The day passed in its usual cruel rhythm—lectures, paperwork, and the dull ache of repetition. Those who once looked upon me with awe now treated me as an artifact, a relic of a past they preferred in memory, not reality. Even my father had begun negotiating my future as though I were a pawn to be bartered for alliance. "Secure the family name," he'd said. His words fell heavy, not with affection, but as a pronouncement of my diminished worth.
I had fought wars with fire, reduced sieges to ash, and carved my name into the annals of the academy. Yet now, they would barter the cow that no longer gave milk. I took a drag from my pipe, inhaling smoke that did nothing to dull the ache, and sipped cooling tea while surveying the mountain of parchment that called itself research. Notes, diagrams, failed theories, discarded drafts—all stared back with a tyranny that no sword could breach.
And yet, my eyes strayed.
To the corner of my desk. To the single, yellowed page I had purchased that morning, a curiosity in the market's shadow stalls. I had searched for something—anything—to reignite the fire that once made me feared and revered.
"Me," I muttered bitterly, "the pyromancer who turned armies to cinders, now reduced to bureaucratic decay. Ha! I should laugh, yet reality twists the blade regardless."
Setting the parchment aside, I retired to my chambers, expecting sleep, not revelation.
The Dream
I wandered through a glade bathed in silver light—too bright, yet too soft, as though the world had been folded upon itself too many times. Shadows drifted where no object cast them. Whispers skated across my skin like fingers brushing against thought.
The scent was metallic, faint—not blood, but the idea of it.
And then, the figure appeared.
Veiled in pale fabric that shimmered like water on glass, it wavered between substance and suggestion. Beauty and dread intertwined, like opposing mirrors caught in an endless reflection.
A voice threaded through my mind—not spoken, but understood:
"Perception bends. Truth hides. All you know is shadow. All I am lies between the folds."
I laughed, a tremulous sound that betrayed both pride and fear. "So my flames that burn brighter than the second sun were but a flint? How humbling. But fact, I suppose, does not need my consent."
The glade warped. A stream flowed uphill. Leaves hung midair. Stars shone where no sky existed. My reason wavered, tethered only by habit.
Silence followed, profound and absolute, as if the world waited. The moon hung colossal and pale above, motionless, mirroring all I was stripped bare—pride, fear, longing, envy. When it vanished, the glade shifted. Trees bled light. Fog exhaled from the ground. The world reassembled wrong, like a page folded too many times.
I awoke to the moon mocking me through my window—heart hammering, breath shallow, body slick with sweat.
"Perhaps," I thought, "the old relics whisper truths worth hearing after all."
The Ritual
In my study, the gas lamp burned dim and steady. The parchment lay where it had chosen to leave itself. The script shimmered faintly, catching moonlight but not lamplight.
"Court: Envy — The Mirror Abyss.
Seere answers the hunger to be another — a barterer of faces and skill.
It lends what you lack, at the cost of what makes you you."
A chill crawled up my spine.
"The ritual must begin at the second hour of the moon's ascent — when reflections appear brightest but are most false."
My pocket watch confirmed the time was exact. "How convenient," I muttered, lips twitching into a smile that wasn't humor.
I gathered the ingredients: silver dust and cedar ash; a candle of white wax and salt; a mirror polished by my own hand; a single drop of my blood; and, from a napkin, a trace of perfume belonging to a woman I once admired and envied both. "That should suffice," I said, feigning reason.
I drew the double-ringed circle and inscribed the sigil of Envy's Eye—two crescents touching at the tips. Lighting the candle, I burned myrrh and wormwood. The smoke coiled unnaturally toward the circle. The air distorted—the walls bent, or perhaps I did.
I began the incantation:
"By envy's eye and mirrored flame,
I call the one who walks between names.
Not to bind, but to reflect.
Not to command, but to connect.
O Seere, who travels unseen and returns unchanged,
Show me the shadow I could become,
That I may know the weight of wanting."
My breath misted on the mirror. Its surface darkened, deepened—not shadow, but depth. An ocean pretending to be glass. The light bent toward it, feeding it.
Then, a figure rose.
It wore my face—but its eyes were silver, not brown, and its smile a fraction too wide. It moved a second ahead of me, anticipating thought before I could think it. I tried to look away. My reflection didn't follow.
The candlelight dimmed. Warmth vanished.
"You did not call to see another," it said—or I said—"but to unsee yourself. Will you trade your truth for the version you desire?"
Its voice was layered—mine, and a chorus behind it. My lungs forgot their rhythm.
"Seere grants the skill or gift of anyone you envy," it continued, "and in return, takes the memory of what you once were in that same domain. The cost is negotiated, but never void."
I laughed weakly. "I accept your terms."
At once, the mirror fractured—seven silent lines. Each, I knew instinctively, was a truth unmade. My reflection blinked separately. For a moment, I wasn't sure which was the reflection at all.
The instructions' final line lingered in my mind:
"Blow out the candle. The mirror will be cloudy until sunrise."
The Reflection
The figure that stood there now was no longer wholly mine. Draped in translucent silk that shimmered between skin tone and moonlight, she was my ambition given flesh.
She inclined her head in a graceful bow.
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance," she said—my voice, but feminine, lilting, deliberate.
Her presence was intellectual, quiet—uncomfortably familiar. The scent of myrrh and iron hung around her like perfume. I staggered back into my chair, the ritual's energy still vibrating in my bones.
Scholar's Warning: Summon not from hunger for admiration. Envy grants, but never satisfies. Seere teaches that to become another, one must first lose oneself — and it accepts tuition in full.
"Interesting," she murmured, studying me with my own stolen eyes. "A mage envious of a contractee. How covetous indeed."
"Contractee?" I asked, breath uneven.
"Pact. Contract. Difference of semantics." She smiled faintly. "You'll learn the hierarchy soon enough."
I frowned, heart drumming. "Then… what exactly are my abilities now?"
She smiled wider, the silver in her eyes glinting like moonlight on a blade.
"That," she said softly, "depends which part of you you're willing to lose next."