The sound was the last thing Lena registered: not the blast, but the agonizing tear. The sound of her soul being ripped from the safety of her reality. She remembered the blinding light of the crash, the final grip of Elias's hand, and then the sensation of plunging into something vast, liquid, and utterly empty—the Infinite Sea.
She woke to warmth.
Lyra, who was Lena moments ago, gasped, her body arching off the reed mat. The air here was heavy with the rich, fertile scent of woodsmoke, wet moss, and something wild and musky, like ancient, untamed earth.
She should have been pain. She should have been dust. Instead, she was pulsing with a vibrant, agonizing life that felt too big for her new, slender body.
Elias. The name screamed in the deepest part of her consciousness, leaving behind a profound, aching vacuum. Where her soul should have been connected to his, there was a ragged, bleeding energetic wound. She instinctively knew he was alive, and she instinctively knew he was horribly, impossibly far away.
Lyra blinked. She was in a low, circular hut, the walls made of stitched hide and bone. In the center, a fire crackled, tended by a small boy who looked about seven. The boy's shoulder was shaking silently.
Suddenly, a wave of pure, crushing grief washed over Lyra, potent and immediate. It wasn't abstract sorrow; it was the vivid, agonizing memory of losing a mother, filtered through the boy's heart.
Lyra scrambled back against the woven wall. Her civilized Earth-mind, which valued boundaries and personal space, shattered under the invasion.
Get out! she thought, the mental cry accompanied by a jolt of liquid energy from her chest.
The boy flinched, not from her voice, but from the sudden, uncontrolled surge of her power. The grief receded, but the Light, the pure, raw energy of the Living Light, did not.
It gathered in her core, a terrifyingly beautiful ball of golden-white warmth demanding release. It felt like the sun captured in her veins—instinctual, chaotic, and incredibly powerful. This was her Light attribute, and it was already roaring at her starting rank: L3.III (Initiate, Proficient). She had high raw power, but zero control.
To escape the boy's lingering pain, Lyra instinctively pushed the Light outwards, attempting to soothe him.
A faint, brilliant aura spilled from her hands, illuminating the hut with a brief, breathtaking golden shimmer. The boy sighed deeply, instantly calmed, the raw pain neutralized by the restorative energy. He curled up beside the fire and fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.
Lyra collapsed back onto the mat, panting. The simple, instinctual act of projecting the light had been intensely exhausting, though the immediate effect was undeniable. She was a healer, a protector, an empath—but the cost was too high.
The hide flap of the doorway was pushed aside, and a tall, stern woman with the skin and markings of the nomadic clan entered. Her gaze, sharp and assessing, fixed on the healing glow still faintly lingering on Lyra's hands.
Lyra felt the woman's dominant emotion: a mixture of desperate need and cautious veneration.
"The Spirits have claimed the Lyras," the woman said, her voice rough like the local sage. "You used the Fire to mend him. You are powerful, child. Wild. Like the storms on the Void Sea."
The woman knelt, pressing a cool, woven bandage against Lyra's feverish forehead. "But your Light is too much heart, too little hand. You will burn the world before you heal it. The Wilds respect strength and control."
Lyra stared at the new, golden-skinned hands that were not her own. She was trapped in a body and a world where her inner self—her empathy—had become a weapon, and a dangerous one.
"Elias," Lyra whispered, the name a silent prayer.
The woman raised an eyebrow. "A foreign name. Forget the ghosts of the past. You are Lyra Lyras. You are Light. Now, you will learn to feed the Light, for the Void Keepers already track your scent."
As the woman led her outside, Lyra looked up. The sky was not the familiar, smog-filtered blue of her Earth reality. It was a vast, bruised expanse where twin moons hung low, and the air itself shimmered with untamed magic. She knew then: she must master this beautiful, chaotic Light—not for the Spirits, but to anchor herself across the Void Sea, and find her Shadow.