Her nose was spared the suffering this time, but skin broke where the queen’s fist had struck her temple, letting out a stream of blood down Ana’s face. The wound healed shut in a few seconds, but half of Ana’s face was covered in blood by then. The motion had stirred her nausea, and she vomited back bits of undigested food.

“You stole from my house?!”

Holding her mouth with one hand Ana pointed accusingly with the other. “You stole my clothes!”

“Your clothes were being washed. And you ruined one of my favorite dresses.”

“Well… I might have… Fucked up… A little...”

“A little huh? You do realize that your behavior is reflected back on me?”

“Then you should have told me what to do and what not to.”

“How can you be so smart one day, and yet so daft the other?”

“I’m sorry, alright?”

“Oh no, it’s not alright. But punishment will have to wait, we have work to do.”

“Work?”

“Yes, we will be leaving once more in a month, and in that time I need to whip you to shape.” Ana knew that to be just an expression, but the positively evil grin on Lorelai’s face confirmed that there would be whips included in the mix.

“Where do we start?” A sentence she grew to regret, as they started immediately. The rest of the day turned into a montage of training, completely different from the way Nathaniel had been teaching her. Nathaniel liked using positive encouragement, while Lorelai liked literal whips. If she didn’t progress at the set pace, or god forbid if she messed some part up, physical punishment ensued.

Another thing she realized fairly quickly was that the annoying buzzing she had at the back of her head was gone, meaning she not only had a one-night stand, she also took a few bites while she did. The training regiment she was under was brutal and that hunger came back only in a few days. Lorelai went all out on the punishment as Ana had quite the experience with pain and had a high tolerance. That did not help her as she watched Lorelai dismember her legs.

They grew back, but Ana wasn’t the same after witnessing that gruesome sight. Lia had seen worse and Ana believed her. On the other hand, she made more progress in a week with Lorelai, than in the past few months alone. She finally had a grasp on crafting a shield made from an invisible force. When the choice was to work harder on the spell or get hit with an arrow again, she chose to work harder.

They focused on refining Ana’s existing spells while adding changes to them. While the training was hell, after a few days of that the routine changed. Ana was more than a decent fighter, but she lacked some of the more basic spells like the one Nathaniel used for translation. They focused on that, now that Ana had a lot more control.

Using so much magic meant that she had to feed of living beings, which she ignored until the queen quite literally force-fed her. The taste wasn’t the problem, nor the biting as she had an instinct on what to do. But the act itself had disgusted her. But this wasn’t something she could ignore. The change was made, and if she ignored it would not only hurt herself but also those that were relying on her.

She continued to send messages back, at Lorelai's instructions. She tested the waters a bit but quickly found that the queen had a way of figuring out what exactly Ana had said. It turned out to be an actual lie-detecting spell, but Ana had no idea how such a spell worked and Lorelai never shared it.

She informed Nathaniel back home about the record room, the fight with the spirits, but everything she intended to send was screened by the queen first. The problem with the spirits was quite odd, and even Lia who was a self-proclaimed master was stumped. In order for something to rustle up so many non-corporeal beings, it meant that whatever happened fifty years ago, affected the ethereal plane.

Between Lorelai’s and Nathaniel’s take on the ethereal plane, Ana tried making sense of it. This was one of the things she was good at, and having the opportunity to theorize was a welcome reprieve from the intense training. The biggest hurdle she had was the math, as every calculation had to be done by hand, and with the large numbers, it took some time.

Ana dedicated all of her free time to the problem, staying in the room hunched over stacks of papers in the evenings. With only a few hours a day, she wasn’t making much progress, but an idea bloomed. The way the ethereal plane was described reminded her of an odd paper she once read that talked about the possibility of a mirror universe.

It was theorized that the reality she was living in had a mirror universe because of the violation of parity symmetry. The weak force violated all three parts of the CPT symmetry, so Ana began there. Lorelai was intrigued by Ana’s knowledge but was hopelessly lost on the explanation given. No one in this world could understand, and even the vast majority of people back on earth would be lost.

It was hard to imagine effects that go against one's own perception of reality. But such was the world of the subatomic particles. If this ethereal plane was similar or even was the shadowy mirror universe, Ana wasn’t surprised that no one could enter it. The spirits leaving that plane had stumped her, and while Lia was an expert, her skewed understanding was only confusing Ana even more.

Between the training and the late nights, Ana’s schedule was full and the month passed quickly with her no closer to a working theory. Once again it was time for more travel, only with a lot more preparation this time. With the resources the queen had it was easy to have a new board created, only this time it was larger, sturdier, lighter, and was made from the metal the vampires used for their weapons and armor. It also didn’t resemble a board anymore, with a design that maximized the use of Ana’s spell, and with two seats for her and the queen.

