Book of Fates ✔

Decisions are made

Accidently, her gaze stumbled across the peculiar staircase in the corner. The phone could tumble in there. What if..?

"I never promised not to go the generators," convincing herself, Anya whispered. "So."

She drew a lungful of air and slowly moved down the steps.

In contrast to all the other stairways in Kelas, this one didn't look friendly. There were no plants on the walls, no lanterns illuminating the way. Nothing. Just narrow, steep steps carved in the rock as though in hurry, they swopped deeper and deeper, winding on and on in the murk. Anya was slinking rather than walking, afraid to blunder and lurch.

The light of Nikk's crystal had almost died out, when she finally saw a dim glimmer far below.

In a minute that lasted longer than hour, Anya came into in a large hexagon room. Along the walls were giant stones of human height, of different colors, beaming with the bright radiating light from the inside. Each of the crystals had countless wires stretching from them to the ceiling.

Anya's misfortunate phone lay at her feet, terrible net of cracks over the black screen.

"Oh, wonderful," Anya sniggered sarcastically.

She glanced around for another way out. The thought of crawling up those same dangerous steps again sent a shiver down the spine.

The room had two doors set opposite from each other. The first one Anya tried was made of shining metal, encircled with tiny purple flowers, and tightly shut.

Although the second door made of white glass slid open once Anya approached, and revealed another room with a glowing arch of enormous size in the center.

Uncertain, Anya walked in. The lights turned on by themselves, a touchscreen activated, and space in the arch slightly distorted like the reflection of a bad mirror.

"The portal," she gasped, taken aback. What was it like, on the other side? Were there only a few steps that separated her from the daitias' world now? A sickening temptation to find out churned in Anya's stomach.

Still indecisive, she extended her hand toward the arch. Was that a good thing that Anya could never control her desire for dragging herself into adventurous troubles? Her fingers a hair's breadth away from the alternative reality, Anya felt a faint electric spark rush through her body. Then...

A sharp, fearful yelp came from behind, jerking Anya out of her half-dreamy thoughts.

"What are you doing?!" Anya spun around to see Amarillis goggling at her, the daitian's eyes full of horror. The folds of Rill's peachy silk blouse were wiggling as her chest went up and down with every heavy breath. "Are you out of your mind?!"

"Sorry, I just dropped my phone and—"

"Don't ever touch anything in here! You want to get lost on the other end of the universe? You want to be smashed across some random unknown star?.." Rill clucked like an alarmed mother who saw her child playing with a deadly snake. "I'll be the one who'd be blamed for everything!"

"I just wanted to look, that's it. I'm sorry, Amarillis."

"She just wanted to look, of course... There's nothing to look at." Rill grabbed Anya's arm and ushered her to the exit. "Let's go, before I changed my mind to take you to the meeting."

Anya cocked her head in curiosity, "What meeting?"

"About your map," Rill said reluctantly. "Asta called everyone in. I hope they haven't started yet."

*

As they made their way back into the main hall and headed to Astarta's room, Rill seemed to regain her usual cheerful spirit.