Chapter 1 Prolouge : When the Cradle Met Shadows
Luna was born on a day dipped in sorrow. As her first breath trembled into the air, her grandmother’s slipped away, casting the house into mourning. No drums, no laughter—only silence. Elders whispered sharp words, “Save your pride for your sons. Daughters vanish like smoke.”
But her parents clung to hope like rebels to fire. The youngest of three, Lyra was wrapped in quiet love by her parents and brothers, though elders watched her like a flicker they wished would fade. Yet, as the years turned, her father’s struggling business bloomed, lifting them into an upper-middle-class life.
Then, as if destiny itself was clearing the stage, the disapproving elders faded away—gone within five years. The family returned to their ancestral village to lay the past to rest.
Lyra, only five, stared at the ancient stone well behind the crumbling house—a place the villagers said “murmured to chosen souls.” Something in its darkness hummed when she passed, like a secret greeting her alone.
She didn’t know it yet, but the world she saw… was only half of the one that awaited her.
