🌕 Moonblood: The Curse of Arodan
Chapter Nineteen: 19
The road to Skarvale was steep and winding, carved through jagged hills and mist-draped valleys.
Draven walked at the front, the Moonblood locket thudding softly against his chest. All three names—Arilyn, Kaelen, and Syrien—burned bright inside it.
He could feel something stirring in the sky above.
Something ancient.
Something watching.
Elira rode beside him, her hood low over her face.
She hadn't spoken much since Veymoor. Not about the Hollow Duke. Not about Syrien. And certainly not about the way Callen had changed.
But now, as the wind picked up and the peaks of Skarvale came into view, she slowed her horse.
"I need to tell you something," she said.
Draven looked over. "What is it?"
"I wasn't sent to protect you," she said softly. "Not originally. I was sent to make sure you never awakened the names."
He stopped.
"What?"
She turned to face him fully. "I'm a Daughter of the Moonwell. The Sisterhood's opposite. We were told the prophecy would bring ruin, not salvation. I was supposed to keep you ignorant. To protect the world… by keeping it asleep."
Callen's horse creaked to a stop behind them. "Then why didn't you stop him?"
Elira's eyes met Draven's.
"Because I saw who you are. Not just what you carry."
They reached Skarvale by nightfall.
The city was carved into the cliffs like Veymoor, but its streets were alive with color, noise, and trade. Spices burned in the air. Lanterns floated like stars. Bells rang from towers that hadn't knelt to the Queen.
A place untouched by the war… for now.
They rented a room above a blacksmith's shop. It was small, but warm. For the first time in weeks, they heard music in the streets instead of silence.
Callen stood at the window, staring down at the crowds. "They don't know what's coming," he said.
Draven sat cross-legged, tracing the three names in the locket.
"They will."
That night, the Nameless Monster arrived in a town just two days behind.
It didn't burn.
It didn't scream.
It simply walked—and people forgot they had ever lived.
A father turned to speak to his daughter—and she was gone. A soldier drew his sword—and suddenly, he was the only man on the battlefield.
It devoured memory.
It fed on absence.
And every time it moved, a single word echoed in its wake:
"Moonblood."
At dawn, Draven and Elira went to the Skarvale archives—one of the last open libraries in Arodan.
They searched old maps, bloodline scrolls, and fragments of moonstone tablets. Most were burned, defaced, or missing.
But behind a false wall, they found it.
A box.
Locked in silver, sealed with three names carved in runes.
Elira whispered, "This is the Heartvault."
Inside, they found a single object:
A blade made of moon-crystal, glowing faintly.
Light as breath. Cold as night.
And etched with a phrase in Old Tongue:
Only the name-bound may raise me.
Draven reached for it.
The blade flared in his hand.
But Callen stepped forward.
It flared for him too.
The silence was sharp.
Draven looked at Callen. "It reacted."
"Yeah," Callen said quietly. "It did."
Elira backed away, shaken. "This… this means something. Maybe even more than we thought."
Outside, the skies darkened—not from stormclouds, but from a presence.
Something had followed their trail.
Something with no name and no mercy.
The Nameless Monster had reached Skarvale's edge.
And this time, it had come for both of them.