Chapter 41 – The Shadow That Refuses to Leave
Lumina's footsteps echoed among the ruins.
The half-collapsed building had once been the heart of the oldest magical teachings in the city of Verathyn. Its walls were etched with cracks like dead roots burrowing into the stone's core, and the air around it felt foreign—devoid of life, yet not death either.
Ilior hovered above her in the form of luminous mist, silent yet tense.
Lumina stopped. She felt something. A presence—not from outside, but from within.
A shadow.
A shadow that did not follow her, but accompanied her.
"This is no human being," whispered Ilior, his voice trembling. "It's yours. The part you never burned away."
Lumina turned to her left. Her shadow… moved a heartbeat slower than she did.
It looked back one second later. Smiled one inch wider. And stared at her.
They came in swarms. Shadows that walked in her step, dressed as she was, but with eyes that no longer knew the light.
One emerged from the wall like thick smoke. Its shape was Lumina—only younger, paler. Hands bound by unseen chains.
"You killed for the sake of truth," it said, its voice weak yet piercing. "But who redeems you?"
Lumina froze. She wanted to answer, but no words could silence herself.
The shadow stepped forward.
"You burned them because they were tainted. But who cleanses the blood from your hands, Lumina?"
And with that, the world around her seemed to collapse.
She was hurled into a white void. No walls, no ground.
Only light—yet without warmth. Like the space between a final heartbeat and eternal silence.
There, thousands of strands of light hung suspended. Each strand was a soul she had once decided to kill.
One thread trembled, screaming.
Another melted like wax.
All whispered her name.
All asked why they had not been enough to be forgiven.
Then another voice split the silence:
"Every light that kills… slowly becomes a mirror of darkness."
It was not Ilior's voice. Not the voices of the shadows.
It came from something older. Deeper.
It was Maxcen.
Lumina trembled. Yet she did not reject the voice. She only asked:
"If I have become a mirror… who was the first to look into me?"
Her shadow—the younger self with hollow eyes—stood before her.
They did not fight. For one wished to erase, and the other wished to embrace.
Lumina opened her arms, and embraced herself.
No light burst forth. Only a slow cracking, as the skin of her radiance peeled away like old golden scales.
Ilior screamed, "Don't do this! You're not ready!"
But it was too late.
Lumina's light shattered. Yet from its fissures, a new form emerged. Not only brightness, but also darkness. She had merged with her shadow—not defeated it. And for a moment, she was whole. Fragile, yet whole.
The skies of Verathyn turned ashen red. The wind carried dust that whispered old names, and time itself seemed to hold its breath.
In the heavens, an astral bird appeared—vast, black, with a white circle upon its brow.
It gazed at Lumina from above the ruins.
The symbol of Miredan.
The Final Council.
And the omen that something—whether liberation or judgment—had set its eyes upon her.
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