"A woman dressed in elegance, walking with the practiced gait of someone who made elegance a weapon."

  "I am half sick of shadows," said the witch as her fingers brushed the surface of the mirror that no longer answered her. "This abyss that stains everything it touches..." She sighed once as she left the mirror aside.

  Marguerite had moved through her mornings with a precision that bordered on an austere routine. The kinds she had practiced since her childhood as a child from a noble house. The girl always rose before the bells, long before the gas lamps across the city would be extinguished to signify sunrise, and when the cold air still pressed against her skin. In her room was a square of sunlight painted on the far wall. No, not real sunlight, only a faint residue from a charm that mimicked dawn enough to fool the body into routine.

  For Marguerite, the day had begun.

  She crossed to the basin—the water was cold, she preferred it that way—before making her way to the wardrobe in the corner of her room, she selected one from the line of dresses, all arranged by cut, material, and specific functions. She dressed herself swiftly. It settled over her frame with perfected weight, blooming skirt brushing the calves. The threads shimmered with the enchantments embedded neatly between the seams for fieldwork, magic, specifically.

  She lit the incense with a practiced tilt of the wrist, watching the smoke rise from the flames in a narrow swirling column. She had done it all a thousand times, and more. The remaining rituals followed: cleansing gestures, soft murmurs spoken to herself, and a small breakfast. Nothing in her expression shifted as she moved from one task to the next, but only her mind wandered as it was bound to.

  It drifted first to the ruins with the two boys stepping out of broken stones. One carried the faint heat of dawn, the barest spark of the Sun's blessing. The other who carried something colder, even sinister. It clung to the air like shadows of the abyss. The memory unsettled her.

  Marguerite was sick of shadows.

  Then her thoughts ventured towards her master. The woman of Arcacia, the land of perpetual frost and steel, where the sky was often too pale to tell day from night (quite the opposite of Solthar). The distance between Arcacia and Solthar spanned vast, and thus, the manner of her master's travel remained a mystery. Whether she carved a path through land and, or simply bent the world to her innate magic—Marguerite refused to dwell on it much. Thinking too long about the woman always left a cold pressure behind her eyes. Ugh, master is insufferable, she exhaled sharply.

  "Read this book thrice forward, thrice backward. Then, recite it by the heart, and you pass this class." Those words carved into her memory sent shivers down her spine. She had not gone to see her master even after learning of her arrival to the land of the Sun, and now, she wondered if the woman had left for Arcacia, returning to the witch's coven.

  Marguerite seated herself at her mahogany desk by the window. The morning light the filtered in was muted by cloud but strong enough to draw a pale rectangle across the parchment. Her pen scratched lightly.

  First, a dear teacher, then a hope this letter finds you in health.

  She paused only to wet the nib with precise care, then continued until she reached what mattered.

  There is a presence within Solthar, that you must be well aware of. Upon your request, I had infiltrated the church without arising any suspicion. There is indeed abyssal contamination within the holy walls. I cannot yet unearth it's origin. It has afflicted me. My sight has been clouded, and now the reflections hold nothing. The abyss is powerful, it will suffocate Solthar. That concluded it.

  She folded the message with care, and slid it into the envelope. She held the edge of white above the candle. The flames shifted to violet with a chant, devouring the paper until nothing remained but drifting purple embers that vanished alongside the rest of the evidence.

  A simple spell. That was a witch's privilege.

  Marguerite understood her own fortune, she was well aware she was born into wealth. Then, favoured by a god. Eventually, found by a witch who saw potential instead of her snark. The master of hers had cultivated every advantage ruthlessly. She turned blessing into a craft, before craft into identity. Her master despised the word witch, calling it a slur shaped by frightened peasants. "Witches are ugly, evil beings in fairytales! I am not ugly... or evil," the older woman complained. Marguerite claimed it anyway. Because for her, witch meant her capability sharpened to a blade, truth untouched by fear of the unknown.

  She intended to become the strongest of them. Even if it meant surpassing the woman she still could not name without a shiver.

  With a flick of her wrist, she walked over to her mirror again for the first time that day. It stood against the wall, decorated by golden swirls around it's oval frames. Her reflection rippled once more, and she leaned forward with curiosity.

  "You better work now, my dear reflection," she threatened. Or was it a command, even frustration that slipped into her tone. She was not sure.

