The next lesson took place in one of the academy's oldest wings. A long chamber flanked by black stone pillars. As Weylan rounded the last corner, Darken winked from the open doorway. "Hurry up! Class is about to start."

Weylan broke into a sprint, only to skid to a halt once inside. The room was bare. No tables, no chairs, just a cluster of students shifting uncertainly. He turned toward Darken for an explanation, but his friend only grinned. "I mentioned our next subject to a second-year student in the cafeteria. Seems that we're in for a real roller coaster ride!"

Weylan blinked. "A… what?"

Darken waved his hands around. "Introduction to Illusion Detection isn't a theoretical class, the professor that teaches it uses some of the academy's powerful old enchantments, and half the upper-years join in with their own illusion magic. He also mentioned she might be a bit mad…"

The two last students filed in, still buzzing from the cafeteria spectacle, only to fall quiet when they saw the classroom. Then their new teacher arrived.

She moved with the silent grace of a predator, robes whispering against the flagstones. Her figure was tall and lean, but what stilled the room was her head: the sleek, jackal-like visage of an Anubian. Golden rings gleamed along her long ears, and her sharp amber eyes swept across the students with cutting precision.

"I am Professor Neferet," she said, her voice low and resonant, like sand sliding over stone. "You will address me as such. My domain is Illusion and Perception. You will have only a few lessons in this topic, but they will be intense. While only full casters will be able to craft illusions, all of you need to learn how to see through them. Fail in that and you will not survive the field."

She let the words hang in the cold air. Then, with a flick of her clawed fingers, the entire classroom shimmered. The walls rippled, bending, and in the blink of an eye the chamber dissolved into a sun-blasted desert. Heat pressed down, sand crunching underfoot, the horizon swaying with mirages.

Several students gasped. One shrieked, convinced the floor had vanished beneath her.

Neferet's jackal muzzle curled faintly, the hint of a smile. "Lesson one: nothing here is real. But if your senses betray you, the illusion may as well be truth."

She paced before them, her shoes whipping up mirage-sand. "Some illusions are crude distractions. Others… are weapons. An enemy who can turn ground to sky, or friend to foe, will defeat you before blades ever meet."

The desert shimmered again, and suddenly the class was back in the black-pillared hall. Only their flushed faces and shaky footing betrayed how real it had felt.

"You will not sit idly in this class. You will move. You will fail. And eventually, you will learn." Her amber eyes locked briefly on Weylan, then slid to Valen, who both stood out due to the daggerlike gazes they still exchanged, then back to the whole group. "Now. Into the labyrinth."

The floor split open, revealing a stairwell descending into shimmering darkness. The walls below already bent like water, promising shifting shapes and false turns.

"Find the true exit before the lesson ends," Neferet commanded. "Most of you will find ways to distinguish reality from illusion. By spell, by logic, or by instinct. Everyone failing, will get some additional lessons."

The stairwell swallowed them in a shimmer of half-light. As Weylan stepped onto the first landing, the world bent. The straight corridor ahead split into three, each lined with glowing torches. One smelled faintly of smoke, another of wet stone, the third of wildflowers. All looked equally convincing.

Students hesitated. Alina muttered a prayer. Darken cursed under his breath. Valen, of course, strode confidently toward the flowery path without a second thought, his cloak snapping dramatically behind him.

Weylan lingered. His mind raced, just like in the hive. When he thought about how to find an exit that was hidden by illusions. He took a slow breath, then took control of the shadows below his feet. Thin threads of darkness slithered from his boots, spreading across the floor like inky tendrils. There was vague sensory feedback from the shadows. Stone, dust, cold…

The moment they touched an illusion, he felt it: emptiness. His shadows reported nothing back, like hands grasping smoke.

A slow smile tugged at his lips. It'll work.

He pushed his shadows into the left corridor first. The shadow climbed up empty air, tasting of stone. A wall, invisible but solid.

The right corridor was real, but after only two steps, the floor gave no smell or touch through his shadows. He could not direct shadows far enough down to check how deep the hole was. Probably not fatal. Probably.

