Chapter 415

LUMINA I floated in darkness, suspended between consciousness and something else entirely. Not sleep—I knew what sleep felt like. This was different. Heavier. Like being submerged in warm water that muffled all sound and sensation. Then the darkness shifted. Light appeared—not bright, not harsh, just a gradual illumination that revealed I was standing in a space that shouldn't exist. Gray fog swirled around my feet, and the ground beneath me felt solid but looked like nothing at all. "Hello, Lumina." I spun toward the voice and found myself face to face with a woman I'd never seen before but somehow recognized on an instinctual level. She was tall, willowy, with pale skin that seemed to glow faintly in the strange light. Her hair was silver-white, flowing past her shoulders in waves that moved despite the absence of any breeze. But it was her eyes that held my attention—completely black, no whites, no iris, just endless darkness that seemed to pull at something deep inside me. "Who are