Chapter 10 – The White Bird, the Black Fangs
Previously… in Chapter 9:
Enver offered his own blood to stop the bloodshed between the ancient spirits and the boundary wardens. Yet behind that sacrifice, unseen eyes remained—eyes that never blinked, hidden beneath the white wings of magic.
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The white bird floated above the mist, like a soft, voiceless embodiment of eternity. But Enver knew silence was a disguise. It was not merely a guiding creature—it was a sensor, a creation of the Lumina bloodline, fused with their essence, capable of sensing the pulse of a soul from thousands of miles away.
That bird had followed Lumina since birth, a mute witness to every wound and every decision she had made.
And now, as Lumina tried to distance herself from her heritage, the bird remained loyal—not to her, but to the blood that ran in her veins.
Enver stood among the ruins where the blood pact had been sealed. On his shoulder, the wind carried the scent of iron time had yet to wash away.
He raised his hand.
"Go," he whispered—not to the bird, but to the presence hidden behind it.
Suddenly, space around the white bird distorted. Enver summoned an astral creature—a shadowy replica of Lumina—concealed behind ten layers of enchantment. The white bird turned away, drawn to the convincing illusion, and soared into the sky, far from Lumina's true location.
The sensor had been blinded—for now.
But every shadow deceived would be answered by a piercing light. And that light had begun to awaken elsewhere—within the Lumina bloodline.
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Deep within the tower of House Izenhart, old fangs—once dulled—were being sharpened again.
Her uncle—Alvaron—had long vanished from the lineage, declared dead in honor. But truth is never that simple.
He returned. But not as a whole man.
His body was half-burned. One side of his face melded with soul-forged metal. His eyes—black mirrors—echoed with the silent screams of spirits.
And he did not return empty-handed.
Alvaron brought a new pact—not inked with pen, but sealed with sacrifice.
The ancient spirit Lumina once freed had become his ally. They forged a contract through the blood of an unacknowledged child, the love he murdered, and the soul of the wife he offered. All for the power to "correct" the Izenhart blood he saw as tainted by Lumina's choices.
"If she refuses to be a legacy… then she must become a warning."
So Alvaron said, his voice like sand tearing through the throat.
The Lumina family no longer wished to merely watch from afar.
They wanted judgment.
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Enver knew peace after sacrifice was nothing but a mirage. He had given his blood. But blood leaves traces. And those traces could be tracked by any hungry spirit.
As night fell and the astral crosses trembled, he sensed Alvaron's presence—a dark shard of the Lumina line—drawing near.
"The heavens no longer veil their intent," Enver murmured, wiping fresh blood from his fingers. "A new game begins… but the pawns are no longer spirits. They are blood."
And Lumina?
She stood in the distance, silent, watching the white bird that would never return to her.
She knew.
Her family was hunting her.
And they carried with them a cursed spirit of their own.