Interlude [0.5] Astral Part 2

“How many times have I seen this day now?” Eira asked herself, as there was no one around to answer. “I wonder what I should do this lifetime? Maybe I will finally get around to ending the war with the Druids.” She tapped her lip in contemplation. “Or I could marry into the royal family again, that was fun. Although maybe I’ll go for a different prince this time around. Hmm, how old am I now? Well, it doesn’t matter.”

The young girl reached a clearing in the otherwise dense forest garden. There was a single tree atop a hill with the rays of the sun cascading down through its branches. She had walked here so many times over the course of so many lifetimes that she knew the way instinctually. She found her favorite spot under a single tree in the middle of the otherwise clear area. She sat in the shade and looked up at the azure sky peeking between leaves and wooden arms. 

It had only been a week since it happened, in this very spot, while she was wandering the forest like any other day. One moment she was just Eira, youngest daughter of the Salstar House. The next moment she was Eira Mystic of Dorsehal, Eira War Prophetess, Eira Last Daughter of Salstar, Eira the Professor of Divination and so-so much more. There were so many lifetimes she had lived. There were many times she had died only to wake up here again and again, in this exact spot. It was the ultimate magic of divination, the ability to project all of oneself back through the veil of causality. Upon death she simply returned back and got to do it all over again.

She yawned and wiped away a stray tear. “Whatever. I think I’ll just take a nap and figure it out later.”

Eira woke up to a roar that rocked the entire estate. She recognized the sound clearly; it was her father’s lesser red dragon familiar, Thrand. She looked up to the sky. It was getting dark; the baby blue sky shifted to a bevy of oranges and reds and darkness. 

“What in the Infernal Planes is going on?” Eira questioned. “This has never happened before.”

It was odd she didn’t remember a loop in which this happened. She worked through her memories of her previous lives as she stood up. Every time she had regressed to her past self events played out the same as long as she didn’t change them. People would always do and say the same things. Events would play out the same until she changed them or caused a butterfly effect that radiated out to change the future. The thing was, she hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary this time.

“I didn’t do anything odd today. I mean, I could have gone a little easier in training, but even that shouldn’t have changed much.” She got into the lotus position and circulated her mana around her core. “What was supposed to happen today? I’ve been back for what, eight days?” She thinks for a minute. “Oh, Freja dies tonight. She tries to summon a familiar and loses control of it. Lord Salstar finds out but he was never this mad. I have to see what’s happening.” 

The death of her older sister Freja was something she’d grown to expect. She didn’t have any animosity towards her sister, she just didn’t really know her. Freja would always die a week after she regressed, and in most of Eira’s lives she’d never had the opportunity to really get to know Freja. Any time she did save her sister, her family would just disown Freja and she would go missing.

Eira speaks words of power, channeling it into her perceptions. She could feel the might of her starlight mana suffuse her soul. The sensations of her body wash over her a final time before her mind is freed of her mortal coil and flung out into the astral. She opened her mind’s eye and was inundated with a kaleidoscope of color as normally invisible ambient mana in the atmosphere become continuous streams of power.

She is nearly ejected from her astral state, as the flow of information was too great for her young mind to take in all at once. She’d forgotten that this would be the first time she used this power in this lifetime. She had to wrestle with her mind and magic to keep herself together and not lose her life or mind in such an avoidable way. She couldn’t help but think of one of her past lives, in which she was a teacher of this very magic. It was a field of divination that she pioneered many iterations ago. If her students saw her like this they would chastise her for doing the very thing she always warned them about.

She fought against the ever streaming information, filtering out the ambient mana so she wouldn’t be so overwhelmed. The colors were still there, but far less intense to her frail young mind. She turned her attention to her body, which was still sitting in the lotus position under the tree. There was a single stream of blood running down her nose. She couldn’t move her body until she stopped projecting her perceptions, so she moved on.

“Damn, that was close,” Eira said to herself. “Any longer and I might have just killed myself a week after regressing.” She groaned. “I think that would have been a record. An embarrassing record.”

Her astral projection flew through the forest at high speed until she finally reached the source of the disturbance. After passing through several walls, she was in Lord Ulfar’s office. 

The Lord was speaking with Sølve, and the Lord was angry. His magic aura so potent it threatened to destroy the astral projection just by being in the same room. It was a fierce wake up call for Eira to remember that, despite her hundreds of years of regressing, it was her father that firmly sat at the top as the most powerful starlight mage. Well, when it came to combat at least.

“She would do this now, when there is so much at stake for our family.” Ulfar’s tone was controlled but unpleasant. It wasn’t out of regality, but instead because if a mage as powerful as him lost control his power would likely wipe the estate off the map. “It would have been better if the spell had backfired on the failure and killed her.” He took a breath and fully restrained his aura. The room was bleached white under his magical radiance. “How long do we have before the First Prince arrives?”

“He will be here in two days, Lord,” Sølve answered promptly.

“Prepare Ragnar, we are going to Dorsehal Academy immediately,” Ulfar stated.

The door opened suddenly, and everyone turned to see who entered the Lords office uninvited. 

Ingrid came into view. Her eyes looked over the two men, then rested on Ulfar as she did a curt bow. Ulfar’s rage subsided a little more upon seeing his wife.

“Lord Husband,” Ingrid said sweetly. “It has been a long time coming has it not? I don’t think this should have you so rattled. Your emotions have upset Thrand as well.”

His expression softened. “You are right, but I had no intention of performing the Shiagaunt at this time. If Ragnar becomes heir I will not be able to handle the situation with the Nazem. I will have to stay here and prepare him for his new role.”

“I can handle the Nazem, Lord Husband.” Ingrid said graciously. “Prepare our heir and leave the Show of Power to me. We can rid ourselves of Freja once and for all, and Lavi will be ours.”

In a jolt Eira’s astral projection failed, as her magic ran too low to maintain the state. She gasped and lurched forward, nearly vomiting, but managed to keep her lunch down. Nothing was making any sense in this iteration of her life. Her sister survived, her mother was going to lead the assault on the Nazem instead of Lord Ulfar and they were going to perform a Shiagaunt on Freja. Too much had changed in this lifetime already. She didn’t know if she was terrified or excited at the turn of events.

“This has to be the work of a True, right?” Eira spoke to herself to work through the possibilities. “They aren’t beholden to time on the Lower Planes, so it doesn’t matter if I regressed, they can change things as they wish.” A smile crossed her face. “In all my lifetimes I have never seen a True with my own eyes. This just means something interesting is going to happen this time around, right? I will have to keep an eye on Freja… but-but… yeah, it would be better if I do it from a distance. I don’t want to be near anyone who has the attention of a True.”

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