Chapter 93: The First Shadow
—Her Name Was Kamharida—
Before there was Soul Island, before the towers of Lafrosa, before the Grand Council and the Spirit Tribunal—there was only sea and sorrow.
A jagged coastline veiled in mist. An unnamed island surrounded by silence.
And the broken body of a girl, carried ashore by the wreckage of a burning ship.
She was barely seventeen.
Once of noble blood.
A child of the western world—born to status, educated in courts, trained in poise.
But it hadn't mattered.
When her family fell—slaughtered for debts owed and alliances betrayed—there had been no sanctuary. No reprieve. Only betrayal and fire.
She'd fled in desperation, alone on a stolen vessel, bleeding from wounds both seen and not. The ocean had swallowed her cries.
And in the end, it seemed the world had rejected her.
The ship cracked apart days from any known shore.
She washed up here.
No name. No hope. No voice.
She died on the beach.
Skin salted. Breath shallow.
A whisper of a soul on the edge of nothing.
And then—
She saw her.
A woman cloaked in gray and gold.
Dark-skinned. Barefoot.
Eyes that looked like they remembered creation itself.
She knelt beside the girl's body—not with pity, but with curiosity.
The woman touched her chest, just once.
And in that instant, the soul returned.
Breath came.
The heart beat.
And the girl opened her eyes to the gaze of N`ythrll.
At the time, the world called her Muna.
But the truth—the eternal name—was always there, etched into existence:
N`ythrll, the Living Incarnation of the Spirit Sovereign.
The First Soulborne. The Progenitor.
The girl, weak and frightened, couldn't speak at first.
But Muna did not demand anything.
She simply offered warmth.
A small hut.
A place to rest.
Time passed.
Wounds closed.
But something inside the girl had changed.
She trained with the Progenitor.
She learned to listen to her own soul.
She awakened her Spirit Cycle—not one passed down, but one ignited by death and rebirth.
And N`ythrll named her: Kamharida.
A name without meaning in her old world—
But sacred in this new one.
The girl never asked what the name meant.
She simply wore it.
And over time, her reverence turned into love.
Not obsession.
Not hunger.
Just that quiet, breathless ache that only comes when someone saves you so completely, that your soul wraps itself around theirs.
But N`ythrll never returned it.
Not cruelly.
Not carelessly.
She simply... didn't.
Kamharida never spoke of it.
Never once.
Not even when she watched her liege take a lover—
A fierce, brilliant warrior from the southern tribes of the continent.
An African man whose spirit glowed like frost and fire combined.
Together, they bore the first of the Ikembas.
The beginning of a bloodline that would shape the future.
Kamharida stood at a distance.
Watched the ceremonies.
Helped raise the children.
Held the newborns.
She never smiled with her eyes again.
And yet—
She never left.
Because loyalty, once sealed in death and soulfire, was no longer a choice.
It was a truth.
For centuries, she stood at N`ythrll's side.
The first Shadow.
The first to take orders no one else ever heard.
The blade that moved before a threat was even known.
And as the world changed—
As Soulbornes grew in number,
As stone temples rose on the island,
As Lafrosa was named and the Soul Academy built—
Kamharida remained.
Behind the scenes.
Behind the power.
Behind the myth.
Time wore others down.
Rulers fell. Bloodlines shifted. Civilizations burned.
But she remained unchanged.
Not because she was immortal.
But because she had already died once.
And been reborn in the image of the only woman she would ever serve.
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In the present day...
As Kamharida stepped through the veil, descending back into the world she helped build, her face was calm.
Not joyful.
Not angry.
Just resolute.
Because her liege had spoken again.
And after 700 years—
She still listened.
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