𝑠𝑖𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑟

The sky wasn't always black.

A thousand years ago, it was a ceiling of living stars. The Wizards of Astralis plucked them out with gloves of light and kept them in jars, because they said that darkness was a disease and that a world without night would be a perfect world.

They called it "The Eternal Project".

He failed in 7 seconds. The imprisoned light screamed, became fire, the fire became ash, and from the ash were born the Spectres : creatures of corrupt magic with crystal bones and a hunger for hearts.

From that day on, the world was divided into 3.

Solara : golden towers, golden laws, and a god called Order. Nocther : palaces of violet thorns, blood magic, and a god named Power. The Broken Lands : where the ash fell. No one enters. No one leaves.

Except for her.

1. EXPERIMENT 17

Lyra was 19 years old and had two sins in her blood. Solara's mother. Nocther's father. Forbidden love.

At age 6, the Church of Light took her from her mother's arms and locked her in the Crystal Tower. "To protect her," they said.

That's a lie. It was meant to be studied.

Supreme Arcanist Veyron designated her as Experiment 17. Her thesis: Can a human be created who can hold both light and shadow without becoming a Spectre? Thirteen years of needles. Liquid runes in his veins. Artificial sunbaths that burned his skin. Black moon chambers that froze his bones. Every scream was recorded on parchment.

Lyra learned not to scream. She learned two more things: that pain turns into silence, and that Kael secretly brought her books.

Kael was 21. Veyron's assistant. Ink-stained hands and gray eyes that didn't look at her like she was a jar. He taught her to read among runes: "Power does not possess you. You possess it." He taught her to laugh without making a sound. And one night, when she turned 17, he taught her how to kiss.

It was clumsy. It was fast. And that's how it all began.