"The brighter you try to shine, the more the Umbra will claim you."
Those words, spoken in the deep, resonant voice of Ambrosius Vortigern, haunted Astraea all night. They had slipped into her breath, pulsed with every beat of her heart, etched themselves like invisible markings on the walls of her mind.
'Shine… or be consumed.'
Lying in the Lumen basin, she felt the radiant flows coil around her skin like burning threads. This was no bath of rest. Nothing like the lukewarm student pools where the Lumen dissolved like a caress. Here, the light was raw, pure, concentrated to the brink of implosion. Silent flashes burst beneath the surface, turning the smooth, polished sanctuary walls into an inverted sky, an agonizing firmament of pain and clarity.
Her skin burned. Her muscles twisted with spasms. Her mind teetered on the edge.
It's only temporary pain, she repeated to herself. But every tingle became a bite. Every breath, an invisible blade.
"Meditate, meditate... You know full well that when you close your eyes, I'll be the one you see." Her darker half's voice, sarcastic and familiar, slithered into her thoughts like a poison she'd grown used to.
"Hold on," whispered the warm voice of the other part of her. "You crossed the Lands In-Between. You didn't survive all that just to back down now."
She had endured this preparation rite for months. Becoming a radiance keeper wasn't just about climbing a rank. It meant letting the Lumen become an extension of her very being, letting her breath merge with the light of the world. This was no longer awakening, it was laying a foundation to defend virtue itself.
At dawn, she stepped out of the basin. Her body still pulsed with luminous aftershocks, every pore aglow like a firefly. The cold sanctuary tiles bit into her feverish skin. A white robe with silver embroidery awaited her, its fibers reacting to her aura. She dressed in silence, her dripping hair cascading down her shoulders in a scattered stream of pearl and ebony.
Outside, the sky was choked with inky clouds. Morning light struggled in vain to pierce the looming vault.
Sélène, the previous radiance keeper, and the only person besides the Grand Druid who didn't see her as a monster, walked at her side. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing to say.
All the students were present. A wide circle had formed, marked by candles whose flames danced in the fresh breeze.
Some whispered prayers, hands clasped, eyes closed in genuine fervor. Others, younger or more skeptical, exchanged furtive glances, wavering between admiration and unease. The study uniforms, combat tunics, meditation robes, ceremonial armor, formed a sea of muted colors, all broken by the central radiance of Astraea.
She knelt in the center, upon a circle etched with luminous runes pulsing softly in time with her breath. And yet, the gazes surrounding her weighed heavier than the rite to come.
'What did they see, those frozen faces encircling the sanctified ring?'
'A future Guardian, ready to wed the Light?'
'A rising heroine, bearer of hope for the sanctums of the Lumen?'
'Or was it something else, something deeper? That silent fracture within her, the chasm of shadow she fought every day to contain, though never able to seal?'
Astraea stood at the center of that suspended world, at the heart of all expectations, at the heart of her own dilemma. Her eyes, as different as the split halves of a sundered cosmos, mirrored the duality that defined her: one a radiant gold, gleaming like dawn over sacred peaks; the other, abyssal black, where the void between stars dared to gaze back.
Her gaze caught the contradictions etched on the onlookers' faces, hope, jealousy, fear.
She looked away.
Better to face the broken sky above, the glimpse of infinity framed by the dome's opening, than to endure the judgments cloaked in pious silence.
Outside the circle, the full council of instructors stood, with Ambrosius Vortigern among them, tall and solemn in his emerald cloak embroidered with golden thread. His white beard flowed to his waist, braided with fine filaments of light.
His eyes, the color of ancient frost, belonged to a man who saw beyond flesh, beyond masks, beyond secrets.
To Astraea, he was more than a mentor.
He was the rock of her world, the one who had found her in the ashes of the In-Between, and chosen to call her daughter when no one else had.
"You are neither your shadow, nor your light. You are what you choose to embrace." He had said those words long ago, when he first found her.
Today, he said nothing.
This was not a day for guidance.
This was the day of choice.
Two animal silhouettes watched her from the edges of the sanctuary.
Nyx, her black ermine, perched on a ledge cloaked in shadow, eyes glowing crimson with mischievous spark. She looked like a creature from another realm, her muzzle curved in something that almost resembled a grin. And Eos, her white twin, unmoving, sculpted from the snow of an eternal winter, radiated a peace that felt almost divine.
"You're really going to bathe in that blinding clarity?" Nyx's voice slid into her thoughts like velvet laced with venom. "Look at them. All of them, ready to pass judgment."
They were like the voices in her head, but real. Tangible. Her lifelong companions. Her friends. They didn't torment her. They simply spoke their truths in their own ways.
Eos said nothing. A single, tender glance was enough. A fragile peace amid chaos.
'Everything will be fine,' Astraea told herself.
She whispered it inwardly, again and again.
But her heart pounded like a war drum.
It wasn't the blackened sky rumbling above that frightened her. Not the stares. It was what came next.
'What if I lose my Umbra?' The thought chilled her.
To become a radiance keeper meant letting the Lumen take over.
To drive out the dark and leave only purity. But if her Umbra disappeared... would she still be herself?
