As Kael passed through the light, he lost his sense of time. He couldn't remember how far he had walked, how many seconds or minutes he had spent inside that white void. He had closed his eyes, but the light continued to burn even behind his eyelids—like a glow that had seeped into the folds of his mind...
Eventually, the light slowly withdrew. First it fell to the edge of his pupils, then it extinguished the glow at the center. When Kael opened his eyes, he suddenly jolted—but it wasn't a fall, more like a shift in existence. The ground beneath his feet had changed. There was no trace left of the corridor with stone walls and a door.
With a blink of an eye, he found himself in front of a closed door at the edge of a street.
The buildings rising in front of him divided the sky into fragments. Tall and slender structures extended upward with pointed roofs—but these roofs were irregular, some slanted, others curved as if drawn by a child's hand. The walls of the buildings were made of darkened stone with metal pipes wedged between them. Some windows were foggy, others tinted. Flickering lamps reflected from inside, casting a pale hint of life to the outside.
The sound of the street came first as a hum.
Then slowly, Kael began to distinguish it.
Human voices... bells... the rhythmic clatter of wheels hitting stone... and among all that, the sound of distant music—perhaps a street performer, perhaps a record playing inside a shop... he couldn't be sure.
What caught his attention most were the vehicles moving down the street.
They bore traces from the world he was used to, but every detail was strangely twisted. Some carriages resembled horse-drawn ones, but there were no horses in front—metal constructions moving on their own. Others had just a single horse in front, but the eyes of these horses were like glass; mechanical, almost alive yet not alive...
When one of them came very close to Kael, he thought they locked eyes—but the horse's gaze was empty. There were no veins, no expression... only function.
Kael stood frozen for a moment. When he turned his head, Althar was beside him, but people didn't seem to notice the two men. They flowed through the crowd. Everyone had a destination, a direction, a rush. No one had noticed that they had just emerged from a beam of white light descending from the sky. Even if they had noticed... they didn't care. Or they were used to it. Perhaps this city was a place accustomed to strangeness.
Kael thought to himself:"No one is looking. It's as if we're... invisible. Or maybe we already belong here."
A child passed by, holding a small steam machine. The device made ticking sounds and puffed out something. The child laughed joyfully, watching the trail of steam behind him. Then a woman passed, carrying a complex metal cage on her shoulder—with a glowing crystal spinning inside. Blue lights flickered around the cage, emitting a faint mechanical melody.
And among them all... Kael and Althar walked silently.
On a corner, two men were performing with torches. But this wasn't an ordinary fire show. The men didn't pretend to hold fire—they actually shot flames from their fingertips. One took a deep breath, his chest glowing with a shimmer from his lungs—and then a crimson fire cloud burst from his mouth. The audience cheered and clapped in delight. But no one was afraid. They were used to it. This was a place where the extraordinary was ordinary.
As Kael watched all of this, he felt dizzy. The more the boundaries of reality dissolved, the more questions arose in his mind.
And just then... a voice rose from the crowd. A sweet, high-pitched, velvety female voice.
"Gentlemen... would you like to see your fate?"
As soon as Kael heard that sentence, he sighed. He recognized the voice—or rather, the words. In his old world, he had heard that sentence many times at every corner, in tents of fake magicians, at the tables of old fortune-telling women. To him, such phrases belonged to theatrical performers chasing a few silver coins. He didn't even show interest.
But Althar stopped.
And not only did he stop... he turned toward the direction of the voice. He tilted his head, looking carefully. As if... there was something behind that voice.
Kael was surprised for a moment. For a man like Althar to show interest in something like this was strange.
"You're serious..." said Kael quietly, but Althar didn't answer. He stepped toward the woman.
Kael sighed. He didn't know this place. He didn't want to be left alone in this square. Instinctively, he followed Althar.
...people's conversations, laughter, the shouting of vendors intertwined. The voices echoing through the crowd flowed like background music:
"Take a look! Fresh wild elderberries! Only three silvers!"
"Uncle, you can't do that—if mom sees, she'll get mad again!"
"These are fabrics marked by theology, madam! Woven with true light, they shine like daylight!"
"The next show starts soon, bring your children to the front!"
And amid all this chaos, Kael felt small and foreign. Everyone seemed to have a story. Everyone was chasing something. But what was he doing here?
At that moment, Althar stood before an old woman sitting under a small canopy. Her face was full of wrinkles, but her eyes were still alive and alert. She wore a cloak that shifted between gray and gold, faded by time but still impressive to behold. The sign in front of her table, with faded ink, read:
"Mirror of Fate – Only Shows the Truth."
As the woman approached the edge of the table with slow steps, the wooden floor beneath her feet creaked as if the past itself walked with her. The dark gray fringes of the shawl wrapped around her quivered slightly as she moved; each step blending into the silent melody of an old tune echoing through the dim room.
Her face bore the deep marks of time. The hollows in her cheeks, the wrinkles around her eyes—all were woven with lived experience. But the most striking feature was her eyes. Their color was indeterminate, dull yet alive; holding a depth that both drew you in and pushed you away. Kael was careful not to make eye contact.
The woman leaned toward the chair across from her, meant for Althar. Her movements were slow but flawless—with the confidence of someone who had repeated the same ritual for years...
"Welcome, sir," she said. Her voice was deeper than expected, old but clear. The sentence spread through the room like a mist. Then, with a slight bow of her head, she asked:"Are you here for a tarot reading?"
Althar nodded subtly. "Yes," he said. His tone was as calm as usual. But Kael tried to detect a hint of hesitation in his voice. Such places... even for someone like Althar, must be unsettling.
The woman then turned to Kael. Her eyes seemed to pierce right through him. She bowed her head slightly and raised her eyebrows gently as she asked:"And you, young man? Would you like to learn your fate?"
Kael hesitated for a moment. A brief silence fell between them. He looked away."No," he said coldly. His answer came fast, almost like a sharp blade.
The woman said nothing. She just nodded slightly and stepped back. But Kael noticed the faint smile that appeared on her face. As if the very "no" itself said as much as the cards did.
Suddenly, cards were spread out in front of Althar.
The woman opened the old cloth pouch with a slow, theatrical movement, as if drawing a curtain on a stage. The cards she pulled out bore the texture of objects used for a long time—worn edges, scratched surfaces, yet still vibrant colors. Each one felt like a fragment of time.
The cards were quietly spread across the table. But the silence was not ordinary. A tension settled in the room—like the breath of something unseen, yet undeniably present. Kael felt a chill at the nape of his neck. Even the table the cards touched seemed older in that moment.
The woman adjusted the alignment of the cards with her fingertips. Then she looked directly into Althar's eyes."Are you ready?"