Renee fell for what felt like forever. The air rushed out of her lungs, cutting her scream short. Her hair whipped around her face from the air resistance, blinding her even further as if the lack of light wasn’t enough.

Who pulled her through the mirror? One of the twin goddesses? Why did they do that?

She was terrified of how this would end. Would she die upon impact once she reached the bottom? Is this going to be how she dies? Falling through a mirror into a blank void? Is she still falling forward or did she reorient herself mid-fall? What if she ends up falling forever? That seemed even more terrifying than hitting the ground.

Just as that thought rushed through her mind, she finally hit bottom. With a loud oomph!, she crashed into something that was, fortunately, not rock hard. 

Still stunned from the impact, it took Renee a few seconds before she gathered enough clarity and awareness to realize a few things. Firstly, she hadn’t been falling as hard or as fast as she originally thought. There was a strange weightlessness on the other side of the mirror, and it was because of that new physics that she hadn’t gotten hurt from the fall. 

Secondly, she could now see. Wherever she landed had a light source somewhere, and she could now see that she was surrounded by a thick layer of snow, which probably helped cushion her fall. There was also snow falling from the sky, something she could have sworn wasn’t there when she was falling. Yet, it wasn’t cold at all.

And lastly, the oomph! sound hadn’t come from her. She now realized that she did not land on only snow. There was one very disgruntled person underneath her, no doubt just as winded from the impact as she was.

“Get off,” the person underneath her said in a cold voice. Renee was stunned to realize that the person she landed on was Lirion, and his eyes were frostier than she’d ever seen them. His outfit was different too. He was wearing some kind of temple uniform similar to those she’d seen in illustrations of the past.

“Sorry!” Renee gasped and immediately rolled off him and pulled herself into a sitting position. She would have stood up, but her head was still spinning a little from the fall. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

Lirion also pushed himself into a sitting position, facing her. He dusted the snow off his clothes while giving her a distrustful look. “Did you just fall out of the sky?”

Renee tried not to take any offense to his sudden aloofness. She immediately started explaining herself. “I know I’m not supposed to be here, but I accidentally fell through a mirror somehow. Is this the aether plane?”

She glanced around them again, seeing nothing but an endless field of snow. The sky, or whatever hung over them, was dark as a starless night, yet Renee could still see the blanket of snow and Lirion’s figure clearly. Yet, despite the lack of obstruction, the visibility was poor, with the darkness seemingly devouring everything else in the distance. There could be large mountains or tall forests just within walking distance around her, but she couldn’t see them because the darkness obscured everything outside the range of visibility.

She wanted to ask how it was possible to see so clearly without a source of light, but she didn’t want to badger him with useless questions. He would probably reply with something about how laws of physics don’t apply to the aether plane.

She was more curious as to why Lirion was alone by himself. Didn’t he go rejoin the other saints after leaving her?

“Where are the others?” Renee asked.

Lirion didn’t answer her question. Instead, he stood up and picked up a sword that he must have dropped into the snow when she fell on him. 

“You fell through a mirror?” Lirion questioned her coldly with clear distrust in his eyes. To Renee’s shock, he pointed the blade right at her. “It’s not possible for a mortal to accidentally wind up in the aether plane. Not to mention, mortals go mad from being in the aether plane.”

A mortal? Why was he suddenly treating her as if she wasn’t a saint like him?

“Who are you, anyway?” Lirion continued to ask. “I’ve never seen a nythral who has perfectly taken on a human form, but I’m sure there’s a first time for anything.”

Lirion doesn’t recognize her? Did he forget or…

Renee stood up from the snow too, with her back straight and her head held high. “I am Renee Arlinus, the eleventh saint of Eislyn.”

There was a beat of silence between the two before Lirion finally lowered his sword. “Eleventh? So there are eleven saints now? And a girl at that.”

The breath rushed out of Renee’s lungs. She had a very strong feeling that she was no longer in the twenty-first century, and this Lirion is not the same Lirion as the one she knew. If her theory was correct, this was Lirion’s previous incarnation, and she had somehow ended up one thousand years into the past.

“Yes, it was quite recent.” Renee nodded, playing along. “I don’t know how or why, but I fell through a mirror and ended up here. Can you help me get back to the physical plane? I need to return to the Court of Saints.”

There was another long moment of silence as Lirion scrutinized her face for any hint of a lie. Renee nervously held her breath.

Finally, Lirion sighed. “Alright, but I can only walk you to the gateway. I’m not allowed to pass through.”

“Why not?” Renee asked before she could stop herself. 

Lirion did not answer, but his jaw tightened a bit. 

She immediately recalled a passage from The History of the World. 

‘Lirion Asteria was exiled to the aether plane for seventy years for massacring many Asterian noblemen in the tenth century.’ Suddenly, she realized how much she didn’t want to know the answer to her own question.

“Nevermind,” Renee quickly backtracked. “Do lead the way, please.”

Lirion glanced around for a bit before he started to walk off into the distance. Renee hastily followed after him. She wanted to ask him how he knew which way to go, since everywhere she turned looked the complete same to her eyes. 

The two of them walked through the snow in silence. Renee couldn’t help but think about how well her white dress matched the color of the snow. She was both startled and bewildered when she looked back to find flowers blooming in her track. The soft colors stood out starkly against the pure white snow. They bloomed faster and faster, spreading like wildfire until it caught up to her. The flowers reached the hem of her skirt and the next thing she knew, they were blooming across her skirt as well. 

