Lumi.
The bubbly, relentlessly energetic girl who had come to Sol's room the previous day was standing near the front of the crowd. She had likely rushed out with the others out of sheer curiosity, completely unprepared for the suffocating malice radiating from the Zharun procession.
Gorr stepped directly into her personal space, his towering frame casting a long, dark shadow over her.
He reached out a heavy, bone-gauntleted hand. He didn't strike her, he simply extended a single, pale finger and slowly, deliberately stroked Lumi's cheek.
The young girl froze entirely. The sheer, overwhelming malice radiating from the Zharun Prince was a physical weight. Her weak, Layer 1 sparrow phantom flickered desperately into existence above her shoulder for a fraction of a second, an automatic biological defense mechanism. But the moment the sparrow's aura touched the rotting gray ash of Gorr's presence, the phantom let out a silent shriek and vanished back into her core in terror.
