The city of Luminara never slept, not truly. Its streets were bathed in a perpetual glow of crystal lanterns, their light refracting into fragments that danced like fireflies along the cobblestones. The living moved cautiously here, but the dead… the dead moved freely if you knew how to listen.
Auri Rhys did.
She crouched beside a narrow alley, the faint hum of ghostly whispers brushing her ears like a cold wind. Her fingers hovered over a worn leather satchel, inside which lay a set of mortician's tools: brushes, powders, and a vial of rare ethereal ink used to mark spirits bound to this world.
"Little one," a whisper rasped, so soft she almost missed it. "The Eclipse… returns."
Auri froze. She knew that voice. It was faint, childlike, and trembling—but undeniably real. A ghost. One she had buried herself just three nights ago.
"Wha—who's there?" she asked, voice barely audible.
The air shimmered, and a translucent child stepped forward. Eyes wide, hollow, glowing faintly like moonlight on water. The child held a small, jagged object wrapped in cloth—an artifact Auri had never seen.
"Take it," the ghost said. "Before it calls… everything breaks."
Auri hesitated. The child stretched out a hand, and the cloth fell away. Within was a fragment of crystalline light, pulsing faintly as though it had a heartbeat of its own. A Crown Shard.
Her fingers trembled. The shards were rumored relics of the ancient Thrones, broken when the Emperor vanished, their power said to be too dangerous for mortals. And yet… it called to her.
The moment she touched it, the world shifted.
The lanterns above flickered and went out. Shadows leapt from the walls and curled around her like living smoke. And in the silence, Auri could hear the faintest echo: laughter, pain, memory—lives long past, screaming across time.
"Don't—don't!" she whispered, dropping to her knees, clutching the shard. But it was too late. Her own body tingled, then burned—not with pain, but with life, with light. She saw flashes: the Light Throne towering over a sunlit field, a crown hovering above it, splintering into seven pieces. A voice thundered, ancient and commanding: "The world will be made whole again… or it will end."
Auri gasped, rolling onto her back. The shard dimmed, but the echo remained. She felt it in her chest, a strange resonance, as if her very soul had imprinted on the fragment.
When she opened her eyes, the alley was empty. The ghost-child was gone. Only the shard remained—glowing faintly, like a heartbeat in her palm.
And a single thought rose in her mind, chilling in its clarity: I am not ready. And yet… I am the only one who can stop it.
From the shadows, unseen eyes watched. Somewhere beyond the city, something stirred. The first pulse of the Eclipse had begun.