Chapter 43 – Wounded Symmetry
Previously in Chapter 42:
Lumina merged the astral infant into her body—not as a sacrifice, but as a vow that even purity could be born from hatred.
The sky sighed.
The world made no sound, yet the astral heartbeat trembled. Enver halted his steps. Before a human body nearly purified, he felt an unusual pulse from the west. Not sin. Not the call of mankind. But something deeper, more primal.
The pulse resembled breath… the breath of a bearer of a new soul.
Enver's body stiffened. In his silence, a voice long drowned emerged from the mist—shaped as a man, with colorless eyes and a fractured smile.
Zephyr.
"Symmetry is not balance," he whispered. "Symmetry is an agreement between light and shadow… that we can never truly prevent the crossing of boundaries."
Enver stared. "What has happened?"
Zephyr lifted his hand and pointed at the sky. Subtle cracks spread like wounds upon glass. "She has walked a path never meant for her."
"She?"
"Lumina."
Enver tried to remain calm.
"She merged with a creation. She opened a passage only those who are willing to lose their human form may tread."
Enver closed his eyes. "She would never do that unless…"
"…she believed nothing else could save the world," Zephyr finished.
They fell silent.
Zephyr lowered his head. "If you wish to prevent ruin, you must fight the very light you protect and hold so dearly."
Enver gave no reply.
---
Elsewhere, Lumina stood upon dead soil.
Her steps were light, yet no longer human. Within her body, the astral child she had merged with no longer cried. As though it knew its mother was no longer the same woman.
Lumina no longer saw sin as before. She saw a network of wounds. And every human was a knot of rot waiting to be cut open.
She did not hate them. She simply felt no need for mercy.
"If the living only repeat their sins, then what is the meaning of life?" she whispered to the earth.
The wind scattered black petals from astral trees. The leaves circled her body, as though welcoming her as something new—or as a replacement for something lost.
Enver stood at the astral altar, staring into a pool of bloodwater that reflected not his face.
Instead, it showed Lumina—unblinking, carrying the astral child in her arms, walking among the ruins of morality.
"Am I too naïve?" he whispered.
"Or… am I a coward who calls forgiveness wisdom?"
From afar, Zephyr gazed at the sky, throbbing ever more violently.
"This wound cannot be stitched by the hands of the old."
The sky quivered. A rift opened where Lumina stood.
From within, a colossal being emerged, eyes numbering in the thousands, its skin like living shadow-mist. It bent down, inhaling the air, and spoke:
"Mother."
And Lumina did not deny it.