He stood atop the palace's highest spire, cloaked in black silk and shadow.
The wind howled around him like a beast in mourning. His cape danced with the storm. But he didn't move.
Far below, the city of Caeryn slept unaware, unbothered.
But not for long.
The Crow Prince had returned.
No one knew his real name anymore. Whispers called him a ghost. A traitor. A relic of a war buried by time.
But to those who remembered…
he was something worse:
A man who once loved a Moonborn.
And watched her die screaming.
His mask was carved obsidian, shaped like the skull of a crow sharp-beaked, faceless. His eyes behind it glowed faint gold, not from magic, but from something colder.
Hatred.
He lifted a parchment to the wind, letting it snap like a wound reopening.
It was a royal command. Fresh ink. Fresh seal. A new hunt.
"Wanted: Moonborn male. Silver eyes. Star-shaped scar."
"Extremely dangerous. Kill on sight."
He crushed the paper in his gloved hand and turned toward the woods in the far distance.
The Blackwood Forest.
"I know you're alive," he murmured.
"To be born again under the red moon… it had to be you."
The wind didn't answer.
But something in the shadows moved.
Far from the tower, inside a palace chamber soaked in candlelight, Lyra sat at her desk, reading the letter again.
Her fingertips trembled along the words. She could barely sleep. The name "Moonborn" echoed in her skull, but she had no answers only a feeling.
A deep, cold knowing.
Something is coming.
She didn't know that far away, in the forest, someone else was wide awake too.
Riven couldn't sleep.
The stars were still speaking.
Louder now. Urgent.
He sat beside the fire, clutching the hilt of his blade.
The swordmaster watched him silently.
"Tonight, you begin," the man said.
"Begin what?"
The firelight danced across his scarred face. "Your path."
"Where does it lead?"
The swordmaster's voice dropped to a whisper.
"To the crown…
and to your death."
And in the dark skies above, the red moon flickered behind passing clouds.
The Crow Prince watched.
And waited.