To Ana, it looked like a fighter that some galactic spanning empire would use in a science fiction novel. But it made the journey a lot more comfortable and it wasn’t as exhausting as it was before. Her utilization of magic had reached a new level, and Ana found herself using more and more of it on an everyday basis. So far, while it was nice having magic, she hadn’t used it for menial tasks.

That now changed. The loop she had experienced had given her a new appreciation of the mystical force, and while it was vain she found comfort even in the lightest spells. That also meant that she got more lazy and prideful in that time. It was easy to rely on the comfort of magic and the free food she enjoyed.

When the time for their departure came Ana was surprised how little fanfare was to it, as the two of them simply flew out of the city in the early morning. Same as the last time they went, the queen simply pointed out their heading, not explaining where or for how long they were going. This time Ana knew better than to ask pointless questions, and the queen revealed things as they went along.

So far she reported back a lot of information about the city, the vampires, and their culture. All of which was censored by the queen, but even then not by much. It was painfully obvious that any attempts at war against the order of the bloody rose would end in terrible defeat. Even if several countries joined.

But the order had its own issues, and the people to the south were not interesting enough for them. Besides the Bloody Rose, there were three other big orders who didn’t get along with each other. The Order of the Eternal Torch, who was the main rival of the Bloody Rose, and the order to whom Cleon belonged.

The Order of the Ebon Shroud was similar in power to the other two, but they were more isolationists and only fought in defense of their territory. The last order was the smallest of the three, and the one most shrouded in mystery. They were known as the Order of the Wardens. Not much was known of them, not even where their headquarters were. And all of the information about them was gained through their traveling Inquisitors.

They would travel in search of knowledge, at least that was what most people thought. The queen shed some light on the subject, revealing that the Wardens were fanatical followers of the goddesses Moirai, also known as the Fates. Ana knew a bit about the deities in general from her time in this world, getting to know the lore around them in case she needed the information in the future.

The Moirai were three identical sisters that were worshipped because they assigned the fate of every mortal who was born. They were also sisters to Adrasteia, and along with other deities were collectively the offspring of Nyx and Erebus. This is where the mythology got complicated with varying degrees of interpretation.

By the most popular held belief, Nyx, and Erebus were themselves born out of the sea of chaos itself, and they weren’t the only ones. Three more primordials were created beside Nyx and Erebus. The blossoming Gaea, who was the personification of Earth. Thinking about it, to Ana, her name sounded a lot like Gaia, who was known as mother nature. It was from her that all life sprang forth.

Tartarus on the other hand represented the opposite. But that's where it got complicated as some stories tell how Tartarus created an underworld to punish the children of Gaea who committed grave sins. Other stories mix Tartarus with some of his children in the personification of death. Only a few stories even mention Tartarus, and almost always just in passing.

The final offspring of Chaos was Eros, the fairest among the deathless gods. He was the personification of love, and it was with his help that Gaea was able to give life to mortals. Of the five primordials, Eros had the most complicated mythos behind him, but he also was one of the most mentioned. There wasn’t a sentient creature alive in the world that didn’t know about the deity of love and the power of his arrows.

The five primordials had many children, and the most worshipped deities belong to that group. The primordials were known in stories, but they had no temples or followers, only belonging in the stories told about their children. Ana was struggling to understand the relationship between the deities and the mortals, finding herself woefully inept at dealing with powers that were far beyond her head.

Flying while fast was utterly boring to Ana. And with two of them flying, the journey was made a lot safer, and a lot duller. Ana was in charge of the flight, while the queen created a bubble of air which she held in place with magic. That created a sort of a windshield for the pair, allowing them to fly faster and without worry. Lorelai being Lorelai, she also warmed up the inside of the bubble, increasing the level of their comfort.

All of that only increased Ana’s boredom, as she barely needed to focus on the spell in the first place, and with all the comforts it felt to her like she was sitting there holding a button pressed down. That time did allow her to go over the information she had, trying to combine Lia’s understanding and her knowledge into a workable theory.

I told you that it would be impossible! After a lengthy debate, they ended up back at the beginning, with Lia being severely annoyed.

Don’t give me that! Your explanations make no sense!

Here we go again…

Wait. Before we end up at each other's throats again, how about we approach this from another angle.

I told you that was impossible.

You didn’t even hear me out!

Because the last two times you asked, you always suggested we approach the subject from another angle.

I still don’t understand why not.

It’s not that I don’t want to share information, but I don’t have a physical body that stores my memories.

But you still have the memories from when you had a body!

Yes, and if you were a spirit I could share them with you.

Then we switch, I let you take control of the body while I browse your memories.

After letting an annoyed sigh echo in their minds, Lia continued: It is still your body! If that is even possible, you would end up going over your own memories.

Fine! Just, please go over it one more time.

