Phase I: The Hall of Silence
The moment Liora crossed the threshold of the Moon Court, the world changed.
It was not just the cold—though that deepened, coiling like smoke through the seams of her cloak—it was the silence. A vast, unnatural quiet that swallowed even the sound of her own heartbeat. The gates sealed behind her with a breathless finality. Not a clang. Not a groan. Just silence.
The corridor before her was carved entirely from moonstone, its surface veined with silver and violet. It pulsed faintly with living magic, as if the stone remembered every footfall, every drop of blood spilled across its ancient face. Pale, cold light shone from above—no torches, no fire, only an ambient glow that lit the passage in a spectral gleam.
As Liora walked, her boots echoed softly against the polished stone, but the sound felt like a trespass. Every step forward was an intrusion, and the walls—alive with old power—seemed to lean in, listening. Judging.
The corridor opened into a vast antechamber, circular and crowned with a high dome of mirrored glass. Moonlight poured through it like liquid silver. Below, a black marble floor was etched with intricate sigils, their purpose unreadable to Liora but throbbing with arcane energy. It felt as though if she stepped too far to one side, she might vanish—or awaken something better left sleeping.
She halted near the edge, her breath fogging in the chill. She wasn't alone.
Figures emerged from the shadows, pale and perfect, each one so still they seemed carved from ivory and shadow. They watched her with unblinking eyes—eyes in shades of starlight, frost, obsidian. Fae. High Fae.
She had seen their like in stories and nightmares, but the truth was worse than either. They were too beautiful, too otherworldly, and wrong in a way her instincts could barely articulate. Like flowers blooming in winter or a smile too wide.
A tall female fae, clad in a gown spun from what looked like falling snow, stepped forward. Her hair was white as ash, her lips the color of frostbitten rose petals. A silver circlet crowned her brow.
"You are the tribute," the woman said, her voice as smooth as crushed velvet and colder than the ice-laced wind outside.
Liora stood straighter, forcing her voice steady. "My name is Liora. I wasn't given, I came."
A murmur ran through the assembled fae—surprise, perhaps amusement. The tall woman studied her.
"You came," she echoed, as though testing the weight of the words. "That is a dangerous thing to claim, mortal. To imply choice where there is none. And yet…"
She turned slightly, gesturing toward a dark archway behind her.
"You are summoned. He waits."
Liora's breath caught.
Him.
The Fae King.
The heart of the Moon Court. The one who had ruled for centuries beneath silver skies and thorn-wrapped moons. The one who drank from goblets of mortal memory and danced with ghosts on winter nights. The one to whom she had been sent.
She didn't ask questions. Didn't stall. With her head high and heart rattling against her ribs like a trapped bird, she stepped into the archway.
The passage curved like a ribcage, its walls narrowing, growing darker. There were no lights here—only the pulse of the stone, faint and erratic, like a dying heartbeat.
Each step forward pulled her deeper into the belly of the court. Deeper into the jaws of the beast.
And yet… she didn't falter.
She would not break before the king broke her.
The throne room was not a room at all, but a hollowed cathedral of moonlight and shadow. Pale beams spilled from above, caught in crystalline arches that stretched so high, they vanished into darkness. The walls shimmered with slow-drifting runes, alive and moving like serpents under water. Above the polished obsidian floor, thorned vines crept along pillars of silver-veined marble, pulsing faintly with magic like veins through stone.
Liora walked at the center of it all—small, silent, and watched.
The courtiers flanked either side like a painted audience. Fae of impossible beauty and cruelty stood cloaked in starlight and adorned in crowns of bones, feathers, and silver. None spoke. Their eyes followed her like blades waiting for permission to cut.
And at the end of it all, upon a twisted throne of ivory and iron thorns, sat him.
The Fae King.
He was still as a statue—yet too alive to be stone. Clad in dark robes lined with metallic threads, he looked sculpted rather than born: high cheekbones like carved marble, lips curved in the faintest echo of disdain. His skin was pale as the moon, but it glowed faintly with an unearthly hue—like light seen through a stormcloud. A silver circlet rested on his brow, but it was his eyes that held her.
Eyes like eclipse fire. Eyes that didn't burn. They devoured.
For a long time, he did not speak. The silence itself was ritual—a performance, a show of power. He looked her over, not with desire or curiosity, but with the cold detachment of a scholar inspecting a blade left too long in the rain.
Liora straightened her spine.
"You are smaller than I expected," he said at last. His voice was deep, velvet wrapped around steel. "And bolder."
"I did not come here to meet your expectations," she replied, biting each word clean.
A quiet gasp passed through the room like wind through reeds. The courtiers stilled. A few looked amused. One licked the edge of her glass as though imagining Liora's blood filling it.
The King's gaze sharpened—but he didn't rise. "No," he said. "You came because you were summoned. Because your village was too weak to defend itself."
