Chapter 6: The Binding and the Breath

The Binding (Mindar’s Story)

Mindar didn’t wait to think.

He leapt from behind the rock with nothing but a broken clay shard in his hand and rage pulsing in his blood. “Leave her alone!”

Dongka Chingthu spun around, startled—but only for a moment. Then he smiled.

“Ah,” he said calmly. “I was wondering when the boy with the too-wide eyes would show up.”

The air crackled around the shrine. Dongka Chingthu’s spell was incomplete, but the damage was done. The soil beneath the shrine pulsed like it had a heartbeat. The braid of hair in his hand shimmered with an unnatural glow, tethered now to something deep and unwilling.

“You don’t understand what she is,” Dongka Chingthu hissed. “She’s not just your ghost guardian. She’s a relic of an older world. Older than your trees, older than your gods. I came for her power.”

Mindar charged forward, swiping the braid from his hand and tossing it into the sacred fire bowl beside the shrine. A scream—part wind, part soul—burst from the trees.

The flames flared blue. The shrine groaned. The air twisted.

Dongka Chingthu stumbled back, eyes burning with fury.

“You think you’ve stopped me?” he growled. “I’ve already begun the Binding. Her spirit will weaken. And when the moon darkens—she will belong to me.”

But Mindar stood tall now, clay shard glowing faintly in his grip.

“She doesn’t stand alone,” he said. “Not anymore.”

The Breath (Sangpi and Mili’s Vision)

At that same moment, far from the shrine, Sangpi awoke from sleep—or was she pulled from it?

The lamp in her room had gone out. The air shimmered like heat in summer. And at the foot of her bed stood Mili, eyes wide, glowing faintly.

But Mili wasn’t awake. Her lips moved without sound; her arms outstretched as though cradling something.

Then a voice came—not from Mili, but from within her.

Soft. Ancient. Fractured like wind through broken glass.

“Phi phi… he’s trying to steal my breath.”

Sangpi gasped. “Sintu?”

“He binds me with the remnants of my body. Hair. Ash. Bone.

He speaks the old words—words I swore no one would remember.”

“But you remember me.”

“You and the girl. The new child of light. She carries my flicker now.”

Mili’s chest began to glow—right at her heart. The light was small, like a candle in the rain, but steady.

“Protect her,” the voice whispered. “She is more than my return.

She is my freedom.”

Sangpi reached forward, brushing hair from Mili’s forehead. “What do we do?”

The glow pulsed, as if answering.

“Bring the Circle to the shrine. All who remember. All who believe.

Before the moon turns black.”

Then the light vanished.

Mili collapsed softly into Sangpi’s lap, breathing steadily once again.

And outside, the winds began to gather—not in fear, but in fury.