But the moment he turned around, there was no one behind him. Lucian swept his attention to his right, then his left. No sound at all reached him.
This feeling, I was sure I felt someone standing right behind me a second ago. Was that just my imagination? It’s like the whole room has shifted somehow.
It wasn’t only his imagination. The vast room had changed around him, entirely. The layout, the placement of every piece of furniture, all of it had rearranged itself, nothing like the space he’d first sensed when he stepped through the door.
Lucian made his way back toward where he remembered the entrance, moving with careful, deliberate steps, one hand extended in front of him.
This door... it’s gone? Wasn’t there supposed to be a door right here, the one I came through?
He ran his hands along the wall exactly where his memory told him the doorway should be, but all he found was solid stone. No door, no frame, nothing.
Without thinking, Lucian’s hand shot out behind him, snatching at the air as though trying to catch something. "Got you!" But what met his palm caught him completely off guard, smooth, delicate skin, the unmistakable feel of a hand.
Gulp! Oh, Goddess, can’t you give me even a moment’s break from all this strangeness?
Lucian realized he was holding someone’s hand. Carefully, he let a thread of mana flow through his fingers to test it, but the hand he held was far too cold. He couldn’t feel a single trace of warmth from it, and worse, none of the heartbeat he could usually sense from anyone standing this close to him.
Whatever this was, whatever he was holding onto, he wanted to let go immediately. But directly behind him was nothing but solid wall, and running from this, whatever it turned out to be, wasn’t going to be easy.
Then, without warning, he felt his other hand seized as well, and he had no time to pull away before the touch closed around it.
This is bad.
’Are you okay?’
A voice, small and girlish, rang out right in front of him. Impossible as it seemed, standing there really was a girl who looked no older than eighteen.
Her hair was pure white, and even her eyebrows matched, framing a face that looked almost like a fallen angel’s. Her eyes were a deep emerald green, her pupils shaped like tiny, glimmering stars.
Strangely enough, even though Lucian had her hand caught in his grip, the girl showed no sign of feeling threatened by it at all. Instead, she smiled at him and, with her free hand, gently closed her fingers back around his own trembling one.
Even without being able to see her, Lucian could feel how soft and careful the touch of that other small hand was.
There wasn’t a trace of hostility in it anywhere. Without quite deciding to, Lucian felt the mana he’d gathered slowly ease back into himself, and something in his chest began, gradually, to settle.
’You seem a little calmer now.’
Lucian still didn’t answer her. His mind was too tangled up in the situation unfolding around him, trying to make sense of how a young girl had simply appeared in the middle of this strange, shifting room.
A gentle touch found his jaw next. The girl reached up on her toes, cupping both hands around Lucian’s face to study it.
’You... your face looks a lot like her. But are you really unable to see? Why are you blind?’
Looks like her? What does this girl mean by that?
Lucian, unwilling to sit with the question any longer, gathered his nerve to answer, even as a faint tremor still ran through him.
"What do you mean, I look like her?"
The girl’s mouth opened, and her voice came out bright with excitement, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet as she spoke. ’Ah, you can talk after all. I thought maybe you were mute too.’
Her tone carried a warmth so genuinely human that Lucian instinctively released her hand, quick to apologize, worried he’d caused some kind of misunderstanding.
"I’m sorry, it’s not that I didn’t want to talk, I was just still shaken from everything that’s happened to me so far—" Before he could finish, the girl reached up, caught his hand, and used it to flick her own forehead.
Lucian pressed his fingers to his own brow out of reflex, though it didn’t actually hurt. "Ow, um, that didn’t really hurt, but why’d you do that?"
’Don’t call me that. Just call me by my name, Miyu.’ She introduced herself with a bright, cheerful lilt, every bit the picture of a sweet young girl, tilting her head as she said it.
"Lady Miyu?"
The girl’s cheeks puffed out in an instant, an unmistakable pout, one that would have looked thoroughly adorable if only Lucian could have seen it. She clearly didn’t appreciate being addressed with a title.