"Or too smart to waste lives for pride," she shot back.
He did not flinch. "Do you know the punishment for insolence in this court?"
"I'd guess it involves a lot of thorns," she said. "You seem fond of them."
A pause.
Then—soft, slow—he laughed. It wasn't warm. It was winter breaking a brittle branch.
"Your name?" he asked, though she was certain he already knew it.
"Liora."
"No title? No claim?"
"Only what I earn."
The King stood. The motion was fluid, effortless. Even from the distance, she could feel the weight of his presence pressing forward—like gravity, like heat, like stormclouds building behind her ribs.
"You'll find," he said, stepping down from the throne, "that nothing in this court is earned. It is taken."
He walked toward her, each footstep echoing as if marking time. She remained where she was, heart loud in her chest but her chin unshaking. When he finally stopped in front of her, he reached out—not to touch her, but to hold something out in his palm.
A single silver ring. Plain. Binding.
"Your place here is not equal," he said. "You are a guest of the Moon Court, yes. But you are still mortal. You will wear this, and you will obey."
She didn't take it.
He raised a brow. "Do you reject the laws of my court?"
"I'll follow your rules," Liora said carefully, "when they're worth following."
The courtiers whispered, stirred. The throne behind him pulsed with thornlight. But the King didn't react—not with anger. Not yet.
Instead, he dropped the ring at her feet.
"Then let your disobedience begin."
He turned and walked away.
And just like that, her fate was sealed.
The First Game
The ring lay at her feet, gleaming cold and sharp in the moonlight.
Liora didn't move. Around her, the courtiers whispered like silk on stone—low, melodious, cruel. Their language wasn't always words. It was looks, shifts of energy, the sound of bare feet on obsidian, the sudden stillness of air before a spell is cast.
One fae stepped forward.
He was tall, cloaked in sea-glass blue, with eyes like tide pools and hair braided with shells and pearls. "It's unwise to refuse the King's gift," he said, voice like rain.
"It wasn't a gift," Liora replied, at last picking up the ring. She didn't put it on. Not yet. "It was a leash."
The fae chuckled. "Then you understand better than most mortals. But you should still be careful. The last tribute who disrespected the throne now sings from the bottom of a well." He smiled. "She only screams on full moons."
Before Liora could respond, a soft chime rang out—three notes suspended in the air like floating silver. Every fae froze.
Then turned.
An attendant had appeared at the far edge of the court—draped in moon-pale robes, holding a staff of glass that pulsed faintly with runes.
"You are summoned," the attendant said to her, and only her. "By the High Council. Now."
Liora's breath stilled. The King's rejection hadn't ended the trial—it had only moved her into a new kind of danger.
She followed the attendant through an arched passage, the stone warm under her feet despite the air's chill. As they walked deeper into the castle, the walls changed—from dark and smooth to gnarled and root-woven, pulsing faintly with the heartbeat of old, buried magic.
The chamber she entered next was circular, lined with crescent mirrors that reflected not her image, but twisted glimpses of her past—her mother's face, her father's grave, the last firelight dance of her village before she was taken.
At the center stood a table of stone and antler, and around it gathered five fae—each one ancient in presence, even if they wore youthful forms. The High Council.
The one in the center, a fae woman with silver-black wings and fingers dipped in ink, spoke first.
"You defied the King."
"I spoke," Liora said.
"You refused the binding."
"I questioned its purpose."
The winged woman tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "You are bold. But not wise. That will cost you here."
Another councilor leaned forward, skin shimmering like frost over coal. "We will allow you one chance to demonstrate value. The court is not a sanctuary—it is a forge. You will burn, or be sharpened."
A third voice: "There is a hunt tomorrow. You will join it. As prey."
Liora's blood turned to ice. "Excuse me?"
"It is tradition," the winged woman said. "To test a tribute's survival. You will enter the nightwood. At moonrise, the Hunt begins. If you are still breathing at dawn, you may continue your service."
"And if not?"
"Then you become part of the land. The thorns remember everything."
Liora stared at them—at their ageless, inhuman faces. She thought of her village. Of the quiet rebellion in her chest. Of the King's eyes, not cruel, but… waiting.
"Fine," she said. "But I don't run."
The winged woman smiled.
"Then bleed beautifully, mortal."
Before the Thorns
The room they gave her was no more comforting than the halls that led to it.
It sat high in one of the crooked towers, with no door—just a threshold of gnarled ivy that parted when she stepped close and sealed behind her like a sigh. The walls were curved stone and moon-silver vines, pulsing faintly with light, as though the castle itself was alive and watching.
A basin of water shimmered in one corner, glowing with phosphorescent mist. A small table stood beside it, with a goblet of something green and a chunk of black bread that steamed faintly. She didn't touch either.