"Give up. You're just a flicker doomed to fade." Her darker half whispered, ruthless as ever.
And then, a voice rang out. Familiar. Sharp. Unyielding.
"Begin the rite," said Ambrosius.
His voice fell like the toll of a bell, solemn and final. The signal of an inevitable choice.
A single heartbeat.
The wind turned, sudden and fierce, and the candles' flames danced violently, until one by one, they began to die.
Two heartbeats.
The ground trembled, as if the earth itself were holding its breath. The symbols around her ignited, blinding, searing white.
Three heartbeats.
Astraea closed her eyes, her breath deep and steady, like a well of light.
"I am Astraea. I seek balance."
Above her, the shattered Moon broke through the clouds, framed in a halo of darkness.
A black Moon. Darker than the night itself. And from its silent womb rose a low, ancient rumble,
Primordial. As if the world remembered what it was before light was ever born.
A whisper slid through the air.
"The brighter you try to shine..."
Ambrosius' voice rose, layered over the steady pulse of Astraea's heart.
"...the more the Umbra will claim you."
And then... Lightning struck.
_ _ _
Gael's heart beat in rhythm with the lightning.
He had never seen anything like it.
Each strike ripped through the sky like black veins, tearing the night apart with a violence that felt almost alive. The air vibrated, saturated with wild electricity that raised his hairs and echoed deep in his bones.
Standing among the tightly packed ranks of students, all frozen in stunned silence, Gael felt like a stranger. A lost spectator to a drama far too vast to comprehend.
The Sanctuary of the Dawn, normally a haven of serenity, had been transformed into a stage for storms. The carved stone pillars trembled under the assault of the howling wind. The candle flames flickered wildly, refusing to die but dancing against the gusts like the fragile courage of those watching helplessly.
And in the center, she stood.
Astraea.
A bolt of black lightning cracked the air like a divine whip and struck her bare shoulder, so thin, so fragile.
She screamed. A raw, instinctive, primal cry.
A cry of flesh.
A cry of soul that bounced off the columns, pierced the night, and branded itself into every heart. But she did not fall. Her knees buckled... but she remained standing, breath ragged, lips trembling, fingers clawing at the empty air as if trying to seize the will to survive.
Gael, amidst the sea of students, couldn't take his eyes off her. He had witnessed the slaughter of his hometown, corrupted beasts, and empty stares. But never this. Never a human defying the heavens with a gaze so pure, so fiercely resolute.
'Why?!' Gael wanted to scream. 'Why is no one doing anything?!'
All around him, faces were clenched, fists tight, throats blocked by fear. But no one moved, not even the Grand Druid.
He simply watched. As if this pain was necessary. As if the will to fight the Lumen had to be forged beneath these vengeful, destructive black bolts.
Then came the chants of the Lumen, rising from the assembly's throats. A deep, solemn melody cutting through the charged air. And Altaea, her voice trembling, joined them. Her lips whispered the sacred verses, even as the ground beneath her cracked, glowing with fiery fissures that radiated suffocating heat.
Gael's fists tightened. Do something. Anything!
He wanted to run, to break the circle, to hold her in his arms, to scream at the moon to end its fury. To drag her from this absurd, inhuman, celestial torment.
His instinct screamed at him to slash through the vengeful clouds, to cleave the monstrous moon whose wrath loomed over them like a hammer about to fall. But...
I can't do anything.
Reality sank into his chest like an icy blade. He was too weak.
He had touched the blade, yes… but he had never understood what the Severance truly meant. The intent. The decision to act, to break what must be broken. He had only scratched the surface, a shadow of understanding.
And while he hesitated, she fought.
A golden glow burst from Astraea's chest, radiant, almost unbearable to look at. The light spread, weaving a luminous shield around her. The black lightning struck it, rebounded, scattering sparks of shadow that fell to the ground, sizzling like dead leaves on embers.
For a single moment, just one, Gael believed she might make it. That this light would carry her through.
But the Moon... The Moon does not forgive.
It shows no mercy.
It spares no one who defies its authority.
Another bolt, darker, hungrier than all the rest, pierced the shield like a harpoon hurled from the heavens. It struck Astraea's side.
Her body arched from the impact. Pain twisted her pale face, carving deep, unyielding lines. Her clenched teeth struggled to contain another cry. Her eyes, one ablaze with light, the other consumed by shadow, locked briefly with Gael's.
And in that gaze… there was no plea. No begging. Only the raw will to endure.
Gael's heart slammed against his ribs, the urge to scream, to protest, tore at him. But his legs stayed rooted, stuck in a helplessness he hated.
Then, the rain began to fall.
Heavy, lukewarm drops carrying the metallic scent of the storm. They mixed with Astraea's sweat, with the pulsing remnants of the Lumen. The entire sanctuary seemed to hold its breath.
The moon had vanished behind the clouds, fading from sight. The lightning had subsided.
And beneath Astraea's cracked skin, now kneeling, two forces clashed.
Light.
Shadow.
The healing power of the Lumen.
The destructive hunger of the Umbra.
And at the center...
A girl. A fire. A will.