Chapter 164. The Ritual Begins

Aurora’s POV

The air was thick with the scent of iron, the weight of the moment pressing down on me like an unseen force. I watched, my body frozen in place, as Harmona reached for a lever on the wall, her fingers wrapping around it with the kind of reverence one would give a sacred relic. My breath hitched when she pulled it down, and the ceiling groaned in response, parting to let in the ominous glow of the sun. But it wasn’t the warm, golden light of hope—it was fractured, darkened by the shadow of the Solar Eclipse. The world outside had fallen into an eerie twilight, casting elongated shadows that danced across the stone floor like ghosts mourning their inevitable fate.

And perhaps, that was what we were—ghosts before we had even died.

I barely had time to absorb the horror of it all before Harmona moved again, this time retrieving a metal dagger. Its blade gleamed despite the dim light, and the engravings carved into it seemed to pulse with a life of t