The air was cold. Not because of the weather, but because of what remained from the fight.
Luin stood there, in the same corner where one of the Committee's men had fallen, blood drying on stone, and the sound of clapping still ringing in his memory.
The noble was too elegant for this district. His gray hair combed back, his eyes radiating a color that belonged neither to day nor night. His smile wasn't a threat, but it wasn't friendship either.
"Well done, Luin Meer. Seems you're no longer just a suspicion."
Luin didn't respond.
The noble approached with calm steps. He carried a thin cane of dark wood, didn't seem to actually need it—more like an accessory. When he stopped one step away, he paused and looked at the buried well behind Luin.
He said:
"Do you know who you were? I mean, before this mess started?"
Luin replied coldly:
"A child pulled from beneath the dirt, never asked his name."
The noble laughed a little.
"Your answer... painful. But honest. And I like honesty."
He suddenly extended his hand.
Luin didn't move. Didn't draw a knife, didn't prepare for any reaction, just stood there, waiting to understand the intention.
But the noble didn't attack him.
Instead said:
"I'm Everic. From the Lorin family, southern nobility. And I've decided... to see you through to the end."
Luin looked at him. Something in that sentence wasn't reassuring.
"Why?"
"Because I saw that thing in you, before the Committee's men saw you. The thing that screams despite its silence. You don't know it yet, do you?"
Luin didn't answer.
Everic continued while looking at one of the church men's corpses:
"The seal... when it's born in you, doesn't mean you're strong. It means you're no longer fully human."
He turned his back and began walking away.
"Follow me, Luin. I have a safe place for you... temporarily."
Luin hesitated.
Then walked behind him.
Not because he trusted him, but because he had no other direction.
⸻
The house he entered wasn't luxurious, but it was clean. Everything in it indicated it was temporary, as if built to be left behind.
Luin sat on the edge of a wooden chair.
While Everic sat across from him, and pulled out a white paper. Placed it on the table, along with a small dagger.
He said:
"Write your name. Your full name."
Luin looked at him suspiciously:
"Why?"
"Because you'll forget it soon. That's what seals do... they erase you, then rebuild you... like a broken mirror reassembled from shards that don't belong to the same face."
Luin took the dagger.
Wrote his name on the paper.
(Luin Meer.)
And as he wrote, his hand pulsed. Something in the blood changed, as if the letters themselves carried a memory he didn't want to return.
⸻
That night, he didn't sleep.
Celine was there... in his memory.
Standing in the alley, wearing a sky-blue scarf. Looking at him with the same old look... pity mixed with something else he couldn't understand.
He said inside:
"Why do you think I need saving?"
"You're just a piece of night disguised in daylight."
But she didn't answer. She wasn't really there.
⸻
The next day, Everic took Luin to a place he didn't expect.
An abandoned church, with broken windows, and dust dancing in the light.
The noble said:
"This isn't a white church. But remnants of an old sect that believed the soul wasn't a vessel... but a knife."
Luin looked around.
Then glimpsed something in the corner.
A mirror.
Cracked, but it didn't reflect him.
He approached. Stood before it.
Then... saw himself.
But not him.
His eyes were wider, as if containing endless darkness. And behind him appeared a shadow... that didn't follow his movement.
He stepped back suddenly, sweating.
Everic said:
"See? The first seal doesn't reveal the world to you... but yourself. And now... it's time for the next lesson."
⸻
In the middle of the abandoned church, Everic stood holding a square piece of stone. Placed it on the broken table before him, then pointed to the corner.
"Sit there, Luin. And don't speak until I ask."
Luin didn't argue. Sat in the shadow, beneath the broken glass of darkened windows, where sunlight passed like light blades.
Everic said while beginning to carve symbols on the stone's surface:
"Do you know what it means for a soul to be opened?"
"To be cursed, maybe?"
The noble smiled, without raising his head:
"Not exactly... but to be exposed. To become visible before something that doesn't speak, but judges."
His hands moved with calculated speed. The symbols weren't understandable to Luin, but they made his back crawl.
"What are you doing?"
"Preparing something for you."
He raised his eyes to him for a moment, then continued:
"You'll open your eyes tonight. But not safely."
Luin stood.
"Wait, what do you mean? You said you'd protect me from the Committee!"
"And I will."
He stared at him long.
"But I won't protect you from yourself."
Silence for a moment. Then said:
"You've started walking... and anything that walks in shadow must taste its night first."
⸻
He didn't know what he meant until the walls began breathing.
Yes... breathing.
The old church was no longer a place of stone and wood, but as if it were an internal passage in a sleeping being's chest. A faint sound, like whistling inside lungs, began creeping into the emptiness.
Everic covered his eyes with a black blindfold.
