Ashenlight never slept, although the city sometimes wished it would. Smudge-stained spires scrabbled at the grime overhead, where the gaslamps glowed as uncertain stars. The wind was heavy with iron, coal, and the distant perfume of rain that was to come. Children played barefoot in alleys, their cries dying on vendor shouts above the ring of trams, but this night, laughter perished beneath the shadow of something darker.
Elias Veyren took Seraphine's hand, sensing the heat of her fingertips against his rough skin. Their lives were plain, based in ash-smeared streets and forgotten factories, but amidst the grime and cacophony of Ashenlight, even that seemed home when she was near. They strolled through the market, by the vendors of dried fish and candle wax, by the accordionists and the soothsayers, and into the core of the city where darkness appeared to collect like smoke on the river.
It started low, keening — a cry that slithered under the ribcage and settled in the lungs. Elias tensed, watching Seraphine. Her brow knitted.
"I heard it too," she breathed.
He did not speak. The noise was louder, jagged and hollow, coiling around the light of the lamp. There were dogs barking in the distance, their yips swallowed almost at once by the din of something unnatural. Then the streets themselves seemed to shudder.
A form stepped out of the mist. A misshapen hulk, metallic and grotesque in its shape. Twisted limbs where they were not meant to be, fingers tipped with rusty shards of blackened metal. The Howler, a B-grade Preta spoken of only in quiet murmurs, had made its way into the city. Its eyes, two hot coals set in a distorted face, settled on them.
"Run!" Elias bellowed, pulling Seraphine into the closest alley.
The monster's howl sounded again, its cry one that shredded the fringes of the mind. The earth shook, cobblestones splitting, gaslamps swaying and spitting sparks. Those around them screamed and ran in terror, like leaves in a hurricane. Elias's gut contracted — he was not running fast enough.
And then it occurred.
The lantern, long in stasis in the drawer of his father's workroom, flared to life in his hand. Green-blue fire flowed over his hands, twisting and curling like a living thing. Elias felt the heat, not on his hand, but in his lungs, a burning that seeped into his bones.
Chains burst from the lantern, ghostly and radiant, wrapping around him like mournful serpents. They snapped outward, ensnaring the Howler's limbs in a power that sent metal screaming. Elias jerked back, sensing the chains push against him, as if alive — fueled by his sorrow.
"Elias… what is that?" Seraphine wailed, but he had no words.
The other power of the lantern burst at the fear, the desperation: nether fires, darker than darkness but with the same green-blue tinge, consumed the Howler in a fireless blaze. It screamed, the ripping of metal and bone, but the fire did not consume flesh — it did not make it burn, but unmake it, its form unraveling like an unwoven tapestry being pulled apart thread by thread.
Elias stepped back, pulling Seraphine with him. His hands trembled, the chains curling and uncurling of their own volition, the nether fire lapping the boundaries of reality. He had never controlled the lantern previously; never understood that it could react so completely to his feelings, to his want.
And yet, even as the beast died, torn and unshaped, a portion of him shrank away. The fire breathed, savoring his sorrow, parodying her dying before it had occurred.
A shadow attacked from behind the alley. The Howler had not been alone. Its friends — smaller, wiry, with emaciated faces — attacked. Panic ripped through Elias's mind. He swung the chains, catching one, then another. