Page 53 of Favored By the Stars

"It's beautiful," I breathed, despite the eerie emptiness that hung over everything.

Thorn stayed close to my side, his hand never straying far from his weapon. "Beautiful, but dead."

"Not dead," Van corrected, his voice hushed as if afraid of disturbing something. "Sleeping, perhaps. Or...waiting."

Movement caught my eye, a figure darting between columns in a distant courtyard. "There!" I pointed, but when we all looked, nothing remained.

"Did you see that?" Wyn asked, edging closer to Volker.

"I did," I confirmed, squinting into the shadows.

We continued forward, our footsteps echoing unnaturally loud against the stones. Twice more, I spotted shadowy silhouettes moving at the corners of my vision, always vanishing when I turned to look directly.

"Van?" I questioned, noticing how the bard's eyes darted nervously around us. "What are they?"

He swallowed hard, fingers fidgeting with the strings of his lute. "I don't know. The legends speak of Lumerin being abandoned, not... inhabited."

A tall figure appeared at the end of the street, humanoid, but somehow wrong. Their proportions were slightly off, movements too fluid. It stood watching us for three heartbeats before melting into the shadows of a doorway.

"That was no trick of the light," Thorn growled.

"No," Van agreed, his face unusually pale. "The texts never mentioned... guardians. Or whatever these are."

The air grew colder as we ventured deeper into the city. More figures appeared, always distant, always watching, always disappearing when approached. Some looked like fae, others like creatures I'd never seen before, all of them insubstantial as smoke.

"I don't like this," Volker muttered. "They're herding us."

He was right. The phantoms appeared in ways that subtly guided our path, blocking some streets while leaving others clear.

"They're leading us somewhere," I whispered, the Diadem growing warm against my skin.

The deeper we ventured into Lumerin, the more I felt something tugging at my consciousness, a gentle but persistent pull that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"The Mirror," I murmured, my hand unconsciously rising to touch the Diadem. "I can feel it calling."

"Which direction?" Thorn asked, scanning the crumbling facades around us.

I closed my eyes, letting the sensation guide me. "This way."

We turned down a narrow street lined with buildings whose architecture defied logic, arches that supported nothing, doorways that opened onto blank walls, windows that showed impossible vistas. The pull grew stronger with each step, but something else crept in alongside it, a heaviness that settled in my chest like cold lead.

"Something's wrong," I whispered, slowing my pace. Doubt seeped into my thoughts like poison. What if I couldn't control the Mirror's power? What if I was leading everyone into a trap?

"Senara?" Thorn's voice sounded distant despite him standing right beside me. "What is it?"

"I don't know if I can do this." The words escaped before I could stop them. "What if I'm not what everyone thinks I am? What if I fail?"

Thorn placed his hands on my shoulders, turning me to face him. "You won't fail. I've seen your strength."

His words should have comforted me, but they rang hollow in my ears. I could feel our bond stretching thin between us, like a thread pulled too tight. The connection that had always felt like a lifeline now seemed fragile, tenuous.

"You don't understand." I stepped back from his touch. "You can't feel what I feel. This place... it's doing something to me. To us."

"It's the corruption," Van interjected, his eyes darting nervously to the shadows. "The same darkness that created those feral fae. It's stronger here, feeding on doubt and fear."

Thorn reached for me again, but I flinched away. His face hardened, masking hurt.

"We should keep moving," he said stiffly.

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