Zeris was seated at the kitchen table, scrawling into her notebook when Caen trudged into the house.

“How did it go?” she asked, glancing up briefly. She seemed really busy… and tired.

“I'll tell you about it tomorrow.” He kicked off his boots. “You?”

“Same old.”

“What’s this I smell? Chey leaves?” he asked.

“Oh. Your folks are smoking on the roof again.”

He snorted. “And gossiping too, I'm sure.” He'd revealed some very heavy news to them this morning. He’d better make sufficient noise once he got into his room, just in case they didn't realise he was back yet.

He said goodnight to Zeris and dragged himself up the stairs, stifling yawns. Shnol had given him a vial of Rien stimulant before he left Uncle Vai's. It had dulled Caen's headache, but he could still feel the muted throbbing behind his eyes. Those exercises had been insidious and utterly brutal.

Caen couldn't wait to practice them some more.

As soon as he reached his door, his mother stepped out of her own room. “Hey, Mom.”

She lifted an eyebrow, closing the door behind her. “Why do you look so bedraggled?”

“Will fatigue,” he said. “Did you just roll your eyes at me?”

“Of course not, dear. There's something I wanted to show you.” She tilted her head towards the end of the tight corridor, and Caen's eyes widened.

“Follow me?” she asked, already moving.

Caen complied quickly in spite of his exhaustion. She didn't need to tell him where they were going. They walked past Zeris's room, Aunt Grena's, and finally came to the pivot door at the end of the corridor. It looked nondescript, the thin outline of a door on a portion of the wall.

His mother pushed it on one side, and torque handled the rest. The wall dislodged, rotating inwards on a vertical axis, unlike a typical door hinge, which was secured on the sides.

She turned to him, smiling. “Go on in.”

Caen stepped into the mirror-room with awe. The thick cotton socks he had on did nothing to keep out the cold seeping into his feet, and his teeth clattered as he rubbed his arms to bring some warmth to them.

The floor, the ceiling, the walls were all covered in one seamless mirror: speculous glass. Even in the sparse lighting coming from the corridor, his reflections stretched out into a dizzying myriad of infinities on all sides.

This was the most sacred and secluded place in the entire house. No one but Sh'leinu knew how to open the door leading into it. He and Zeris had tried many times when they were children. The only time he'd been in here was back when his mother and Uncle Sh'kteiro had wanted to examine his manifestation of their bloodline.

“Sit,” she said. “At the center.”

As soon as he did, his mother shut the door, plunging the room into total darkness.

Caen closed his eyes, and vision immediately returned to him in a burst of disorienting detail.

If he'd been standing, he would have lost his balance and fallen.

He could see in every direction. The infinite reflections on each wall, on the ceiling, on the cool, speculous floor beneath him. He put a hand behind him to balance himself.

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“Whoa,” he whispered as he glanced around. He honestly didn't need to. He could see everything at once. And somehow his brain hadn't exploded.

His mother chuckled from her place by the door. “That takes some getting used to.”

“Is this … is this how you see all the time?” Caen asked.

She laughed. “Ancestor beyond, not at all. What you're experiencing right now is merely an effect of this room, an interaction between compatible Planar materials. If you want to know more about it, then you might be better off talking with your uncle.”

He nodded absently, too fascinated with the scope of the infinite reflections to think too deeply about what she'd just said.

“Among the Edict families, there's a rite of passage for those who've recently awoken their speculon. It's called an enoptromantic ritual.”

All of Caen's attention snapped towards his mother immediately.

“You must remember the time your uncle and I brought you in here. He thought that we could brute force the ritual because he'd seen it done before, but, well…”

Caen’s eyebrows rose at this, though his eyes remained closed. So, that had been the reason why they'd brought him in here.

“This ritual isn't anything so special, and since you're well past your formative years, it might prove much less constructive for you. But I've always looked forward to the day you would experience it. I underwent this as a child, and then a far more complex version of it at my confirmation into the priesthood.

“Both times, I experienced a strong sense of… of clarity and direction. It felt like my cardinal objectives in life were distilled into something tangible. I understood how best to proceed on my journey, and I felt more certain and resolute about the decisions I’d made. I saw…” she sighed wistfully, waving a hand. “I’m rambling—”

“And I'm listening, Mom,” Caen said. “Please continue. What did you see?”

“Like I said, it wasn't anything too profound. I was eleven at the time. And I saw various versions of myself. Each one a unique memory of every time l did something critical or pivotal—for a child, that is. It's supposedly the same for everyone.

“All my defining moments—few as they were—were laid out before me, and it felt as though I was experiencing them all over again and at the same time.”

Caen let none of his disappointment show on his face. Thanks to the training he’d received in his childhood from his mother, as well as some tricks he'd picked up from Uncle Vai, Caen had very good recall. A ritual that helped him remember the pivotal moments of his life would do him little good. But a plan was already forming in his mind. Caen kept that plan to himself, however. “What does the ritual entail?”

“Nothing convoluted. I'm simply going to cast a spell on you. The greater part of the working would be borne by inscriptions within the walls.”

Caen nodded in understanding. She'd mentioned the mirror-room’s intricate enchantments in the past.

“The potency of the ritual would be significantly diminished if I stay in here with you,” his mother continued, “so I'm going to leave as soon as I cast the spell. And honestly, even if I stayed, I wouldn't be able to see what you see. It'll be a few moments before the working takes effect. I'll continue sustaining the ritual from outside. It’s quite heavy, volition-wise, but you'll be bearing none of the cost. You can leave all that to me… and the embedded enchantments.”

“Thank you, Mom. I'm ready,” he said with a resolute nod.

She took a breath. “Good. Clear your mind. I'm casting now.”

Caen had more questions, but he decided to leave them for later. He emptied his mind with a blanking visualisation technique and a breathing sequence.

He could tell when the spell took effect. The dark purple of Astral space crept into the corners of his vision, and he could feel his mind strain under the effect of this. Seeing in all directions while having ‘corners’ to his vision was utterly confusing.

He was alone in the room. The infinite reflections of him on all sides began to move. Some of them morphed into much younger versions of him; others looked just like he did now. Haggered, tired, yet full of desperate desire. An ocean of memories sought to submerge him. It was exactly as his mother had described it: a vision for children.

Then Caen unfurled his existence.

He'd tried doing this in front of a mirror some days ago and hadn't been able to see his soul structure reflected in it. Here, however, every single image of him wore the tapestry of his soul structure.

And then, eerily, they all stopped what they were doing.

A two-year-old version of him—soul structure overlaying his little form—turned to look at Caen.

Caen could feel the hairs on his own neck rise as each and every one of his reflections began turning away from whatever they were doing, till they were all looking him in the eye.