’Don’t call me Lady Miyu. Just Miyu!’ She planted one hand on her hip, jabbing a single finger toward him with the other for emphasis.
"Ah, my apologies, Lad—" Her finger shot forward and pressed flat against his lips before he could finish.
’Hmm.’
"Ah, I mean, Miyu. I’m Lucian..."
Something about Lucian saying her name so readily seemed to delight her, though for him, the name Miyu tugged at something oddly familiar, a thread he couldn’t quite trace back to anything he actually remembered, no matter how hard he searched.
’Hmm, still a bit stiff saying it. But that’s fine.’
’Would you like something to eat? You look tired, and hungry too.’ Miyu studied Lucian’s face, taking in the sweat still clinging to his skin and the disheveled mess of his hair from being chased up that staircase.
"Food? Is there actually food somewhere in here?"
Lucian pressed a hand to his stomach, which had started growling audibly. He hadn’t eaten a single thing since the chaos of the Awakening ceremony, all the way through his arrival at the Sarnel main estate.
’There is. Is there something specific you’d like to eat?’
"Something I like? Hmm, as long as it’s something I can actually eat, that’ll probably be enough."
’You still don’t like vegetables very much, do you?’
In truth, Lucian had always been something of a picky eater, never one to reach for dishes heavy on vegetables. But he couldn’t fathom how Miyu could possibly know that about him. Was it really that obvious just from looking at someone?
’Don’t worry about it. I’ll have them cook something else, something you’ll actually enjoy.’
’Them?’
’Come on, what are we waiting for? Let’s go.’ Before Lucian could press her for more, Miyu had already caught his hand and started pulling him along.
They walked forward together, and with every step Miyu took, the entire structure of the room shifted again around them. Slowly, the shape of the space dissolved entirely, no walls dividing it anymore, not a single piece of the white furniture remained.
’Be careful, Lucian, okay? Just follow my footsteps, and never try to wander off the path we’re walking on.’ Miyu said it with a bright, cheerful face, as easily as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world to her.
Lucian, still confused by what exactly she meant, said nothing.
He couldn’t see any of the sweeping changes happening around them. Beneath his feet now, the path had narrowed to a single, glasslike walkway, nothing left of the grand white room he’d sensed only moments before.
They now stood on a path that felt like glass underfoot, and running alongside it, weaving and curling near their ankles, were countless threads, some yellow, some blue.
The yellow and blue threads stretched on impossibly far, as though they existed purely to guide their steps. Lucian couldn’t sense anything definite about what was happening around him, nothing about this felt normal in the slightest, and yet, somewhere in his chest, something told him to simply trust Miyu.
As if they’d known each other for a very long time already.
"Miyu, can you tell me more about that person you said I look like?"
Miyu’s footsteps stopped abruptly. ’Hmm, hold on a moment, Lucian. There’s a door forming right in front of us.’
"A door? Where?" Lucian couldn’t sense anything resembling a doorway ahead of them at all.
Then, at last, the glowing yellow and blue threads at their sides began weaving together, gradually taking the shape of a green door directly before them.
This time, Lucian could faintly make out the shape of it, and beyond the green door, he caught the edge of something warm, a subtle heat radiating through it.
After wandering through this endless, shifting space for so long, whatever lay behind this door felt, unmistakably, alive.
’Lucian? What are you waiting for, let’s go in.’ Miyu tugged at his arm again, pulling the green door open as she spoke.
The moment it swung open, light poured out around them, bright enough that anyone with working eyes might have struggled to look directly at it. But the sensation lasted only an instant, because beyond that light waited a room that felt like a kitchen.
The space was fully equipped a table, a stone hearth with a fire burning steadily beneath it, and above that, a black pot of soup. Lucian could hear the low, steady bubble of it simmering clearly the moment they stepped inside.
Directly ahead of him stood an elderly woman and an elderly man, both tending to the pot together, the rich, savory scent of the soup spreading warmly through the room.
"Miyu, you’re finally here. Did you bring another guest with you?" the old woman said, her voice warm, a gentle smile evident in her tone as she looked between the two of them.