And said calmly:
"Don't touch the light, no matter what."
Luin looked around. There was no light to touch.
Then the first change happened.
⸻
From the opposite wall emerged a shadow. It wasn't a human shadow. It had an incomplete shape, as if its body was being reshaped while walking.
The internal voice in Luin... whispered.
"Don't look at it directly."
But he couldn't.
Luin's eyes were drawn as if an external force held his eyelids open.
The creature's shadow approached. Its face featureless, but its breath filled the place with scents that didn't belong to this world.
The creature said in a voice that didn't come from its mouth:
"You are here... and not here."
It approached closer. Didn't move physically, but as if the place itself was shrinking to become nearer to him.
"Open the seal."
"Or let us break it for you."
Luin screamed:
"No!"
And when he said it... the breathing stopped.
⸻
Everic stood suddenly, as if he'd been waiting for the moment.
He threw the stone he'd carved toward the creature, and the sound around them shattered as if the wall itself had broken.
The creature retreated.
Then vanished, and the light collapsed.
When everything returned to normal, Luin fell to his knees, breathing heavily.
Everic said calmly:
"The second seal only opens through betrayal, yes... but the path to it is full of tests."
Then approached him, and extended his hand.
"You passed the first."
⸻
In the days that followed, Luin was no longer himself.
He felt his skin was too thin... as if every breath of wind reminded him he had no armor like humans. And that there was something inside his mind... not from him.
He began seeing things.
A woman looking at him from mirrors, smiling.
A door that doesn't open, but he sees it every time he closes his eyes.
And a man with broken bones, whispering from beneath the earth.
"You're the one who was late..."
"The other preceded you."
But he didn't know who "the other" was.
⸻
And on the seventh night... he decided to go out alone.
Everic was asleep or pretending to sleep.
Luin snuck out of the church, and walked toward the old district, where screams no one hears gather.
And there... in a narrow alley, between closed windows and walls covered in mold... he heard her.
A voice he knew.
"Luin?"
He turned.
And the world fell from beneath him.
It was Celine.
Alive.
But her eyes weren't hers.
There was something else in them.
Something that shouldn't be opened before the second seal.
⸻
She stood there... motionless.
Celine.
But she wasn't as he remembered.
Her appearance the same, her features too... but she seemed as if recently polished, like a statue carved to resemble her more than to be her. Her eyes... that was the problem.
They were too calm.
As if nothing passed through them.
"Celine?"
He spoke her name knowing it was useless.
"You're late." She said.
Her voice wasn't her voice.
It was as if she was repeating a sentence heard before, from someone else.
"Late? For what?"
She didn't answer. Stepped toward him.
Her steps were soundless, as if she didn't touch the ground. And when she got close enough, Luin automatically raised his hand.
"Stop." He said.
But she didn't stop.
The whisper inside him, the one that only came in the most turbulent moments, suddenly rose:
"If it's not her, can you kill what resembles her?"
Luin trembled.
She said:
"You're the one who was late."
Then in a whispered voice, without lip movement:
"The seal waits for you to betray..."
⸻
In an instant, everything changed.
Her shadow moved.
Yes, only her shadow... was what began the attack.
It separated from beneath her, as if she'd released a beast that lived in her feet.
The shadow extended as if pulling darkness from the streets with it. The temperature rose inexplicably, and an internal voice began whispering inside Luin:
"Don't open the seal now... the betrayal isn't complete."
But he didn't know who he was betraying!
"Celine!" He screamed.
"You're not you...!"
The shadow attacked.
And he had nothing but two black eyes, emanating pure intent: tearing.
Luin didn't fight. He ran.
⸻
His heart pounded his chest like ritual drums.
He wasn't afraid as before. But as if something in him was preparing.
He fled through alleys, jumped over a low edge leading to a back passage full of rotten wooden crates. Hid behind them while breathing slowly, trying to understand what was happening.
But the voice came to him... from inside this time, not from the shadow:
"Everything you love will be used against you."
"Celine was the first test..."
"But the real test will come from who you trust now."
Suddenly, everything stopped.
No shadow. No whisper. No heat.
Luin stood slowly, and emerged from hiding.
But what he saw before him... made him freeze.
⸻
A man wearing a noble's coat, standing there, in the middle of the street, with ash-colored eyes.
In his hand a long cane, no blades in it... but its end tilted as if designed only for tapping the ground.
The man said:
"That's enough, Luin."
"Who are you?"
The man smiled.
"My name doesn't matter... not now. But you might consider me the first traitor."
Luin froze.
"What...?"
"You finished what you had to with the shadow... now you must finish what remains of trust."
He raised the cane.
"Let's see if you're ready to be opened as we were opened."
⸻
End of Chapter Fifteen