The Temple of Reflection was pure symmetry — all lines and light. Everything gleamed. Everything obeyed.
A perfect place for a sacrifice.
Lysaria stood silent at its center, draped in robes of grey, wrists bound in silverlight. Her veil shimmered like the Oculum above — the great mirrored eye now catching the sun's earliest breath.
Watchers circled her in unison, whispering invocations in the language of crystal.
The air hummed. Power gathered.
"Let the light purge the fracture," came the voice of the officiant —High Priest Varnis, First Radiant of Luxarion.
He was flanked by two other priests, younger but severe, each bearing mirrored staves. None of them wore masks. In Lucian doctrine, only the sacrificed hid their faces.
Varnis lifted a mirrored blade. Light danced on its edge like flame on water.
"Let the vessel ascend. Let the Father shine."
The Infiltration:
Then came the ghost fire.
Blue-violet tendrils spilled from the temple doors, swirling and snarling as if hungry for the sanctified air.
Kaelara entered first, a blur of motion and fury, her gravitational field crackling beneath her boots.
Watchers faltered as the marble warped under her steps.
"Get away from her!" she bellowed, leaping into the circle like a falling star.
Niah followed, hands alight with dancing flame. Her ghost fire flared and stretched, smothering light sources and confusing the senses. The watchers staggered, their vision bent and blurred.
Behind them came Tavin — slower, more focused. The Gate inside him pulsed — not violently, but expectantly.
He could feel the wrongness of this place.
Light here did not heal. It choked.
"Heretics!" shouted one of the younger priest, swinging his staff toward Kaelara.
She ducked under the arc and drove a gravity-punch into his ribs. The man folded, air knocked clean from his lungs.
Another priest tried to channel a beam of purifying light — Niah countered it with a ghost flame veil that ate the light alive.
Varnis remained calm.
He turned to Tavin, blade lowered but eyes hard.
"So. The parasite comes to claim the broken."
Tavin ignored the insult and stepped toward the dais where Lysaria stood. The light bent harder now — resisting his presence, curling like oil on water.
"We're not here for war," Tavin said. "Just her."
"You do not take what belongs to Luxarion," Varnis said. "You do not understand what she is."
Tavin met his gaze. "Then make me understand."
He reached Lysaria, close enough to see her trembling.
"Come with us."
"I can't," she whispered.
"You don't belong here."
"You don't know what I belong to."
"I know a cage when I see one."
"This is my purpose! If I don't give myself, he fades!"
Tavin's hands curled into fists.
Kaelara was fighting off two watchers now. Niah was holding the outer guards at bay.
"Then why do you look so afraid?" he asked quietly.
She didn't answer.
The light above pulsed.
A beam fractured, refocused, narrowed—
And then the Gate answered.
A pulse struck through Tavin's spine — like a blade of cold truth drawn across his soul.
The world tilted.
The light around him slowed. Shapes distorted. Reality blinked.
And in that heartbeat, the Gate opened