Luin didn't respond.
His hands hung loose at his sides, and his eyes looked at that noble as if he were a nightmare that had woken in human form.
"You're the first traitor?" He said it in a low voice, but he wasn't asking.
The noble raised his cane slowly, as if every movement was measured on a scale.
"Trust is the most precious ritual in this world," he said, "and betrayal... is the ritual that's never announced."
In an instant, he struck the ground with the cane.
And what happened after wasn't easily described.
⸻
The ground beneath Luin's feet cracked, not like an earthquake, but as a mirror fractures when it shows more than it should.
As if the world around him wasn't solid, but a fragile shell over a deeper reality.
He saw the city flip for moments... streets inverted, buildings curved, and the sky seemed closer than it should be.
And there were... at the edges of the distortion, dozens of faces.
All faces that knew him.
His mother. The child he'd saved. William. Celine.
But all their eyes were extinguished.
The noble's voice came from afar:
"These aren't illusions. This is your truth... when illusions are stripped from you."
⸻
Luin didn't move.
But his chest began rising slowly.
Inside him... that voice. No longer whispering.
But began chanting. Not in an understandable language, but in echo:
"The seal... awaits the stab."
"The seal only opens with heart's blood."
"Open your third eye, and understand who betrayed you."
⸻
"Why me?" Luin asked.
"Because you're the only one who doesn't know who he is." The noble answered, in a tone carrying neither mockery nor pity.
"And because identity... when forged through betrayal, becomes a weapon."
Then he lunged toward him.
⸻
The attack wasn't just physical.
But emotional.
Luin felt as if his memory itself was being struck. Images disintegrating, features fading. He no longer knew William's face completely. Nor the name of the girl who'd pulled him from the well once. Nor how the child he supposedly saved had died.
Everything was being washed from his head... as seals are erased.
But he resisted.
Not with fists. But with screaming.
"I'm not your story!"
A voice crashed into reality... and tore it.
His third eye opened.
And he saw the truth.
⸻
He saw who betrayed.
And it wasn't the noble.
But Celine.
Yet she hadn't betrayed him as an enemy.
But as a tool.
She was being led. Watched. Used without her knowledge.
And the betrayal... wasn't a conscious act from her.
But from an older entity, blind, living in the church's hollow.
And he saw the second seal.
Pulsing like an abandoned heart... above a cracked threshold inside him.
The voice told him:
"Break yourself. Open."
⸻
And for the first time... Luin didn't object.
Instead reached his hand to his chest, as if searching for something untouchable.
Suddenly... he heard a scream.
Came from the noble.
But it wasn't a scream of pain.
But a scream of approval.
"Yes!" He said, laughing.
"Finally... finally something worth watching."
And light exploded.
The second seal opened.
⸻
But something wasn't natural.
The seal's mark didn't just appear on the body... but on his shadow.
And something... something emerged from beneath his skin, and rose behind him, like another shadow.
No. Not a shadow.
It was...
A faceless being.
But with Luin's eyes.
⸻
The noble didn't fall.
But bent slightly, as if what he saw made his back curve from awe not fear.
"You..."
He whispered it, then swallowed the other half.
The shadow standing behind Luin didn't move, but its presence alone tore the place's boundaries. The air around it stopped. Colors faded. And time began moving in an incomprehensible way, as if the world was repeating itself piece by piece, but couldn't master the order.
Luin didn't fully understand what happened.
But he felt it.
Something broke inside him, and something else rose from beneath the rubble.
"What is this?" He muttered.
No one answered.
But the shadow... extended its arm.
And its hand was similar to his, but with longer fingers, gray nails, and veins running opposite the body's direction. It touched Luin's shoulder, so his entire being shook, then came the voice:
"You are a door... and I am what was born in it."
⸻
One of the watchers from afar screamed, having begun recovering from shock:
"This... this isn't a seal's ability! This is ritual corruption!"
But before he could finish, the shadow moved.
With just one touch, that man melted.
Not disappearance. But symbolic dissolution.
Even his prayers... vanished before completion.
The noble stepped back. Then laughed.
"This is what I was searching for."
Then he removed his glove, to reveal a burned mark on his palm, resembling the church's mark but distorted.
"You don't know what you are, Luin Meer. But... we'll show you."
⸻
Slowly, the shadow began retreating, as if its summoning wasn't complete.
Luin, who had barely remained standing, fell to his knees, breathing faintly.
The noble turned his back, and before disappearing into the alleys said:
"When you open the third seal... we'll meet again. And this time, I won't be alone."
And vanished.
⸻
Only minutes passed before a familiar man appeared walking slowly:
William.
His face was tired, his eyes wide with astonishment he didn't try hiding.
"Did you... see the shadow?"
Luin didn't respond. Just looked at his trembling hands, and whispered:
"What am I?"
William didn't answer. Just sat beside him, as if he didn't know who was comforting whom.
But after heavy silence said:
"The Church won't stay silent anymore."
Then looked at the sky, and continued:
"And when movement begins... the nobles won't just be spectators."
⸻
In a corner of an unknown place,
Celine sat in a room lit by a dim candle.
Before her an incomplete letter.
And a strange tattoo had begun appearing on her shoulder without her understanding why.
"Luin..." she whispered.
Then closed her eyes, while her shadow on the wall... moved alone.
⸻
Luin woke hours later, in William's old house.
The low ceiling, wooden walls stained with smoke, and silence... everything seemed familiar, but he didn't feel reassured.
His body was heavier than usual.
But heavier still was an echo that hadn't left him.
His shadow.
He sat on the bed with difficulty, and found William sitting on the opposite chair, watching him without speaking.
"How long have you been watching me?" Luin asked.
William answered after a moment's silence:
"Since the shadow started appearing in your eyes."
⸻
He approached, sat beside him, then said calmly:
"What came out of you... isn't a seal. But it was summoned through it."
Luin muttered:
"But I haven't opened the second yet."
William shook his head.
"That's precisely why it's dangerous. What lives in you doesn't follow their ranks. It just passes through them... like broken doors."
Luin looked at the ground.
"Can I control it?"
William fell silent, then said:
"Not now. But I can show you how to prevent it from devouring you."
⸻
Training began after dawn.
Strange rituals of breathing, meditating on a black spot on paper, and exhausting physical exercises, all not aimed at strengthening the body, but separating awareness from primitive reactions.
"Everything in you wants survival." William said.
"But you need something more. You need sovereignty."
"Sovereignty? Over what?"
"Over yourself. Before trying to control the shadow, you must subjugate the being living in you. The being that screams in danger's moment... and decides for you."
⸻
On the fourth night, Luin dreamed of Celine.
Saw her walking in a forest of white bones, carrying a candle that wouldn't melt.
The closer he got, the farther she moved.
And when he called her, she turned, but her face wasn't her face.
It was dark... and her eyes were empty.
"I'm not Celine." She said.
"I'm what you lose when you're late."
⸻
He woke to screaming.
Rushed out of the room...
To find William standing before the window, dripping sweat, his hand trembling.
"What...?"
William pointed to the street.
There, a message hung by a dagger in the house's door.
"The Grand Review approaches.
All who remain unsealed... will be purified.
– Signed: The Higher Branch of the White Church."
Luin looked at the message, then at William, and said in a low voice:
"The choices are disappearing."
⸻
End of Chapter Sixteen