I came to standing knee deep in the sea with snow falling around me. The shore a few yards in front of me was covered in smooth stones that had been polished by the tides and bordered a forest of pines. My hand snapped down to my waist to check for my sword then patted down the rest of my body checking my other weapons.

  “Why do I always get the short end of the stick when I deal with deities?” I slogged out of the surprisingly warm water and onto the shore. Without thinking about it I followed the small trail between the trees that was paved with more of the polished stones. After a time I noticed a change in light and glanced up from the loose stones of the path to notice that the trees were no longer the same evergreen pines they had been by the seashore had become something utterly different but at the same time familiar to me.

  The trees looked like yew trees except instead of wood they were made of clear crystal with streamers of blue fire running through them in place of sap that slowly pulsed and glowed illuminating the forest. Once I looked closely I noticed the trees caught the light they were generating and threw it back refracting it in rainbows like carefully crafted prisms. Gradually the path shifted from the loose rounded stones found by the beach to fitted flag stones and the path widened. I continued following the path for what felt like an hour before it emptied into a meadow before a temple that looked like a carved marbled rendition of the Roman Parthenon.

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  I followed a vague pull and walked towards the front of the temple and realized instead of a door there was a massive mirror. As I drew closer the reflection shimmered and warped becoming something like an almost human version of Khan standing on two legs that towered almost two feet above me, like Khan his fur was white striped with light brown fur though his eyes were the pale tawny of an owl’s instead of the sky blue of Khan’s. His clothing was minimal, reduced only to a single pair of leather pants that fit loosely over oddly jointed legs, and a set of brown tooled leather bracers set with thumb sized blue sapphires.

  I reached out to touch the mirror and the image shifted to show another person, once again taller than me, but this time wearing the twins to my armor and sword with a white cloak draped over his shoulders. His white hair was streaked through with strands of metallic silver and braided into a single tail that was pulled over one shoulder and hung to the ground despite having been looped back on itself so that the actual end was still even with his shoulder. His nearly white, pale grey eyes held a look of sorrow. The lines around his mouth looked to have been locked in a perpetual frown of concern and worry. My hand crossed the last inches and touched the mirrored surface and I fell through it into a massive hallway beyond.