Elsewhere, deep beneath the White Church, five men gathered around an oval table of ivory.
Only one of them spoke. The others simply listened or took notes.
"Luin Mir is approaching the second threshold. The entity inside him remains still… but the void grows. If the second seal opens, he will never be the same again."
Another man's voice cut through the silence — cold and measured:"You sent out the summoning rite without our approval. Who authorized it?"
"The priest of the fourth tier. He's been silenced."
"Good. We can't afford noise before what's to come."
Then a third voice spoke, calm yet heavy:"Lucian Elenfaith has started to interfere."
A silence followed — heavier than before.
"The noble branch will deal with him. As for Luin… he'll be tested, like the others before him."
"How?"
A faint smile crossed one man's lips, as if his teeth were grinding against the ashes of unspoken words.
"We'll give him light… and then take it away."
⸻
That same night, Luin woke to a soft tapping at his window.
The darkness outside was thick — but the eye staring back at him was blue… warm.
It was Selene.
Her face, though, was different.More serious.
She spoke in a whisper barely audible:"I need to trust you. Even if you can't trust me yet."
And then —"There are people who want you to fall… from the inside."
⸻
But Selene wasn't alone. When Luin opened the door, he saw a tall figure behind her — a man wrapped in a cloak of dark ivory, his features hidden, his stillness deliberate.
Selene said without turning to him,"He's a messenger. I didn't ask for him to come."
"From where?" Luin asked, his eyes fixed on the man.
She hesitated."My family."
Luin didn't like that answer, but he motioned for them to enter.
The three sat in silence. The air felt thin — yet the distance between their hearts seemed deeper than any silence could fill.
Then the man spoke, his voice more chant than speech:"We do not wish for your death, Luin Mir.But neither do we wish for your life."
Luin remained still.
The man continued:"What we seek is the truth buried within you… the truth they forgot when they tore you apart."
Selene broke the pause."My brother used to read about you — before he was killed. He said there was an entity sealed by an inner voice. He said you were the last well before the lid breaks."
Luin didn't look alarmed.He simply listened — like someone already aware he was being pulled into something there was no way out of.
"And what do you want from me?"
The man answered,"You'll enter an abandoned crypt beneath the Church of Forgetting. We don't need you to fight — just to stand near the gate. Your presence will complete the rite. After that… nothing is guaranteed."
He rose to his feet.
"But if you enter, you might learn what cannot be spoken in the light.And you might break."
⸻
After they left, Luin stood by the open window.
The air carried something new.
Not threat — but possibility.As if the world itself had begun breathing to the rhythm of another heart.
Then came a voice from behind him — hoarse, familiar:
"The crypt they spoke of… I know it."William stepped out from the shadows."And everyone who entered it… never came out with the same seal."
⸻
The White Church was preparing something, too.
Inside a chamber lit with pale blue candles, Priest Mirtal stood before an old, charred image of Luin as a child.
"The seal will open soon," he murmured. "But pain must come as two betrayals — not one."
He rose and turned toward a massive map on the wall.His finger touched a distant southern district.
"There," he said softly. "We'll plant something that looks like hope… and cut off its head in front of him."
⸻
The next day, William led Luin to an abandoned library built over a forgotten crypt.
"This is where the first ones opened their mind-seals," William said. "They left no records… only symbols carved into the stone with blood."
They entered.
The cold was strange — like walking into the closed mouth of a giant.
Inside, the walls were covered not with letters but with designs — spiraling sigils, echoing the same patterns as the seals themselves.
Luin stepped closer to one.
Something beneath his skin began to pulse.A heartbeat — but not from his heart.From somewhere behind his eyes.
William spoke quietly,"One of these walls… will show you who betrays you, before they do it."
Luin didn't ask how.
Because the tear that slipped from his left eye, for no reason at all, carried the answer.
⸻
Selene waited outside. Rain began to fall — soft, as if the sky whispered instead of wept.
When Luin emerged, he was different.Not in his face — but in the way he moved, as if every step echoed with a memory.
Selene asked, gently:"Who did you see?"
He said,"No one. Just… my own face. When I used to cry without a name."
"Then it's close, isn't it?"
Luin didn't answer.But when he closed his hand, a faint shimmer appeared — a second seal, half-formed, glowing like a wound yet to open.
⸻
Elsewhere, the noble who had appeared after the church's assault — later known as Alyan Crow — sat on a high balcony, staring down at the city with eyes stripped of warmth.
Behind him stood a man in a blue-hooded robe.
"The Watchers are afraid," the man said. "Luin Mir is touching what should never be touched."
Alyan's voice was soft."Fear isn't enough.We must make him trust — then lead him to the door.The door that only closes after it swallows its keeper."
⸻
That night, between two heartbeats, Luin dreamed of a word he'd never heard before.
A word from a language his tongue did not know — yet his soul recognized:
'Evalim.'
When he woke, blood — black and thick — was running from his left eye.The window was open.He didn't remember opening it.
⸻
The road to the Church of Forgetting wasn't on any map.
William led the way through alleys that curved back onto themselves, until Luin felt the city folding them inward.
"What we'll see inside," William said as he opened a small door in a crumbling wall,"is not falsehood… but not the full truth either.The place was built to make you see betrayal — before you live it."
They entered.
The church was inverted — the ceiling below, the floor hanging from above.Every step echoed once, then vanished, as if the sound itself were swallowed.
Suddenly, Luin stopped.
A figure stood among the shadows.Not a vision — a presence.
A familiar face.A man who looked like Gildro, the one who had once saved him — before vanishing.
The man said,"The one who saved you was a lie.The truth is — you killed me the moment you appeared."
Luin froze.
But William whispered,"Don't believe everything said here. Forgetting is a tool — it lies to build a memory that fits the ritual."
"Then why does he say I killed him?"
The voice from the dark answered, its face crumbling like ash:"Because you chose to live after us."
⸻
They reached the heart of the church.
A hall carved out of nothing — empty yet immense.At its center stood a faceless statue, and above it, a slab inscribed with a single phrase:
'The First Forgotten.'
Luin stepped closer.
The moment his hand touched the statue, visions tore through his mind:— A child dragged from a cell.— A man in white burning a mark behind his ear.— A voice whispering: "You will be rebuilt. Everything else… is not real."
He collapsed.
But before he could fall completely, the whisper returned — from within his skull:
"Now, you begin to break in the right direction."
⸻
When they left the Church of Forgetting, the city was no longer the same.
The sky had turned to copper. The buildings tilted slightly, as if something unseen pressed down upon them.
William looked into the heavy air."We're inside a folded version of the city," he said. "No one can see us."
"Why?"
"Because the rite woke within you… and you didn't deny it.The city reacts to those who feel what they shouldn't."
⸻
That night, the wind carried the scent of death.
Selene came running, pale-faced.
"They found the corpses of the church's strike unit — hanging from the gates of the White Temple. Someone… wants to speak in your name."
Luin said nothing.
But something stirred within him — not rage, but refusal.Refusal to let anyone speak his silence for him.
He said quietly,"I'll go to the old cemetery.There's someone there who will answer."
⸻
The cemetery lay at the city's edge — abandoned for centuries, sealed by holy wards that no longer worked.
When Luin arrived, the stones were… breathing.
One grave split open, and from it rose an old man — half his face burned away.
"You're late," the man rasped."We, the ones never named… have been waiting since the moment you began forgetting who you are."
"Who are you?"
"We are those who came before you — and were swallowed by the rite."
He raised a trembling hand. A broken second seal burned across his skin.
"Open your betrayal, Luin Mir…or the gate will open without you."
⸻End of Chapter Twenty