Eclipse of Destiny
Chapter One: Shadows Beneath the Silver Sky
The moon was restless.
It hung heavy in the night sky, pale and swollen, as though some hidden hand were tugging it closer to the world. Elara had always felt it watching her—no, not watching, but pulling. As if her bones answered to it, as if her blood pulsed with its cold rhythm.
Her mother, Liora, used to say she had been "born under a silver omen." Her father, Mareth, would laugh, brushing off the superstition as villagers' nonsense. But he did not laugh tonight. Not when the wind whispered like a thousand hidden voices through the fields. Not when the dogs in the valley howled as if mourning something already dead.
Elara was seventeen the night her life cracked open.
She had been carrying a basket of melons back from the fields, her muscles straining, her breath fogging in the cooling air. Farming was all she had known—blisters, aching backs, the scent of wet soil in spring, the drone of insects in summer. Hard, honest work. The work of survival.
But survival was fragile.
The first sign was small: the basket slipped. Reflex should have left her helpless to stop it, but her arm lashed out with inhuman speed, her hand snapping beneath the tumbling weight before it struck the earth. For a moment, she stood frozen, staring at her trembling fingers.
Too fast. Too precise.
Her mother saw. Liora's eyes widened, not with surprise but with recognition. The kind of recognition that carried fear.
"You've felt it, haven't you?" she asked quietly, her voice tighter than usual.
Elara swallowed, the basket suddenly heavier than before. "The world slowed down. My body… it just moved."
Liora looked over her shoulder toward the barn where Mareth was sharpening a blade. "It's time," she whispered, almost to herself. Then louder: "Mareth!"
Her father's head lifted, the lantern light glinting on his weathered face. He came quickly, his gait strong, deliberate. The moment his eyes touched Elara, he seemed to know. His jaw clenched.
That night, by the fire, they told her the truth.
"You are not only our daughter," Mareth said, staring into the flames as though the words burned him. "You are of Selunara—the colony of the moon. Blood of the lunar kind runs in you. That blood carries gifts."
"Gifts?" Elara's voice cracked.
Liora touched her cheek, her eyes both tender and afraid. "Speed, strength, flight. And more—powers yet sleeping, waiting for the moon to wake them."
Elara's skin went cold. Power was not freedom. Power was a noose. She saw it in her parents' faces, in the way they looked at her not with pride, but with dread.
"Why now?" she whispered.
Her father's eyes flicked toward the door. "Because shadows are moving across the land. And when shadows stir, they hunt the light."
The shadows came two nights later.
Elara woke to the sound of silence. Not ordinary silence, but the kind that crushes, as though the world itself held its breath. She blinked, disoriented. She was not in her bed.
She was in the middle of the field.
Her bare feet pressed into the cold soil. Her nightgown clung to her skin with dew. She had no memory of walking here. Above, the moon glared down, swollen and merciless.
"Elara!"
Her parents came running, torches blazing. But before they could reach her, the wind died, and a new presence filled the night.
From the treeline, a figure stepped into view. Tall, draped in a cloak that seemed woven from night itself. His face was hidden, but his eyes burned gold—molten, predatory.
"Ah," he said, his voice deep and resonant, sliding into her bones. "The little seed has sprouted."
Elara's breath caught in her throat.
Mareth moved in front of her, the torch shaking in his grip. "Stay back."
The figure laughed softly. The flame sputtered and died in Mareth's hand, snuffed out as though the night itself obeyed him. Darkness thickened, coiling like smoke.
"Who are you?" Elara forced out, though her knees quivered.
The man bowed with a mocking grace. "I am Kaelith, once of the Lunar Order, now its rightful heir. When Selunara fell, I chose survival over servitude. I drank the void, and it made me eternal." His lips curled into something sharp. "And it gave me you."
Elara's heart slammed against her ribs. She did not know him, yet something in his voice clawed at her, as if some part of her blood remembered his touch.
"No," she whispered. "You'll never have me."
Kaelith's laugh cracked across the field like thunder. "Bravery tastes sweeter when it ripens into fear. And fear, little moonborn, is the beginning of obedience."
The earth beneath him split, black energy surging upward. Crops shriveled into dust. The barn shuddered and collapsed in flames though no fire had touched it.
Mareth shoved Elara toward Liora. "Run!"
Elara's feet rooted to the soil. Something vast stirred in her chest, swelling until it hurt. Her veins burned silver. The moon above pulsed like a heartbeat. Her skin shimmered with light.
Kaelith's smile faltered. His golden eyes narrowed. "Ah… so soon."
The light burst from her like a storm. Darkness recoiled, shrieking, as though it could feel pain. Kaelith staggered back, shielding his face.
Her body lifted from the earth, weightless. Air whipped around her, hair streaming like silver fire. She was flying.
Her parents fell to their knees, awe and terror mingling.
Kaelith lowered his hand, his grin returning though his voice carried strain. "Yes. Good. Very good. Grow, little moonborn. Grow strong. The brighter your flame, the sweeter it will be when I snuff it out."
He dissolved into smoke, leaving only the stink of ash and iron.
Elara crashed back to the earth, gasping, her body trembling as if it had been torn open. Mareth and Liora rushed to her side, gripping her arms, steadying her.
"You see now," her father said, his voice grim, his eyes blazing. "The world will not let you hide. He has found you. And others will follow."
Elara looked to the sky. The moon glared down, silent, merciless. Her heart pounded with terror, with wonder, with the promise of war.
For the first time, she understood the weight of her parents' silence all these years.
She was not just their daughter.
She was prey.