  As the spell expanded, she remembered the boy with the sun-spark once more. Sol carried a blessing, yes—but it flickered like a dying wick. Too faint to shield him. Too faint to mark him as a threat to the Sun's disciples, or even give him the potential to be one of them. A curious contradiction of a chosen, yet nearly extinguished. She exhaled once steadily, and let the spell sharpen its direction—to the future.

  One, no, three seconds passed. A silence thick enough to press against her skull presented itself in the room. Marguerite lifted a curled finger to her chin, and leaned forward once more. Her eyes narrowed in inspection of the mirror. Did it fail? Surely it had not! She cursed under her breath.

  Then, a sound like a storm breaking in ripped away the silence. The glass screamed as it fractured, splintering itself across the polished wooden floor. Marguerite shielded herself with dying magic as shards leapt in the air, catching the violet hues, before falling like a lifeless violet fire.

  A whispering hum followed her for a moment. Goosebumps rose over her nape, Marguerite's pulse jumped. She knew what that meant. Something was resisting her magic, and it was without doubt the abyss with that familiar mockery of a whisper. The spell trembled in her hands as if caught in invisible chains held down by extraordinary force.

  It was no mere obstacle.

  The violet glitter of her magic pulsed unevenly as it flickered in and out of existence, before succumbing to extinction.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  A knock at the door cut through the thoughts, and she jolted once. Marguerite brushed her dress down rather shakily, and scurried towards the entryway.

  At the door stood the person she had last expected to see. Inquisitor Silvanus entered as casually as if he were strolling through a sunlit courtyard. Marguerite did not stop him. Instead, she offered a small smile, before even stepping aside to let him in like she would for any other guest.

  "What brings you here?" she asked.

  He walked over to the table—the one she and Sol had shared breakfasts on once—and dropped a stack of papers onto it. The ones that bore the painted sigil of the Sun.

  "What are these?" Marguerite's brow rose as she eyed them with suspicion. Why would Silvanus bring official documents from the archives all the way to the witch's little home? She knew where he picked them from, she had gone through them before. Not that Marguertie would tell him, or pretend to know what they contained. No, not at all.

  "The very papers you've always been so curious about," he responded before settling into the chair opposite her.

  "What are you implying?"

  "You think I'm unaware of your little visits to the archives," Silvanus continued. "You can hide from the disciples with tunnel visions, but you're still a rookie to me."

  Marguerite gasped with a flush of insult and irritation.

  "Very well, inquisitor Silas." She folded her arms. "I think you have been working too hard keeping watch. Perhaps you should take some rest." Her composure returned. "I'll brew you fine tea imported from Meavandor."

  "Unnecessary," he dismissed her offer. "Tell me—how is your friend doing in the Trials? You always did like to meddle in the wrong places." It speaks in the voice of knowing everything she has done. And of course she paid no heed to Silvanus' warnings of the Sun Cathedral.

  "And you always did like to loom, inquisitor Silas." The girl did not look up, but simply flipped through an old archive file. The pages whispered under her fingertips as she turned them.

  "The cathedral's disguise wards should have burned through any outsider's false face before he even set foot."

  "Yet, the cathedral has been so incompetent," she replied, "to even miss a rookie's spell."

  "Indeed, there he is, winning." Silvanus grimaced. The boy had survived, that itself was a miracle.

  "That's great to know." Marguerite huffed, letting the archive register float back into the desk before grabbing another one with a command of her spell.

  "Now, he's not just some stray that slipped past the gates. He's a piece on their board."

  "Then they'd better be careful which way they move him." She hoped to ignore him, but Marguerite still responded, keeping her focus on the archives to not out her nervousness. "And you. What are you doing here exactly?"

  Silvanus did not answer at first. He remained leaned back in the chair, arms folded, gloved fingers tapping once, twice, thrice on the forearm. Marguerite continued reading as if the the inquisitor's presence meant nothing, though her knuckles stiffened slightly around the parchment.

  "You know exactly why I'm here," he spoke finally.

  "No," she sighed, "I only know every time you appear unannounced, something unpleasant follows."

  Silvanus's silver gaze swept towards the cut on her wrist. "When a witch's mirror shatters," he commented, "it is seldom the mirror that was at fault."

  "Say what you came to say, Silas." Marguerite snapped at the man.

  He stood again, the shard's glow refracting briefly across his eyes. "Your boy has become a complication."

  "He isn't my boy." The witch scoffed

  "He is a problem." Silvanus turned, "A problem the Cathedral will not allow to grow." Three forces are moving, and the boy stands between all of them. Remained unsaid.

