arrival of Master Kaelji had nudged the things slightly off balance. Interdimensional mathematics had, until recently, been the domain of the Temple or idle theorists, indulged the way one might tolerate a poet at court - harmless, abstract, and ultimately disconnected from real affairs. But now, with a scholar of Kaelji's stature in residence and the Pantax's 'realignment' - as it was officially euphemistically described - fresh in memory, people were watching. Listening. Reassessing.
The term 'realignment' had been carefully chosen - neutral, technical, and vague enough to obscure the terror of what had truly happened. Most citizens knew only fragments: that something went wrong in Pantax, that the gates had faltered, and that the Temple had intervened just in time. What was publicly hashed as a blueprint cooperation example, was privately whispered to be a catastrophe averted by inches. And now, suddenly, the discipline long dismissed as academic fantasy had been pulled into the light.
Fengyu noticed it in the way military officers no longer scoffed when "dimensional resonance" was mentioned in strategic briefings. He saw it in how the palace archivists started dusting off old research once deemed esoteric. There were even murmurs of a dedicated chamber being considered within the Soliraen strategic bureau for "interdimensional contingencies"- a phrase no one had uttered before with a straight face.
There was, of course, reluctance. The court remained wary, uncomfortable with anything that couldn't be diagrammed in clean, linear logic. Nobles smiled politely, and generals sat stiff-backed through Kaelji's patient explanations.
Fengyu moved through it all adjusting to new gravity. As the Commander of Interdimensional Affairs, he had to project confidence, even as he still learned the ropes of the very field he was appointed to oversee. And with Kaelji's presence, that balancing act became a daily performance.
It wasn't much - just a few adjustments, a presence in meetings, an awareness that things which had once been background noise were now under consideration. It wasn't that the world had embraced interdimensional theory. But it had, for the first time, stopped laughing.
Fengyu still trained in the mornings, still walked the strategy simulations, still answered to his brother. But now, in between, there were moments when he found himself standing outside a chalk-lined board in the Observatory Walk, listening to Kaelji speak of dimensional harmonics as if describing the weather. He had made real progress. Not just in understanding the principles, but in thinking them.
There had been a breakthrough the previous week, when he'd casually mentioned Firme - its drift. The scholar's eyes had gleamed behind his lenses, and without a word, he'd dragged Fengyu to the courtyard chalkboards and begun sketching out a model of interdimensional vectors in continuous drift. The kind that weren't locked in stable gates coordinates, but moved, creating complex probabilities.
As the calculations began to make terrifying sense, the Firme's disappearing from the charted worlds became less mysterious. That happened when you did not pay attention. Simply. And the meticulous records of the Seer's Department were partially to prevent that.
But Firme was not in continuous drift. Continuous drift still is describable in the interdimensional mathematics. Firme should not have disappeared so easily. But it did.
What was more behind it? What was that they did not tell him? Or just not yet? When confronted Master Kaelji just drowned him in more complex interdimensional calculations he had ever seen. That frustrated him beyond measure.
He was being handled. He was an asset or a variable to be steered, observed, or kept in check. And he was being played by both sides.
It came with a file casually delivered to his desk - an internal memo misplaced, perhaps, or accidentally sent to the wrong commander. He might have dismissed it, but something in the phrasing made him pause. A single line: "…oversight of Master Kaelji's placement under diplomatic pretext, by Lord Shengyu order..."
Fengyu sat back in his chair, the words sliding into place. Lord Shengyu had never liked mysteries he didn't author. All the elaborate courtesy, the fine rooms in the Observatory Walk, the gesture of respect - it had been a mask.
And Kaelji… was playing along. Of course he was. The abstract mind, the eccentric academic - it was real, and it wasn't.
Fengyu thought back to his arrival, to that strange twinkle in the man's eye, to how quickly he'd adapted, how fluently he moved between roles.
He remembered the moment Kaelji had leaned in during a chalkboard session, voice low and clear:
"A mind like yours doesn't belong to ceremony. Don't waste it playing obedient."
The Pantax incident had rattled his brother more than he'd admitted. Lord Shengyu had allowed Master Kaelji in Solirae as a containment, not a gift. Not a gesture of trust. And certainly not to mentor Fengyu freely.
And the layers of deception were mounting on each other.
It happened one morning, soon after the discussion about the Firme's disappearance. Fengyu arrived in the Observatory Walk expecting more equations and calculations – and found only Seer Joy waiting.
He simply looked at Fengyu, in that way only seers could. When he finally did speak, it wasn't about math.
"It was never about learning to calculate," he said, folding his hands. "It was about learning to see."
Fengyu blinked. "Ah."
There was no denying it then. Master Kaelji had been the decoy - an acceptable mask for Soliraen pride, a comfortable face to present to the court, a carefully paraded genius.
THIS was real.
The consequence of his instinctive actions in the Seers' Department weeks ago. And someone - many someones, he suspected - had seen. Seen what he'd done. What might lie inside him.
And this wasn't just mentorship. It was observation. A quiet trial.
What kind of seer he might become - if any. How deep the intuition ran. Whether he could be trusted with what the seers guarded.
Joy never said as much, of course. But he didn't have to.
The first thing he insisted on was that Fengyu drop the title.
"Not Seer Joy. Just Joy."
A quiet practice among the seers.
And then the lessons had changed.
Gone were the sharp angles of math, the cold clarity of structured thought. In their place came stillness. Breath. Observation - of himself. Of the world, and what stirred beneath.
Master Kaelji disappeared, showing up only to entertain Lady Mingyu when she came into the Observatory Walk.
Joy's teachings did not follow a schedule. Sometimes they met before sunrise, when the Observatory Walk was wrapped in mist and silence. Other times, Joy would appear wordlessly beside him in the middle of the day. And they would sit, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours, without a single word spoken.
"See without your eyes," Joy said. "The gates don't open outward. They open inward first."
The meditations were disorienting at first - Fengyu's mind rebelled, cluttered with leftover court reports and unbalanced equations. But slowly, gradually, he learned to stop forcing. To breathe. To feel the contours of his awareness stretch, to sense the gentle bending of space.
He was being tested - in silence, in stillness. And through it all, no verdict came. No approval, no rejection. Just a quiet presence, guiding, watching. Waiting to see what would emerge.
He had never felt more uncertain.
He found himself dreaming differently now. Not the chaos of fever dreams or the drifting weightlessness of the subconscious, but dreams that were calm, deliberate, full with places he had never seen, emotions he had never owned, and memories that should not belong to him - and yet they did. He would awaken with words on his tongue in languages he'd never spoken, the scent of unknown air fading from his skin and hair.
And always, within these dreams, was the creature. Not as it had appeared in the Nyx Void - no, not so alien and terrible. Here, in a dream, it came with something closer to… intimacy. Curiosity. It recognized him. It knew things about him that he didn't yet know himself. He woke from these dreams half-remembering a conversation they hadn't had.
It looked like his "little beast" - the bracelet he now could not imagine parting with. That strange loop of metal, wrapped lightly around his wrist as if it had always belonged there. It warmed when he thought too hard, cooled when he drifted. Sometimes, in the corner of his eye, he swore he saw it shift - a ripple through its form, like breath beneath still water.
He began to feel a strange bond with it. Like a forgotten truth. Like finding a scar on your body you never noticed before, and realizing it had always been there.
He never took it off. He never wanted to.
He never spoke of it.
He thought of telling Joy. The seer would understand, wouldn't he? He started to like his constant non-judging presence. Or Master Kaelji?
But something stopped him. A quiet instinct: not yet. As if speaking it aloud would shift something too soon. As if he knew, that one more layer of silence had to be added.
One more deception.