Chapter 15 – The Trial of Blood and Curse
"What is born of a curse must return to the curse. But what if the curse refuses to die?"
Beneath the Vermielle family estate, blue-flamed candles burned without sound. The ceiling was etched with ancient symbols—glyphs that could only be read by blood infused with old magic, the kind even the Hellseers dared not touch.
Seven stone chairs formed a circle. At its center, a swirl of shadow spun like smoke—a recording of the final moment when Lumina was devoured by the realm of the ancient spirits.
Lumina's eldest uncle, Archon Vermielle, slammed his staff to the floor.
"She's still alive. And the one who saved her… was the Hellseer."
His voice echoed like a war hammer striking a coffin. The family members stared at each other, torn between disbelief and terror. Lumina's father, Serdyn Vermielle, lowered his eyes—no longer the grand mage who once raised the sky in their family's name. Beside him, Amari, her mother, sat frozen. Her eyes didn't blink, but tears slipped from them unknowingly.
"I've tried," Amari whispered. "Since the night she was born. Poisons, curses... even fed her my blood—tainted with the oath of annihilation. But she lived."
Archon shook his head slowly.
"Because she was not born to die by our hands."
"You mean the curse we made has come back to consume us?" spat the second uncle, Valrik—who had lost one of his arms ten years ago, the night he tried to seal Lumina with astral fire and was instead scorched by an unnamed force.
At last, Serdyn spoke—his voice heavy and bitter.
"She is not my daughter. She is the remnant of something older… darker than our own bloodline. We thought sacrificing her would save our magical lineage. But now, all we've passed down is madness and loss."
"And now," Archon added, "she walks beside the Hellseer. Enver Eraly. The one who bows to no Council. The one who rejects even our laws."
A heavy silence fell.
From the edge of the room, one of the blue candles turned crimson. Kavdrin—The Scale of Regret—stepped forward from the shadows, the only Hellseer Council member who had arrived uninvited. A black-and-red scale hovered behind him, swaying gently, as if measuring the sin within the very air.
"Enver is not your only problem," said Kavdrin.
"Your real problem… is that you cannot kill Lumina. Because she is what's left of the truth you buried."
"The Council sealed her at birth!" Valrik hissed. "By your command!"
Kavdrin neither smiled nor showed anger.
"We didn't seal her to protect you. We sealed her to keep a shard of the First Voice from tearing this dimension apart from the inside."
Everyone in the chamber flinched. That phrase had been forbidden since the dimensional wars centuries ago.
"And now," Kavdrin continued, "that seal is fragile. The last one who touched it… was Enver, with permission from a force even we don't understand. So now, your curse… belongs to you alone."
Archon looked at Serdyn and Amari.
"By the Law of Dark Blood, only the creators of the curse may end it."
Kavdrin added coldly,
"That means you and Amari must destroy Lumina with your own hands."
Serdyn stood, his voice shattered,
"You want me to kill her… again?"
"You never truly killed her," replied Kavdrin.
"That's why none of you have slept a peaceful night since the day she was born."
Amari screamed. Her body cracked beneath the weight of memories: a baby who never cried, eyes that opened without a soul, nightmares that chewed at her spirit for years.
Valrik slammed his hand on the table.
"If she isn't killed, she'll burn our entire bloodline. Look at yourself, Archon! You can't cast a spell now without your veins vomiting black thorns!"
"She is not our child," Amari whispered.
"She… is the answer to the evil we inherited."
Serdyn glanced at the wine goblet on the table. The liquid inside had turned to ink.
"And Enver," Archon muttered, "has defied fate. He allowed Lumina to live. He keeps the curse… walking."
Kavdrin stepped backward into the shadow, leaving his final words:
"Kill your own child… or we will all burn by the secret you whispered into her womb."
The candles went out.
The blood trial ended in a silence more terrifying than death.
---
That night, the wind moved strangely—like the whispers of a thousand wandering souls. Deep in the astral temple, low voices droned like the broken hymn of a dying vow.
Behind the veil of spirits, Lumina knelt. Her body was weary, but it wasn't exhaustion that paralyzed her.
It was the voices… the voice of her father. Then her mother's. And amid the cold, bitter tones—her uncle Alvron's, the one who once held her in his arms when she cried as a baby.
All those voices… speaking of one thing:
"Why isn't Lumina dead yet?"
Through the spiritual link that had always lived within her, Lumina heard it all.
"We cast her into the realm of ancient spirits," hissed her mother. "Even demons don't dare touch that place. But she came back. She keeps coming back."
"You know why she can't die, don't you?" said Alvron coldly. "Because she isn't fully human. She was born with a tear—one that should never exist. A crack between death and life. She… is a flaw. A sin disguised as a daughter."
"Don't call her my child," her father snapped.
"She is a curse. The Council sealed her the moment she was born. And now the seal is breaking."
"So who will end her?"
Silence.
And within that silence, Kavdrin—the Weigher of Sins—appeared again, wrapped in red and black flame like a hell that embraced itself.
"If you truly wish to finish this… then let it be done by your own hands. Her parents."
Kavdrin's voice echoed, cold and final.
The scale in his hand trembled—as if refusing to take a side.
"Blood must be paid with blood.
And sin… can only be redeemed by those who gave it birth."
Then Miredan, cloaked in a darkness that seemed to devour light itself, added:
"For in the silence of the end… only family will bathe your body.
Whether with love… or with judgment."
Elsewhere, hidden from all known dimensions, Lumina sat hugging her knees. Her hands trembled.
She had expected this.
But hearing the voices with her own soul was like being split in two by a blade forged from betrayal.
The sky above trembled softly. Yet she stayed silent.
Someone stood not far from her. He hadn't said a word, only watching with eyes that neither condemned nor pitied.
They belonged to Enver.
"So," he said softly—sharp as fate itself,
"What will you do?
Now, and from here on?"
Lumina didn't answer right away.
No tears fell. She had moved past sadness.
What remained was a hollow space… and in that space, something had begun to grow: will.
Not for revenge. Not to destroy.
But to stand.
"I don't want them to love me.
But I want them to stop breaking me."
And Enver—without a smile, without sympathy—nodded.
"Then choose how you wish to live. I will not stop you."
---
Meanwhile, in a place without name, hidden from all known dimensions, Kavdrin, Miredan, and Alvron sat together once more.
Three blue flames burned between them:
One for the past.
One for the truth.
One for the choice.
"If she survives much longer," Miredan murmured,
"then the line between life and death will vanish completely."
"And if that happens," Kavdrin added,
"Enver won't be our only problem.
Lumina may become the beginning of the end for all of Prufen."
They all knew—
The battle had not yet begun.
But every side had already chosen its place.
And the spirit-sky that once stood still…
began to sing the old songs of pain—unfinished, and waiting to be written again.