  "And do you intend to have me solve it before they get to it?" A shard crackled beneath her heel as she leaned onto her side.

  "I try to."

  Marguerite took a moment to ponder, letting silence engulf the room.

  "Fine, inquisitor Silas," she finally said, "Tell me how you intend to do it."

  His gloved hand drifted toward the sealed folder at the side. He placed it on center of the table with deliberate care. The wax emblem of the Sun Cathedral caught the dim light. A sigil of radiance fractured by the thin veins of the ruined paper beneath.

  "I intend to do nothing," he said. "Not yet."

  What? Marguerite frowned involuntarily. "You came all this way to tell me you have no plan?"

  "I have a framework to counter future obstacles," he continued, "but not a plan."

  "Future obstacles is a plan regardless, inquisitor, but you would rather not share with me. Isn't that how it is?" Marguerite accused with a small, knowing smile, but he said nothing to that. Instead, he opened the folder. Inside was neat rows of reports sat beside a charcoal sketch of a map.

  Marguerite's curious eyes settled on it.

  She felt the faintest prickle on her forearm, the same sensation as when the mirror rejected her. She hadn't seen this before.

  "You're tracking the Cathedral's workings, even the Trials," she added, "without authorization."

  A simple comment was to ensure Silvanus, the man who dedicated himself to the Cathedral, was not lying to her. It was a probe, just something meant to test how tightly Silvanus still clung to the Cathedral's beliefs, and how much he had begun to drift from it.

  "Unnecessary observation, but you do know as well," he replied, "The Trials are more than what they seem to be, atleast this time... It may be a grand plan ahead…"

  "There is something within the Cathedral, anomalies, and now no doubt connected to the Trials," Marguerite continued, slipping into her thoughts, "But I cannot figure out what it is except that there is something nesting inside the Cathedral's walls... the abyssal wraiths we had encountered," she said. "Either a flaw, or a force to be reckoned with. And now you bring this to me."

  She examines the charcoal map once more. The charcoal strokes revealed a layout too old to match the Cathedral’s current blueprints that she had found in the archives. Hallways diverged where no hallways should exist. There were chambers marked with symbols from a script that had not been publicly taught for centuries. Beneath it all, sketched in deeper pressure is a circular pattern with three rings.

  The three underground levels.

  This map should not exist.

  Neither of them should be looking at it.

  "If these passages are still active," she said, "then—"

  "Something is present beneath us," he interrupted.

  She looked again at the charcoal lines. The map overlapped the present-day Cathedral as well as the city in her mind. She traced one passage within the webbed labyrinth with the edge of her nail.

  "This path no longer exists."

  "It exists," Silvanus said. "Just not for the people who believe the Solthar they see is the one they stand in."

  She continued observing, watching lines connect to the Cathedral to the edge of the city, one moving towards the airship hanger—the Trials. A quiet realization passed between them.

  "You're the only person whose interference has gone undetected," his tone was clipped when he spoke, "Your involvement with him complicates things for me, but it also protects him, because you are capable."

  Silvanus closed the folder, erasing the evidence of all they had seen a moment ago.

  "You're speaking in circles." Marguerite narrowed her gaze.

  Silvanus met her eyes. "I intend to determine what the Sol himself is attracting. Not just that, I intend to uncover the truth of the Cathedral itself."

  "You want me to keep him alive while you are at it." She stated, factually.

  "Indeed, I want the truth before they rewrite it," he replied. "If the Trials are reacting to him upon the command of the Cathedral, then the Cathedral will choose containment." He murmured the last part to himself, "Or elimination. No, they need him for something, which is why they haven't eliminated him... Regardless, he will be their target now, and later."

  "And you, inquisitor Silas," she asked, "what will you choose for him?"

  "Whichever preserves long enough for us to understand what we are dealing with." His answer carried no hesitation.

  "What we are dealing with?" Marguerite repeated. "I can't scry anymore. I am blinded, Silas… Whatever it may be, it won't let us live if we find it out." She scoffed. "Do you even know anything, or are you just grasping at shadows beneath the Cathedral and hoping they mean something?"

  "For now," Silvanus said, meeting her gaze, "that is the question even I cannot answer. But the mere fact that it is deliberately hiding from us must mean it is present."

  Her lips pressed into a thin line. And thus, Marguerite found herself pulled into haeresis.