Liora leaned against the window and stared out into the courtyard below, where the nightwood loomed beyond the twisted trees. The Hunt would begin soon.
She had no armor, no blade, no allies.
She closed her eyes and breathed, reaching back—not for courage, but clarity.
She remembered her father's voice. Not loud, not soft, but sure. "Nothing wild survives by fighting head-on. You watch. You wait. You outlast the thing that thinks it owns the dark."
A rustle behind her broke the silence.
She turned—and found someone standing in her chamber.
He leaned against the ivy wall like he belonged to it. Pale hair, loosely braided. Skin the color of twilight. No glamour to him, but shadows clung like a cloak to his limbs, making his edges hard to follow. Not the King, not a Council member. But powerful.
Liora tensed. "You're not supposed to be here."
"I'm never supposed to be anywhere," he said with a lazy smile, pushing off the wall. "That's half the fun."
"What do you want?"
"Curiosity," he said, circling her. "The last tribute they sent didn't survive to speak back to the Council. Let alone insult the King in front of the entire court."
"I didn't insult him."
"You didn't kneel."
"That's not the same."
"In the Moon Court, it is."
He stepped closer. She didn't move. Didn't give him the satisfaction of stepping back.
"You don't smell like prey," he said, cocking his head. "You smell like a storm that forgot it wasn't welcome."
"Then you should stay indoors."
His smile widened, then softened.
"They've stacked the game," he said quietly. "You'll be hunted by more than beasts. Some of the nobles see the Hunt as a bloodsport. Others see you as a threat."
"Do you?"
He considered. "I see you as a question. And I like answers."
From his cloak, he withdrew a small object—a thin crystal shard, etched with runes.
"Take this," he said, holding it out. "It won't protect you. But it might confuse something long enough for you to run."
She didn't reach for it. "Why help me?"
"Because I want to know what happens when you bleed," he said softly. "And what happens when you don't."
He placed the shard on the table beside the untouched bread and vanished—dissolving into mist like a trick of moonlight.
Liora stood in the quiet that followed, staring at the shard. Then, slowly, she sat and picked it up.
It was warm in her hand. Humming faintly.
She didn't thank him.
But she kept it.
And when the chime rang once more—signaling that moonrise had begun—Liora rose.
She did not tremble.
The nightwood waited.
So did the Hunt.
The Moon's Edge
The Hunt did not begin with horns or fire or blood.
It began with silence.
Deep and vast, stretching through the courtyard as though the very air held its breath. Liora stood in a line of five, each spaced a careful distance apart. The other four tributes were not from her village. She knew none of their names.
To her left stood a lean man with eyes like molten gold. A smile played on his lips, but his fingers twitched restlessly at his sides. He reeked of steel and magic. To her right, a girl barely older than Liora trembled beneath layers of silk armor too fine to be practical—someone's pet sent to play at bravery.
Above them all, the Moon Court watched from their balconies—ivory and silver figures draped in veils, armor, velvet. Silent and still as statues, but she could feel their gazes, sharp as blades, lingering on her like she was already bleeding.
And at the highest spire, seated in a crescent throne carved of obsidian and bone, was him.
The Moon King.
No crown. No smile. Just shadow pooling beneath his eyes and a gaze that pinned her in place like a curse. The air thinned when his eyes met hers.
A gong sounded—deep and ancient, not struck by mortal hands. The ground trembled with it.
A fae woman glided forward from the gate. Her robes shimmered with spider silk and frost. She carried no weapon, only a black scroll tied with red cord.
Her voice echoed across the courtyard, smooth and merciless.
"Tributes. You enter not a forest, but a boundary. Not a Hunt, but a reckoning. You have until the moon sets to return to this gate."
A pause.
"Return, or be returned in pieces."
No laughter. No drama. Just truth.
She snapped the scroll open and read a list of names, including Liora's. Each was followed by a rune carved in silver on the ground at their feet—warding marks, ancient and painful. They glowed once, then sank into the earth.
The gates behind them creaked open.
The nightwood stretched beyond, vast and endless. No path. No guide. Only silver thorns, black trees with bones at their roots, and a mist that shimmered with trapped whispers.
No one moved.
Then the golden-eyed man smirked and stepped forward into the mist.
The girl to Liora's right hesitated, then followed.
Liora waited a breath longer. Then she moved.
The cold met her first. Not just the chill of night, but a cold that dragged on memory, on fear. Her breath fogged the air like a ghost. Twigs cracked underfoot, but the sound didn't echo—swallowed by the magic that curled through the wood like smoke.
She passed the first line of trees and the gate vanished behind her.
There was no turning back now.
Her senses sharpened. Somewhere distant, a scream was swallowed by wind. Not human. Not quite animal.
The Hunt had begun.
And Liora was not prey.
Not yet.