Chapter 6 – The Fractured Prison
Amid the hushed ripples of the forbidden land of the ancient spirits, Lumina's footsteps echoed like curses rebounding off the walls of memory. The wind carried no scent of flowers, only the stale breath of ancient stones etched with wounds of history. A black light hung in the sky above, as though the world held its breath in dread.
She walked with no clear destination, as if her feet were guided by a voice no living being could hear. Her soul was restless—not from death, but from life that felt like another prison.
Until, at a lonely bend, she saw it—a structure of twisted roots, coiled into the shape of a cage.
At its center was a figure not entirely human, nor wholly spirit.
It was like smoke trapped in form—its eyes burned red, but its body trembled with frailty. A sound, almost like a broken lullaby, drifted to Lumina's ears.
"Even hell is never silent. But this place... has killed time itself."
Lumina stepped closer, her heart pounding erratically. "Who... who are you?"
"I was once a guardian between worlds... then I was cast away.
Not by my own sin, but by a betrayal wrapped in goodness."
The imprisoned spirit looked at Lumina with pain that hadn't healed in a thousand years.
It didn't ask to be saved—but the world seemed to compel Lumina to listen.
"I can undo your bindings," Lumina whispered. "I can set you free."
"No," murmured the spirit. "That is not your right."
But "no" had never taken root in the heart of one also cast aside by the world.
And so, with a thread of light from within her soul—a light no one, not even herself, could understand—Lumina touched the cage.
The ancient roots screamed. The earth trembled. The sky darkened even more.
In an instant, the spirit was free.
But freedom, like blood—always demands a price.
---
Far above, in the astral skies, the ancient spirits howled with fury.
Their voices were not echoes, but fangs of agony scratching the very fabric of space.
"Do you know what you've done?!" roared one of them at Lumina.
"You've unleashed a curse sealed by blood and the will of the forebears!"
They gathered before her like a storm about to break.
But one figure stood among them—the Sovereign of Spirits, silent.
His gaze was an abyss where the fate of mortals had long been discarded.
"You've broken the pact," he finally said.
"No human may unseal that spirit."
Lumina bowed her head—not out of fear, but because her heart was beginning to understand something:
This world was not only shaped by laws—but also by pain that had never been healed.
"I don't know who betrayed whom in the past," she said softly.
"But I know what I felt today. That spirit was not guilty.
He was sealed because of a betrayal."
---
But the storm came not only from without.
Within Lumina's own soul, voices began to stir—
Faint memories of her family.
Of how they used to speak of the 'land of ancient spirits' with both fear and guilt.
She began to remember…
That someone in her family—perhaps more than one—might have forged a dark pact, deceived the spirits,
and condemned one of the astral guardians in a hunger for power.
The conflict now burned within her.
Should she defend the bloodline she came from?
Or choose a truth she did not yet fully understand?
---
And from afar… Enver felt the astral rupture.
In the silence of his fog-wrapped city, his eyes opened.
A faint golden light sparked from his hand—a sign that the spirit world was crumbling in silence.
He did not yet know what had happened.
But he knew who was involved.
"Lumina…"
He turned, his cloak whipping like a shadow in the wind.
His footsteps rippled into another dimension.
It would not be long before their paths crossed again—
Not because of love,
but because of the same wound carried in different hearts.