Rivers of the Night

'A Mandate Path…'

Theron let the words swirl in his mind as he looked at the plaque, his thoughts becoming almost… broader. It was like he was staring out into space, his periphery becoming more blurry, and larger and wider in scope.

His gaze fell into a bit of a trance, his breathing entering a rhythmic cadence.

And then, all of a sudden, the world around him vanished, and he was transported to another world.

Theron felt as though his soul had been sucked out of his body, his breathing becoming so rhythmic that it was as though he had fallen into a deep sleep.

But when his vision cleared again, he was standing in a world of mirrors, the floor beneath him so reflective and clear that he could see tens of thousands of reflections of himself as the light bounced from it to the mirror in the skies and then back again.

No matter where he looked, he saw a version of himself hidden away in some corner, looking back at him just the same way he looked at it.

'How odd.'

Theron blinked, trying to understand what he was seeing. But it felt unfathomable in scope, so large that chipping away pieces of it was a nightmare all to itself.

Was this the Path that Raan was chasing? How long had he spent meditating in this world to grasp what he had?

Theron had felt that Raan was close to something new when he felt his Path, but standing here now, he realized how wrong he was. Raan was so very far away, and so was he.

The scope of this Mandate Path felt too wide. You could spend a lifetime looking over it, and yet it wouldn't change a single thing—there would still be another lifetime's worth left to experience here.

'Is that really so?'

Theron continued to look around.

Somewhere inside, he knew that this was a bit foolish. He was taking a Path that a Light Mancer had chosen, and yet trying to apply it to himself, a Water Mancer.

Who knew if the reason he couldn't see the full scope of his Mandate Path was because it was something only meant for Light Mancers to begin with?

But there was something about Theron's bloodline and his intuition that made him feel like it was possible. The Law of Reflection, at least, had fit so perfectly into the palm of his hands that it felt like it was only natural he be capable of using it.

Even if this Path wasn't for him, wouldn't he still be able to use it to sense more Laws?

Wren had managed two Laws on his own, and Theron had managed to learn them through his sword. Theron was sure that Vellan, Exsaa, and Chopra had also learned their own Laws, but he hadn't been able to grasp them—maybe because they weren't suited to him. Or maybe because when he fought Chopra, he was looking for something else entirely, while his battle with Vellan and Exsaa had been executed when he was completely exhausted.

Even his Law of Density was learned from the tortoise shell.

It made Theron wonder: were Laws meant to be learned like that? Should he be just picking them up like this without rhyme or reason? Was there another way to learn them?

Also, why had learning the Law of Density been so much harder for him to grasp than the others? Was it because, at the time, he hadn't awakened his Third Eye yet?

Why was it that the Law of Density seemed to have so many Runes attached to it, and yet he hadn't experienced the same thing from the Laws of Concentration, Vibration, and Reflection?

There were so many questions he couldn't grasp.

He hadn't even known the Law of Density was a Law at all when he got it—he just thought it was an ability he was gaining from the Black Clan's Echo of choice.

Every experience he had with Laws was different, as though it wasn't meant to be learned systematically at all.

Confusion colored Theron's perception until it consumed his mind so much that his thoughts could no longer remain focused, and he slipped out of the odd mirror world.

He found himself in the real world again, his brows furrowing. Then, after a long moment of silence… Theron took out something else.

*Mazes of the Mind.*

The small, almost booklet-shaped piece of metal had been with Theron for a long while. But he had never opened it because he knew that it would take a substantial amount of his Third Eye, and he had never been in a situation where he could.

Plus, he felt like this slab was accomplishing the exact same things his necklace was already helping him to do naturally, so it didn't feel like something he had to know the truth of immediately.

But since then, his Third Eye had progressed considerably. In addition, this was about the closest thing to a lull he would ever receive.

He had just stirred up a great amount of trouble, and Ott Tyre would be unlikely to come for him in the short term because of it. As the assassin's tenets often said, sometimes the best place to hide was the most dangerous place.

Right now, he was in the eye of the storm, and there was no better time for him than right this moment.

However, what Theron didn't expect was that the moment he started trying to open the slab once again, the pull on his Third Eye would be the same.

The proportional tug made his eyes flash, but this time he chose to commit.

He didn't know why the requirements of the slab had gone up all of a sudden, but he could only hope that this didn't mean that it would take everything he had no matter what.

It pulled and pulled, and for the first time, Theron felt the fatigue that others did when they used their Laws continuously.

CRACK.