Page 146 of Daughter of No Worlds

“Mm,” said Sammerin, looking down at his bowl.

Interesting.

“So you knew each other before—”

“Back when I still had those big beautiful blue eyes, yes,” Eslyn said, and laughed while everyone else remained uncomfortably silent.

Ariadnea had not stopped watching me. “You have never met a Syrizen.”

It wasn’t a question, but I still shook my head.

Eslyn chuckled. “The staring made it obvious enough.”

“I did not mean to be rude. I just…” Gods, it was impossiblenotto stare. “You are very…graceful.”

“Expected us to be stumbling around like baby kittens, eh?” Eslyn chirped. “Well, we can see well as you.”

“Just differently,” Ariadnea added.

My gaze darted between them. “…How?”

Eslyn replied, simply, “The layers.”

“The layers?”

“Magic is a series of layers, far beneath the physical world,” Ariadnea said. “Different layers, or streams, for different types of magic. Valtain magic, Solarie magic…”

I nodded. Common knowledge. The stuff of storybooks.

“It goes much deeper than those two threads alone. There are many, though those two are the only ones that human Wielders have been known to access. The Fey, for example, are theorized to have many threads of their own, inaccessible to human Wielders.”

“Syrizen,” Eslyn said, proudly, “are the only human Wielders able to tap into a deeper layer of magic.”

“If only for seconds at a time,” Ariadnea added. “And with great… concessions, in order to force a higher sensitivity.” She gestured to her own eye sockets with a wry smirk.

A shiver ran up my spine. “With your eyes gone, you feel it more strongly.”

“Exactly.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Max shake his head, and an echo of my own discomfort panged in my chest.

My next question was clumsy — impossible to word. “So… why you?”

“There are many very specific qualities one must fulfill to be capable of being one of the Syrizen,” Ariadnea said. “We all are Solarie, because the more external, energetic magic of the Solarie is needed to give us the sheer power to push between the layers. But at the same time, we require a sensitivity to the movements of magic that most Solarie lack. There is a very intricate series of tests to determine each candidate. No one knows why, but overwhelmingly, only women tend to make the cut.”

“There aren’t many of us,” Eslyn said, “but we’re good at what we do. We may only be able to dip half a layer deeper, but even that gives us many unique powers.” Her eyeless gaze fell to me, and her smile twisted, widened, with a hungry curiosity. She leaned forward. “Though I hear that the thing that lives inside of you draws from much, much deeper than that.”

My mouth went dry.

{Me,}a whisper beckoned, from far, far away.{She’s talking about me.}

The voice was so distant that it was barely audible, weak and tired, gone as soon as it had arrived. But suddenly, I found myself pushing back vomit.

“It turns out that when you become a Syrizen, you don’t just lose the eyes, you also lose your ability to hold a conversation about anything other than your grand sacrifices,” Max muttered. “Tiresome, Eslyn.”

But I could feel his gaze on me, even though I could not look at him.

I stood up, politely excused myself, and turned away before I could hear their response.

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