The light engulfed her.
Not like a blinding flash.
Not like a burning heat.
Like... a memory.
Lunaya could no longer feel her body.
No longer her legs.
No longer her hands.
No longer the protective pressure of Kael's fingers around her waist.
No longer the air in her throat.
Nothing.
Then something.
A pulsation.
A beating.
That wasn't hers.
She wasn't falling.
She was sliding.
Like a tear down a cheek.
When her feet finally touched something, it wasn't stone.
It was... a smooth, living surface that vibrated beneath her soles like a held breath.
The silence around her was not a lack of sound.
It was a sound so ancient, so vast,
that it transcended the very notion of noise.
Lunaya opened her eyes.
And the Sanctuary opened before her.
A circular room, immense curved onyx vaults,
without a single shadow.
Everything was bathed in a soft, almost liquid white light.
As if the light itself were breathing.
In the center...
A pool.
Filled with a silvery liquid, perfectly still,
like a frozen mirror.
Lunaya took a step toward it.
The floor vibrated softly in response.
As if the Sanctuary approved.
She leaned over.
And instead of her reflection...
She saw another her.
But older.
More confident.
Calmer.
More... broken.
The woman in the silver mirror opened her eyes.
Lunaya took a step back, breathless.
"Don't run away," said the voice, soft yet filtered as if through water.
"You abandoned me once before."
Lunaya felt her heart pounding against her ribs.
"Who... who are you?"
The woman tilted her head slightly.
"The one you were meant to become.
The one you were.
The one you left to die in another world."
The room vibrated, like the beating of an enormous wing.
Then a figure materialized behind the pool.
Tall.
Dark.
Feathers like shards of night.
A raven(corbin).
But not like those of the outside world.
This one wore a mask of bone.
And in its hands, a cage made of broken light.
The woman in the pool turned her head toward it.
"I kept her here," she said.
"So she wouldn't forget."
The raven replied in a voice that was anything but human:
"She forgot.
And now she remembers too quickly.
Too strongly.
Too deeply.
She won't survive if she opens everything up."
Lunaya felt something vibrate beneath her skin,
like a string pulled too tightly.
"Stop, she whispered. I don't understand."
The woman in the mirror stepped forward, or rather,
her image distorted, reaching her hand beyond the surface.
Her silver fingers brushed Lunaya's cheek.
And the world exploded.
FLASHBACK: Fragments of Truth
Corbins holding her down.
Erynd, young, eyes full of tears, saying, "I'm sorry."
Dravik, chained by magic, roaring her name.
Sahr, leaning over her, whispering, "If you come back, I'll find you."
Kael, a black wolf, howling as the light tears him from her.
Then a name.
Spoken by a voice that loved her.
A forgotten name.
A true name.
The vision hit her so hard that she fell to her knees,
gasping for breath.
The woman inside the mirror placed her hand on her head,
like a blessing or a condemnation.
"You should never have come back here.
But now that you're here...
the world is no longer waiting."
The raven stepped forward, its cage of light trembling in its shadowed hands. [1]
"Choose."
Lunaya raised her head, her throat tight.
"Choose what?"
The corbin leaned closer.
His voice was a crack in reality:
"Choose which part of them you want to save.
Because you cannot save them all."
The ground split beneath her.
The pool lit up.
The light pulled her in again.
And she disappeared.
[1] Corbin and Raven are the same thing. Sometimes I would use Corbin, other times Raven to vary the vocabulary a little, but it's the same thing.