The One

The finest rationality

One night after that, Feray made her way to the garden alone. Zanna had offered to go with her, but she insisted that these were matters she needed alone time to mull over. As she strolled aimlessly in the garden, Feray looked up to see the moon. The moon, of course, reminded her of Izar's animorbis. What state was that dimension in now? She didn't want to see him—at least, not now. Although she knew that what he chose to do with the poison was exactly like him, Feray did not appreciate that he had essentially asked the siblings to value one another and then made their problem his own as if he didn't believe they would make the right choice without interference.

She stopped, arms around herself in the slightly chilly night. That was when she saw it.

A translucent silhouette, hovering just a few feet ahead of her. Unlike the time in the library, this time, the full figure was revealed: black mage robe, long gold-black hair reaching past the knees...and a pair of amethyst eyes. The male was gazing upon her silently, barely visible. When she furrowed her brows in concentration, trying to make out what he looked like exactly, he smiled and advanced toward her.

"Do you see me? Do you hear me?" he asked, his voice deep and sensuous.

"Yeah...?" she replied.

"At last." Perhaps due to his state of existence, his voice came almost like an echo. Nonetheless, his words were delivered perfectly.

"At last?" she repeated, puzzled.

"You look like you are talking to yourself when you speak to me," said the male, "No one else can see me."

He turned away from her and drifted off, but he didn't vanish. Having nothing better to do—in fact, her curiosity was the sole cause of this, rather than her idleness—Feray followed.

She could recognize the pathways he took as they walked quietly in the dead of night—they were some of the secret passages of the school. It's not a surprise, Feray noted to herself, it was him who led me to that book in the first place. Where exactly does this lead again?

Ah. A hidden underground dungeon. Even on the map in the book, this part of the school was shown only as a wall. There was no entrance and no exit. The male stopped right in front of the wall. It was only then that he turned back to look at Feray, as though he was absolutely certain that she would follow.

"As you can see me, you can enter." That was the only instruction he gave; not a word more, and not one less.

After that, the translucent figure passed straight into the walls. From the other side, Feray couldn't see what lay in store for her. She placed a hand on the wall. It felt, appropriately, like concrete. She closed her eyes, and the sensation of touching a wall disappeared, so she took a step...and then another. And another. Surprised, she opened her eyes again and found that she was in a whole new space. There wasn't much in the room, only a large, golden bird cage. Here, the translucent silhouette disappeared; in his place was an identical figure—but in the flesh. He sat in the sole armchair inside the cage; a table was on the side, though not right beside the chair. Golden chains extended from corners of the cage and bound his wrists and ankles. The male stood and walked toward Feray, as close as he could get. His hand barely touched the bars of the cage; he seemed unable to take another inch forward. At the front of the cage, there was a sharp needle in place of a lock.

Feray creased her brows again, her attention captured by the chains for a moment. If she hadn't observed wrongly, the chains readjusted their length with his movements so that he could go anywhere he wanted, as long as he was within the cage, but he could not extend even a finger out of it.

"Observant, Feray Inglebird," said the male.

The girl looked up at him. In her examination of the room, she'd forgotten that he was probably watching her.

"Um..." She had so many questions she did not know where to begin. "Explain, maybe?"

The man chuckled lightly under his breath. "As you can see, this is as far as I can go. Come closer to me."

She obliged; all sense of caution abandoned for inquisitiveness.

Up close, and now that she could see him properly, Feray noticed a gold ring on the middle finger of his left hand. She said nothing of it, plagued as she was by every other question she had in mind.

"Fear me not," he began by saying, "Within this cage, all my magical properties and abilities are sealed. I can only linger outside when I separate soul from body."

"You said nobody else can see you," Feray recalled.

"Indeed," he confirmed, "But that will require a lengthy explanation. For that to commence aptly, first answer me: who do you think I am?"

Amethyst eyes. Those two words appeared in her mind before any other. But that's not possible. He should be dead.

"Speak your mind," the man encouraged, "Have confidence. For as long as you have lived, you have so far never been very wrong."

"Nasr Palmentere," she breathed.

"That is correct." Pleased, the infamous dark sorcerer grinned. "You hesitated to answer even though there was no other possibility. Verbalize your reason."

"You're supposed to be dead."

"And yet...after seeing first my soul and then my physical form, you cannot deny that I am indeed very much alive," Nasr voiced, describing Feray's thought process chillingly precisely. "In that case, allow me to elaborate further the cause of your incertitude: all records across Refica and Hominum, monitored by Odessa herself, claim that she had killed me."

Feray's eyes widened in alarm. "She lied!" she noted, "But why?"

"Before I begin my tale, there are several facts you must take heed of. First, nobody but you can see me; by that, I mean even Odessa cannot see me. Second, you see me when I allow myself to be seen. Third, the second point concludes all that I can do as long as I am sealed, despite the dark lore written and spoken about me. Fourth, because of the third point, I have spent all my time observing all happenings for these few thousand years. Fifth, expanding on my previous statement, I know everything about you that Odessa does. Finally, if you set me free of my bounds, I—and only I—can cure Izar Quartermaine."

As she listened, Feray couldn't help noticing how refined Nasr was. Contrary to the lore told of him, he spoke with a diplomatic smile—not the fake one Izar used to mask his own emotions, not the unsettling one Odessa showed that expressed her ill intent, and not the ones Zanna and Feray used to express goodwill. His speech was articulate and rational, making her forget—even if it was only a moment—that he was famous for having virtually invented dark magic. Sure, theories of it had existed before, but it was Nasr who really put them into practice. As Feray pondered over his words, Nasr waited patiently. He's waited thousands of years, obviously a few minutes mean nothing to him, she gathered.

"Why is it that only you can cure him?" Feray asked, before making the decision that she was bound to make regardless.

"Because it was I who invented the Fortue Cruor."

"Fortue Cruor? Is that..."

"The bloodred leaf in the shape of an equilateral triangle? Yes."