Fascinated, Renee couldn’t suppress a giddy smile as she gingerly spread her skirt to see them better. The flowers weaving up her skirt were wild roses, and they cling to the fabric as if they were stitched on. Renee touched the soft pink petals and was amazed to find that they were actually real.

Lirion also threw a curious glance at her over his shoulder when he noticed the strange phenomenon, but he seemed neither impressed nor worried.

“Don’t be too concerned by that.” Lirion said. “The environment here in the aether plane is unpredictable and is very easily influenced by whoever’s in it. This is just how the aether plane reacts to your presence.”

Is that why there was nothing but snow until then? Was it reflecting Lirion’s state of mind?

There was no breeze, but the hem of her skirt continued to flutter as she walked on. Despite the lack of cold, Renee shivered. Lirion seemed to notice, and, without any prompting, took off his coat and draped it over her shoulders.

When Renee gave him a questioning look, Lirion replied, “I’m Asterian, so I don’t feel the cold. Your dress has no sleeves.”

I don’t feel the cold either! Are temperatures even real in this place?

She wanted to explain that she doesn’t feel the cold either, and it was due to the aether plane being strange, not his tolerance for colder temperatures, but she instantly got distracted by the sudden feeling of a familiar sensation which sent her senses prickling. Renee was now able to identify the sensation as the presence of mana.

She froze, and Lirion stopped in his tracks too, probably sensing the same thing as she did. She turned and saw a pack of shadowy figures at the edge of sight. They didn’t look like any animal she had ever seen before, but a mangled abomination of several. 

“Are those…”

“Nythrals.” Lirion confirmed as he brandished his sword again. “Stay behind me no matter what.”

“Can you even take on all of them at once with only a sword?” Renee asked, her eyebrows shooting upward in disbelief. “There are, like, seven of them!”

“I’ve handled worse.” Lirion’s answer was flippant and cold. 

“But—” Renee tried to protest, but that’s when the nythrals chose to attack. They ran at them, and Renee was reminded of the time three of them attacked her at school. 

Matthias’s words came to mind. Eris’s move was surprisingly tame this time around.

At that time, Renee had snorted internally at him for calling it tame, but she now understood why he said that. The nythrals here were much more fiercer than the one she faced, much more aggressive, and much bigger. Is it because they were in the aether plane, where Eris was, so her influence over them was so much stronger?

Lirion didn’t hesitate and immediately leaped into action. He was fast, much faster than anyone Renee had ever seen. His blade flashed as he swung it, slashing through the nythrals like they were nothing. 

Renee wondered why he didn’t just blast them with icicles. It would have been much faster and easier.

“Lirion! On your left!”

One of the nythrals managed to catch Lirion off guard by attacking him from his left when Lirion was finishing off another nythral on his right. Thanks to Renee’s warning, he managed to block the nythral’s gaping jaw with his left arm before it knocked him to the ground.

Renee couldn’t sit around for a moment longer. She summoned mana into her hand and fired it like a bolt of lightning. Turns out, her training was useful for something.

Her mana attack blasted the last few nythrals apart, and they were both alone again.

Lirion scrambled to his feet, his eyes hard and full of disbelief. “What have you done?”

“I saved you.” Renee replied to him with a hint of confusion, taken aback by his demeanor. Did she do something wrong? She glanced at his arm in concern, where she could see blood seeping through his torn sleeves where the nythral bit him.

Lirion palmed his forehead in frustration. “We need to leave, now!”

He grabbed Renee’s hand and ran as fast as he could, pulling her along with him.

“Wait! What’s going on!” Renee demanded. “You’re hurt! Shouldn’t we treat your arm first?”

“If you use your own mana in the aether plane, Eris will detect it! It’s only a matter of time before she comes after us! Didn’t the others tell you that you can’t use magic in the aether plane?”

“What?” Renee was stunned. “Nobody told me that!”

So that was why he didn’t use his mana to fight the nythrals earlier. 

“Here,” Lirion let go of her hand and suddenly pointed to a standing doorway frame ahead of them made of flowering vines that Renee didn’t even notice until now. It had appeared out of nowhere and was the only standing structure in the endless sea of snow and flowers. Renee immediately recognized the flowering vines that made up the doorway as a wild rose plant. “Go through the doorway and you’ll emerge in the Court of Saints on the other side.”

Renee felt a little doubtful of that, as the doorway frame looked like an ordinary doorway frame, except it was made of wild rose branches. Even the view through the doorway was not of the physical plane, but more snow from behind the doorway.

“What about you?” Renee asked.

Lirion brushed off some snow from his shirt. “My exile hasn’t been lifted yet, so I’ll just move to another location and hope that Eris doesn’t find me. This plane is vast and distorted, so it won’t be hard. After all, it wasn’t my mana signature that was released just now.”

“But your arm,” Renee protested.

“It’ll heal.”

“Alright,” Renee nodded, as if agreeing with him. Then, she stepped up to him and shoved him through the doorway. 

Lirion’s eyes widened in surprise before he fell through a plane of light that appeared under the doorway frame and immediately vanished from sight. 

“Ah, so you weren’t joking about this being a doorway.” Renee nodded to herself. “Don’t worry, I’ll take responsibility for forcing you to break your exile early.” 

Then she picked up her flowery skirt and carefully stepped through.