The shape of the cage
The night did not argue.
It showed.
Lumi dreamed again—but this time there was no white hall, no envoy's polished calm. She stood beneath Noctyrrh's sky, the stars beneath shadow moving slowly, endlessly.
Time passed.
Not in moments.
In erosion.
She watched seasons blur into one another without daylight to mark them. Faces changed. Names cycled. Children grew old while she remained—unchanged, anchored, fixed.
Permanent.
The city thrived.
It always did.
That was the cruelty of it.
Noctyrrh endured beautifully around her. People lived full lives, loved fiercely, remembered freely. And when they died, their grief did not crush the living—it flowed through the night and settled.
And Lumi stayed.
At twenty-two. Then thirty in memory only. Then a hundred in responsibility.
She was not imprisoned by chains.
She was needed.
That was the cage.
"You would not suffer," the night murmured—not persuasive, not demanding. Honest. "You would hold."
Lumi's chest ached. "And I would outlive everyone I love."
Silence.
Not denial.
Acceptance.
The vision shifted.
Blake stood beside her—older, scarred, smiling with the kind of peace that came from choosing well. He laughed with people she didn't know. He loved again, after her.
It did not feel like betrayal.
It felt like truth.
And that was what broke her.
Lumi woke with a cry, breath tearing free from her chest.
Blake was there instantly, arms around her, grounding her in warmth and weight and now.
"It showed you," he said softly.
"Yes." She clutched him. "It showed me forever."
He swallowed. "And?"
"And forever is a kind of death," she whispered. "Just slower."
The truth settled—heavy, unyielding.
Later, the cost arrived.
A runner collapsed at the gates, bloodied and shaking. "The Concord seized a border town," he gasped. "Not ours. Adjacent. They're calling it a protective measure."
Blake's jaw hardened. "They're making an example."
"They're showing us the shape of the cage," Lumi said.
In the council chamber, fear crept closer to the surface.
"How long can we resist?" someone asked.
Lumi closed her eyes, feeling the night's patience stretch taut. "Long enough to choose correctly."
Blake turned to her. "You don't owe the world eternity."
She met his gaze. "I know."
Outside, the night shimmered—steady, waiting, unwilling to coerce.
For the first time, Lumi understood the final truth the curse had kept.
Freedom required endings.
And love—real love—did not ask you to stay forever.
As the city prepared for whatever came next, Lumi held Blake's hand and let herself choose now.
The cage had a shape.
And she would not fit inside it.