The middle one, wet stone, dripping faintly, reported solid and open under his shadow's probing.

"Middle's real," Weylan murmured to Faya and Darken. "Stay close."

Darken gave him a dubious look, but followed anyway. Faya simply trusted him, as she always did.

Behind them, a loud yelp echoed as a group of students ran into an illusory wall and tumbled straight onto the polished stone floor, the mirage vanishing with their collision. Laughter erupted, only to cut short, when the second group dropped through the seemingly solid floor.

Weylan guided his shadows forward, sweeping surfaces like a blind man tapping with a cane. Each time they touched something insubstantial, he adjusted course. Each time they returned solid feedback, he pressed on.

Professor Neferet's voice drifted faintly through the shifting halls, amused and sharp. "Some of you believe with your eyes. Some of you, with your hands. But a few …" her gaze, unseen, seemed to rest on Weylan, "…believe in their magic."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The stairwell led them down into shimmering dark, and when the floor leveled out again, the world around them had twisted into a labyrinth of mirrors.

Tall panes of polished glass reflected the torchlight in dizzying patterns. Corridors bent impossibly, doubling back on themselves. Some mirrors shifted when approached, sliding like doors to new paths. Others stood immovable, cruelly convincing dead-ends. Above, illusionary blades swung from chains, whistling through the air to scatter the nervous into panicked sprints.

And all the while, a faint sand-clock shimmered in the air high above them, grains of golden sand trickling down.

"On a timer," Darken muttered. "Of course."

Students fanned out in every direction, their steps loud against the echoing floor. Some ran headlong into glass, bouncing back with yelps while their classmates laughed. Others followed false corridors that folded like paper, trapping them until the illusion reset.

Weylan let the chaos wash around him. Drawing a slow breath, he spread shadows low on the floor. Subtle tendrils slithering just out of sight. They traced along stone and glass alike.

Where they touched mirrors, they slipped through, returning no feedback. Emptiness. False walls. But when they crawled over real stone, they sent back the gritty sensation of mortar and dust.

Solid. The other way.

He adjusted course smoothly, slipping between students who staggered and cursed, always seeming to pick the right corridor. He didn't rush, just walked steadily forward, never once colliding with glass or walls.

Faya trailed close, trusting his path. Darken followed reluctantly, muttering, "How are you doing that," under his breath.

Valen, on the other hand, had his own method. One hand raised before him, he stalked through the maze with the poise of a duelist. Each time a mirror loomed suddenly, his reflexes snapped into action, twisting aside, stopping short, or brushing against the glass without actually slamming into it. The crowd of students behind him murmured in admiration.

"Graceful as ever," one whispered.

"More like terrified of bruising that noble nose," another muttered, though too softly for Valen to hear.

The two methods, Weylan's quiet certainty and Valen's instinctive agility, set them apart from the chaos. Where others crashed, flailed, and doubled back, both advanced steadily toward the heart of the labyrinth.

Professor Neferet's voice slithered through the mirrored hall, smooth and resonant. "Some of you believe only what you see. Some learn to doubt their eyes. Few, however, know how to truly move between lies."

The mirrors shifted again, corridors bending like snakes, the illusionary blades whistling lower. The timer's glow grew as more sand reached the bottom half.

And still, Weylan's shadows whispered the path ahead.

The mirrors shuddered again, sliding with a sound like cracking ice. The labyrinth bent into new angles, torchlight splitting into a dozen false corridors. Illusionary blades screamed down just ahead, forcing half the class to duck and scatter.

Weylan's shadows slipped beneath them all, brushing along stone and mirror alike, whispering back what was real and what was nothing but shimmering glass. He adjusted his path without hesitation, and Faya followed at his side, eyes fixed on him with trust.

A sharp thud echoed behind them. Weylan glanced back.

Mirabelle had slammed face-first into a wall of nothing. To the eye, it looked like an open passage, but when she'd rushed forward, the open space was just an illusion. She staggered back, rubbing her forehead, her breath quick and shallow. Her usual sharp, restless energy from earlier was gone; instead, her eyes were glassy, frantic, as if she couldn't concentrate on the shifting maze.

