❛⠀…⠀𝕮𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗥𝗘𝗘: 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝓦𝗛𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝓦𝗜𝗧𝗖𝗛 ⠀݁ᛪ༙
The journey to Zerox lasted several days, most of which Mysa spent seated beside the viewing ports, watching stars drift silently past the transport vessel. She waited for something to happen during those long hours between worlds. Some part of her still hoped for a sudden revelation, a vision, or some miraculous awakening of the gift Naltor had spent years expecting her to develop. Nothing came. When the transport finally descended through the skies of Sorcerer’s World, she remained exactly what she had always been: a Naltorian child who could not see the future.
The sorcerers waiting to receive her seemed distinctly unimpressed by her arrival. They examined her with the detached curiosity reserved for unusual specimens, as though she were an artifact brought from some distant civilization rather than a frightened child standing before them. Some appeared skeptical, while others looked openly disappointed. One elder sorcerer studied her for several moments before giving a short laugh.
“A seer without prophecy.”
The comment followed Mysa through the academy’s halls long after the man himself had forgotten speaking it.
Her introduction to Mordru came shortly afterward. He received her in a circular chamber lined with bookshelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, each packed with ancient volumes whose titles she could not yet read. Unlike the others, he did not spend time studying her file or discussing her deficiencies. Instead, he sat behind a stone desk and regarded her in silence for so long that she began to wonder whether he intended to speak at all.
Finally, he leaned back in his chair.
“So.”
Mysa straightened instinctively.
“You are the child who possesses nothing.”
The words struck harder than she expected. She felt tears threatening to rise immediately and hated herself for it. Nevertheless, she forced herself to meet his gaze.
“I can learn.”
Mordru’s expression did not change.
“Can you?”
The question caught her off guard.
“Yes.”
“Most students say that.” He folded his hands together. "And they were wrong."
“I won’t be.”
For the first time, something flickered in his eyes. Not approval exactly, but interest.
“We’ll see.”
Without another word, he rose from his chair and walked toward the door, & Mysa followed.
The years that followed proved more difficult than anything she had imagined. Mordru was not a patient teacher, nor was he a compassionate one. He offered no comfort when she failed and no praise when she succeeded. Her age never served as an excuse, and effort alone earned no reward. If she failed a spell, she practiced it until she succeeded. If she struggled to understand a lesson, he assigned additional study. If exhaustion interfered with her progress, he simply expected her to work through it.
Again, Again, Again, and Again.
One afternoon, after spending hours attempting to maintain a stabilization charm, Mysa finally lost control of the spell. The construct collapsed in a shower of sparks, knocking over several books and singeing the sleeves of her robes.
She groaned and dropped into a chair.
“I’ve done this thirty two times.”
“Thirty three,” Mordru corrected without looking up from his notes.
Mysa stared at him.
“You counted?”
“I count everything.”
“That’s disturbing.”
“It’s efficient.”
She rubbed her aching hands. Fresh blisters covered her palms.
“I can’t do it.”
“Then why are you still sitting here?”
Mysa frowned.
“If you’ve decided you can’t do it, leave.”
His tone was so matter of fact that it infuriated her.
“I didn’t say I was quitting.”
“Then stop announcing failure before you’ve failed. Again."
She hated how often he made sense.
As the years passed, magic left its mark upon her. The power flowing through a sorcerer’s body was not harmless. Her palms blistered from unstable energies, and thin white scars gradually spread across her hands and wrists where magical currents repeatedly burned flesh not yet strong enough to contain them. The markings resembled frost patterns spreading across glass, becoming a permanent reminder of every mistake she had survived.
Mordru never expressed sympathy for those injuries.
But the changes did not end there. At first, Mysa noticed only a few pale strands among her blonde hair, which she dismissed as an odd side effect of exhaustion. Yet the discoloration continued, spreading little by little with each passing year until silver overtook blonde and white overtook silver. By the time she reached adulthood, not a trace of her natural color remained. Her hair had become a brilliant, snow white cascade that seemed almost ethereal beneath certain lights.
