"My light saves no one. It only lets me see more clearly the burning face of the one I love."
---
Her father was Sorvel Duskbrand — former Grand Lightmage, once served in the Purification Unit at the Northern Border.
They didn't call him a healer.
They called him the soul-burner.
His magic didn't kill. It kept people alive — just long enough for the light to pierce every nerve, every wrinkle in memory… then scorch every sin left unspoken.
And when the war ended, they praised him.
Then they judged him.
In absentia.
He vanished, leaving behind a sickly wife and a four-year-old daughter — Lyre — with eyes the color of sunstone: golden, clear, but cold as ice buried in snow.
Since then, every light around her led to death.
---
The villagers said:
> "Light is born of hellfire.
He who bears it — will burn first."
They didn't come with clubs. They didn't bring axes.
They came… with candles.
They dragged her mother from the rotting wooden cottage.
Stripped her. Tied her hands.
Sprinkled ash and salt on her head — in the name of purification.
Little Lyre was locked in a dark cupboard — listening to bones snap like shards of glass.
Listening to fire screech like a stifled laugh.
Listening to flesh blister… then burst. As if trying to escape the shape of a human.
The door creaked open.
The girl stepped out — hair tangled, feet bare.
Her eyes met her mother — now a charred corpse, hollow sockets turned straight at her, demanding an apology.
> Then… the light exploded.
Not gentle. Not divine.
But like millions of needles rupturing through flesh.
Light tore everything apart.
Houses turned to ash.
Villagers writhed like animals being boiled alive, their screams cut short by the tongue of light.
When silence returned, they found a girl sitting in a blackened field.
Arms wrapped around her mother's burned head.
A smile torn wide across her face — but her eyes… were hollow, like a corpse yet to be buried.
---
Saint Luce Monastery was not a place of healing.
It was a white slaughterhouse, where they "extracted deviant light."
In the Mirror Room, she was forced to repeat every day:
> "Light does not save.
Light is punishment.
Light does not belong to me."
The mirrors reflected not her — but glowing hands always drawing near, gliding across her skin like some liquid light — cold at first touch, burning as it left, searing when pressed to her wrist.
Each "purification session" was a ritual.
They needed no knives.
Light could flay skin, carve into memory, and leave no visible wound.
---
They said:
> "You are the maiden of light.
The burn is a sacred kiss.
Pain is the opening of the soul."
Whenever she cried, a "teacher" would stroke her hair and whisper:
> "Let the light shine into your deepest self.
Don't resist. It will be beautiful."
And the light would spread… down her neck, across her shoulders, to places she dared not name.
---
She didn't scream.
To scream meant being gagged with lightwire.
She only smiled — a twisted grin — to keep some shred of sanity from rotting inside her.
---
At twelve, she escaped with Solenne — another imprisoned girl.
They shared dry bread, unstained blankets, and dreams of sunsets that didn't shine from punishment lamps.
But Solenne was caught.
The monastery burned her alive — with light.
The High Priest said:
> "See? Light is only good in the right hands."
Lyre didn't cry.
She simply placed her right hand into the fire — to mark her body with a wound that would never heal, never let her forget.
---
That winter, the thirteen-year-old girl was summoned to the Silent Prayer Room.
No hymns.
No prayers.
Only four elders in white robes, stepping forward one by one, light sliding beneath the cloth like snakes.
She was laid on cold stone, wrists bound with lightwire, mouth stuffed with holy-scented cloth until she couldn't breathe.
One of them whispered:
> "Light opens the door.
But it must be knocked from within."
---
Then… she broke.
No sound.
Only the first beam of light — tearing through the monastery ceiling.
The second burned the first man alive.
The third swept away the statue of Saint Luce.
Beams four through twelve became a silent hymn — tendons snapped, skin scorched, bones exploded.
The final beam — the thirteenth — did not go up.
It pierced the ground.
The entire monastery collapsed, as if its guts had been ripped out.
Walls burst. The roof shattered like teeth smashed on stone.
Holy texts turned to ash.
Light rebelled — no longer a tool of cleansing, but ancient vengeance.
---
The townsfolk only recalled:
> "We saw a pillar of light rise from the monastery.
It didn't illuminate anything.
It looked like a curse — furious, pointed straight at the sky."
---
When they reached the ruins, they found only a naked girl, limbs wrapped in strands of light melted into searing steel, standing amid the ashes.
Her face emotionless.
And the light in her eyes —
no longer warm.
No longer redeeming.
It was the gaze of a corpse unburied… that still knew how to despise.
---
Student Number Thirteen: Lyre Sorvel – Complete.
By now, her expression had darkened, making Gael stand still.
Not out of fear.
But because, for the first time, Lyre's light made his spine go cold.