03 – Fractured Symbol
Morning arrived without color.
Only a cloudy sky was visible.
The sky above Aethra was shrouded in gray mist, as if the world was reluctant to open its eyes. The air felt cold, unusual for the season. Elaniel Zenona stood before the stone mirror in her room, staring at her reflection with an expression difficult to describe. On her hand, the symbol had returned—two overlapping circles with a dark crack in the center, now extending like a wound that refused to close.
She tried to touch it, but felt nothing. Yet every time she looked at it, her chest tightened, as if the symbol wasn't just an image, but a hole reopening something unresolved. Something she had forgotten, or perhaps intentionally buried.
---
That day, the spiritual class was held in the underground chamber of Memoria Tower. The walls were filled with ancient symbols that slowly rotated, alive and breathing with energy. In the center of the hall hovered the Lumen Vitae, a giant crystal capable of reflecting each student's soul resonance.
"Today you will learn to recognize karmic patterns," Elder Caerys's voice echoed gently. "But know this: not all karma is yours. Some is inherited. Some taken over. Some paid with awareness still asleep."
Elaniel sat cross-legged, holding a small crystal. When she closed her eyes, blue light burst from the crystal. She saw herself… standing in a burning field. Blood on her hands. At her fingertips, the symbol cracked, releasing flashes of dark light.
She gasped. Her breath quickened. And right above her palm, the same symbol appeared, slowly rotating, then beginning to fracture.
Elder Caerys approached. "Zenona… your symbol is deepening."
"I know."
"You carry a soul wound not only from this life."
"What does it mean?"
"It means you made a choice time could not undo. And you… refused to regret it."
---
After class, Elaniel didn't return to her room. She slipped into the hidden garden beneath Umbra Tower, a place known only to a few students. There, massive roots hung from the ceiling, and soft light poured through stone cracks, reflecting on the surface of a pool.
She sat in silence, contemplating.
But her peace didn't last.
"You like places hidden from everything," came a familiar voice.
Jasper Zephyr appeared from behind a pillar. His black hair brushed by the wind. He didn't speak much, simply walked slowly until he stood beside her.
"My symbol's cracked," said Elaniel without turning.
"I know," replied Jasper.
He removed his left glove. The same symbol was there, intact, without cracks. Yet glowing faintly in silver light.
"Our symbols… complete each other," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"You carry the wound. I carry the vow. If we meet again… maybe it's not to love. But to finish."
"But I don't even know what needs finishing."
"You will. When you dare open what you sealed yourself."
---
The following days were filled with Second Soul Layer training—the ability to penetrate resonance dimensions and see their soul's reflection in other worlds. Elaniel began to experience disruptions during meditation. She saw flashes of herself in a burning world. Sometimes voices whispered: Elaraen… Elaraen…
On the third night, she awoke from a dream. She saw herself, wounded, embracing someone. Then, the man's face… Kaelion.
But his eyes were Jasper's.
---
She went alone to the Soul Reflection Room.
There, she sat atop a stone altar and placed her palm on the crystal's surface. The symbol on her hand immediately glowed, forming a dark blue light reaching up to the ceiling. The air turned cold, and suddenly she was pulled into the reflection.
She saw Elaraen standing before a thorned gate—the Abyssus Gate, the threshold between the realm of death and shadow. On the other side, Kaelion held off shadow enemies surging forward. His body was bloodied, but he did not retreat.
"Let me close the gate!" Elaraen shouted.
"You must stay alive!" Kaelion replied. "Because if you don't… our souls will never return."
"Then why choose to sacrifice yourself?"
"Because only you are strong enough to carry the light out of this place."
Then Kaelion pushed her back. The symbol on Elaraen's hand glowed before cracking at the same moment Kaelion vanished into the gate.
The reflection shattered.
Elaniel was thrown back into the training room, gasping.
But this time… someone was there.
"You saw it?" a voice in the darkness.
She turned. Jasper stood at the doorway, his gaze like one who had just weathered a storm.
"Kaelion," Elaniel murmured. "That was you, wasn't it?"
Jasper didn't answer.
He only walked slowly, then sat beside Elaniel, just an inch away.
"Why are you looking for me?" Elaniel asked.
"Because you're the only one who makes me feel alive," he whispered. "Even when I was supposed to be dead."
That night, they didn't touch, but sat side by side on the stone altar. No words of love. But tension, loss, and the presence of a protector unwilling to give up flowed between them.
The night was so silent, their heartbeats echoed in the void. No confessions were needed; that shared presence itself was an answer to questions never asked.
Outside the room, Aethra's sky slowly shifted. Stars that were usually dim now lit up with a new constellation. A sign. A calling.
---
A few days later, Elder Caerys summoned Elaniel and Jasper to a special chamber.
"You two are this year's highest resonants," she said. "Which means you will undergo the Gate Trial."
Elaniel tensed. "Which gate?"
"The gate that leads to the center of your karma."
"The Abyssus Gate?" Jasper asked, more to himself.
Elder Caerys nodded.
"But this time… you must choose together. Or your symbols will shatter forever."
---
That night, Elaniel stood by the lake—the same lake where Jasper first approached her. Its waters were calm, but the sky above spun slowly, as if the world had begun to remember something.
"Jasper," she whispered.
And he appeared. As if called from beyond dimensions.
"If I fail again…" Elaniel began.
"You won't," Jasper gently cut in.
"And if we're separated?"
"I'll still search," he said. "As before. As I will again."
The silence between them was no longer cold. It was a safe space, formed not by words, but by deep understanding.
And for the first time, Elaniel held his hand.
Not tightly.
Not with passion.
But enough to say: I understand. I remember. I'm not done.
---