Her eyes changed more slowly too. The familiar color she had inherited from her family, a beautiful but melancholic sort of blue, gradually deepened with age, darkening into a rich crimson unlike anything found among the people of Naltor. By the time the transformation was complete, they resembled polished garnets catching the light of a distant fire. More than one scholar attempted to explain the phenomenon, offering theories involving prolonged magical exposure, arcane adaptation, or the influence of spells beyond mortal understanding. None could say with certainty why it had happened.
One evening, after a particularly disastrous lesson involving dimensional folding, Mysa slammed a textbook shut and held up her hands.
“Do you know how much this hurts?”
Mordru glanced up.
“Yes.”
The answer surprised her.
“You do?"
“I learned the same spell when I was younger than you.”
Mysa blinked.
“You never mentioned that.”
“You never asked.”
For a moment she simply stared at him.
Then she laughed.
“You are impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
She learned overtime to smile through the pain, the blisters, and the blood.
Years accumulated almost without her noticing. Study became the foundation of her life as she immersed herself in spellcraft, alchemy, enchantments, elemental manipulation, ritual magic, arcane languages, and forms of sorcery forgotten on countless worlds. Somewhere deep inside her remained the frightened little girl who had listened outside a council chamber while adults debated what should be done with her. That memory never disappeared, and neither did her determination to prove them wrong.
Gradually, the results became impossible to ignore. The other students noticed first, followed by the academy’s masters. Eventually, word spread beyond Zerox itself. The Naltorian child who had arrived with no apparent talent became one of the most accomplished sorcerers the planet had produced in generations. Her success was not the result of natural ability. Every skill she possessed had been purchased through effort, sacrifice, and years of relentless discipline.
One evening, after completing a notoriously difficult sequence of advanced spells, Mysa was summoned to one of the academy’s observatories. There she found Mordru seated beside an enormous crystal window overlooking the stars.
“You called for me?” she asked.
“I did.”
Mysa waited. The silence stretched long enough for her to wonder if he had forgotten she was there. Finally, he closed the ancient tome resting on his lap.
“You have completed every discipline I required.”
The statement caught her completely off guard.
“Every discipline?”
“Yes.”
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
“Are you certain? Because last month you discovered an entirely new branch of magical theory just to assign me more work.”
“I did not discover it.”
“You found it.”
“Yes."
“You translated it.”
“Also yes.”
“You then handed it to me.”
Mordru considered this.
“That does sound familiar.”
Mysa laughed despite herself.
“I knew it.”
To her surprise, the corner of his mouth twitched upward. It was the closest thing to a smile she had ever seen. When the laughter faded, Mordru rose and moved toward the observatory window. The stars beyond the crystal glass reflected faintly in his eyes.
“For centuries, Zerox has bestowed titles upon its greatest practitioners.”
Mysa immediately became suspicious.
“Why does that sound dangerous?”
“Because you ask too many questions.”
“I learned that from you.”
“A regrettable outcome.”
She smiled.
Mordru remained silent for a moment before continuing.
“You arrived here possessing no foresight, no exceptional gift, and no advantage beyond determination. Most would have accepted those limitations.”
He turned to face her.
“You did not.”
Something in his voice made her straighten.
“You built yourself into something extraordinary, my wayward star. Not because power was given to you, but because you earned it.”
The words struck her harder than she expected. Coming from anyone else, they would have sounded like praise. Coming from Mordru, they felt like truth.
“For that reason,” he continued, his voice carrying the weight of formal ceremony, “from this day forward, you shall be known as the White Witch.”
Mysa felt tears gathering almost immediately.
“Oh no,” Mordru muttered.
She laughed despite herself.
“What?”
“You’re crying.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m really not.”
“Mysa, You’ve had years to stop doing that. And you’ve had years to realise crying doesn't work on me.”
For several moments they stood together beneath the stars, smiling despite themselves. Looking at him, Mysa realized that somewhere along the way the stern master who had once terrified her had become something far more important. He had challenged her when no one else believed in her, demanded more from her than she believed she could give, and refused to define her by what she lacked.
Throughout her life she would carry many titles: sorceress, hero, mystic, and White Witch among them, but none would ever mean as much as the simple truth hidden beneath them. Someone had finally looked at her and seen value where others had only seen absence.