"Damn it!" she hissed, shoving at the wall as though she could force it to open. Another false corridor blossomed around her, and she darted for it too fast, bouncing off a wall again.

Students nearby laughed until the mirror twisted and caught them as well. But Mirabelle wasn't laughing. Her hands shook as she fumbled forward, movements too desperate, too clumsy for someone usually so controlled.

Weylan slowed just long enough to watch her. She'd been razor-sharp this morning… now she looked like she hadn't slept in days.

Darken tugged his sleeve. "Forget her, we're on the clock and she's on the other side of the glass wall! She can heal herself. Probably that's why she uses such a… direct approach."

Reluctantly, Weylan turned back toward the true corridor his shadows whispered to him, but the image of Mirabelle crashing into the glass stayed with him, nagging at the edge of his thoughts as they pressed deeper into the maze.

The golden sand in the hovering hourglass seemed to fall faster now, each grain a sharp reminder that the labyrinth wasn't meant to be leisurely.

Ahead, Valen moved like a duelist in a duel that only he could see, his hand always outstretched. Now he increased his speed by casting tiny fireballs to check for false walls or invisible ones. Each time a mirror tried to trick him, he swayed aside with trained reflexes. His cloak snapped as he spun through narrow passages, his family crest gleaming smugly on his token. Students trailed behind to admire him and of course try to copy his method. Lacking his reflexes, most promptly walked straight into walls.

Weylan, by contrast, kept his head down, his steps deliberate. Shadows crawled low along the floor, barely visible, brushing the base of each mirror. When they returned grit and stone, he turned. When they slid into emptiness, he pushed forward. To the onlookers, it looked like uncanny intuition: the boy who never blundered, never paused, never second-guessed.

Step for step, the two advanced.

On a gesture of their professor, light flared, followed by a moment of darkness. In the confusion, walls turned and corridors twisted. In a heartbeat, Faya, Darken and Weyland stood in separate corridors. Now it was everyone for themselves.

Students that had followed Aldrich suffered the same fate.

Faya wasn't without her own wits though. She held up her goddess's pendant and summoned the warm light of a hearth fire. Illusions could reflect the light, but not the warmth of her goddess. With slow but sure steps, she continued.

Darken just shrugged and pulled out a pouch filled with one of his trick dusts. He threw a pinch in a wide arc. Glittering motes spread through illusions and stuck to invisible walls.

A mirror corridor split into three. Valen veered left, his instincts saving him from colliding with the shifting glass by a hair. Weylan's shadows whispered middle, he slipped ahead through the correct passage, the crowd behind him muttering in surprise.

Then the labyrinth bent violently, and a wave of illusory blades scythed across the hall. Students screamed and dove to the ground. Valen didn't flinch, he simply lunged forward, and sprang past the hazard. He emerged one corridor ahead, breathing hard but grinning with triumph.

Weylan followed through another turn, his shadows saving him from a trap that swallowed half a dozen others. He came out almost neck-and-neck with Valen again.

The timer above them burned brighter, the last of the golden grains rushing down.

Neferet's voice slid through the maze, cool and sharp. "Closer… closer… who reaches the gate of truth first, I wonder?"

The two rivals broke into a run, mirrors shifting around them, snakes of glass slithering across their paths. Weylan's shadows whispered one last turn. Valen's instincts snapped him into the same path.

They burst through the final mirror-wall almost together, the illusion shattering into shards of light.

Weylan and Valen stood side by side at the exit, both breathing hard, both victorious in their own way.

Valen's smirk returned slowly, sharp as ever. "Not bad for a rat in the dark. But in the end, I'm still faster."

Weylan didn't rise to the bait. He simply smirked faintly back, the steel in his eyes making Valen's grin falter for just a heartbeat.

The professor appeared out of thin air and nodded in approval. "It's usually ten points for the winner. Since it's a tie, you'd normally have to share the glory. But you both showed such unique style; I grant ten points for each of you."

While they waited, other students stumbled out. Bruised and battered from colliding with illusions. Ten didn't make it until time run out.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.