No interruptions this time, and forget everything you have learned so far.

Ana took in a deep breath and relaxed. As much as she could while still flying their makeshift airplane.

The ethereal plane, as you learned to call it, is only a small part of a much larger entity consisting of seven different realms. The realm of the stars, the realm of the soul, the realm of the mind, the realm of the body, the realm of the divine, the realm of the fallen, and the realm of the unknown.

You live in the realm of the body, and the ethereal plane belongs to the realm of the mind.

So the time I saw Adrasteia was in the realm of the divine?

Yes, we were there for a brief time.

And the entropic dimension falls under the realm of the stars, correct?

Finally, she gets it. The sea isn’t the realm, but the realm encompasses the sea. To continue, that leaves the soul, the fallen, and the unknown. Now the realm of the soul is the one giving us troubles, as is it the resting place of spirits like myself.

That’s what I don’t get, you say that the ethereal plane falls under the realms of the mind, but the spirits are in the realm of the soul. Both Lorelai and Nathaniel taught me that the ethereal plane holds spirits, so what the heck?

There are many kinds of spiritual beings, living on any plane. The souls of the deceased find themselves in the realm of the soul, but nothing is keeping them there. What's more, not all spirits go to the realm, as is the case with me.

But you didn’t die, right? You ascended, or whatever?

Precisely. But the problem is still there, spirits can’t interfere with the realm of the body or the physical or material plane as you call it. They, or we, can only interact with other spirits, but that also includes the souls residing in still-living bodies.

That’s why you and I can share a body now, right?

It is a simplified and crude explanation, but yes. Now, I don’t know what kind of spirits are infesting the lands to the north, but my guess is that they are from the realm of the mind. Ana held in her questions and Lia continued.

The reason why it's not the realm of the soul, well, if the spirits from there got into this realm the damage would have been far worse.

The dead coming back to life bad?

No. Necromancy is a completely different jar of bad. When a person dies, their soul is fractured and is sent to the realm of the soul. Because the soul is fractured it is impossible to bring someone back from the dead.

But that doesn’t stop those willing to try, and when a fractured soul is summoned, it has the ability to interact with anything in our realm.

So if the fractured souls were here we wouldn’t need magic to deal with them?

Yes, but what's worse, the fractured soul cannot be destroyed. You can only fracture it further, which would increase its power while making it less coherent.

And the spirits in the north are only interacting with spirits and monsters made from magic.

Precisely.

So what kinds of spirits reside in the realm of the mind?

How many different species are in our realm?

Well, on earth there are around 8.7 million different species, so I’d guess that the number is similar to this word as well.

Lia was silent for a few moments before continuing.

You actually know the number, why am I not surprised. Anyway, the divide we have between animals and people is similar there. The thing is, they can only enter our realm with magic, from this side.

Yes, I know that, we’ve been over it, but Lorelai said that there isn’t a singular focal point that they are entering through. It's like the whole area is connected to the realm.

Which is impossible.

Come on, think. It's happening, and we need a theory on how.

There isn’t anything on this side that can cause this to happen!

What about on their side?

I don’t know, I haven’t been there.

Could you?

If we find a way to split up, yes. But I would never do that as It would be a one-way trip.

So we are back to square one, I hope that this library she is searching for really exists.

If not, you can always ask Adrasteia.

And why would she answer any such question? We briefly talked two times, and she gave me two riddles while I was in the loop. That is the sum of our relationship.

Yeah, I forgot about those, did you figure out the second one?

Not yet, but I have an idea about that.

Ana stretched out her muscles, procrastinating on executing her idea. The day was slowly leaving them as they were zipping through the sky, still heading south towards the kingdom. “How good are you with riddles?” Lorelai was silent for a moment, before allowing a small chuckle to escape her lips.

“A dance in language, I tease and taunt. The quick I intrigue, the slow I daunt. A question in a game of sorts, an answer, right or wrong, it was in front of you all along.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Let’s see if you can figure out this one. The thunder comes before the lightning, and the lightning comes before the cloud. The rain dried all the land it touched, wrapping the earth in a blood-red shroud.”

“A volcano,” Lorelai answered with a bored tone a moment after Ana spoke.

A volcano... Guess it makes sense. Does a volcano mean anything to you?

Not really. Unless there are any volcanoes in the north?

“Any volcanoes in the north?” Ana kept her voice casual, trying to sound like she was bored.

After a few minutes of silence, the queen finally answered Ana’s question.

“There is one, on the mountain called the Ostim Morta.”

The Ostim Morta huh. Sounds like Latin. Ostium is a door or entrance in Latin, but Morta sounds more Italian than Latin... Oh my god…

What?

Porte des morts. In Latin, that’s the Ostium Mortuis…

Translated, that means what exactly?

The entrance of the dead...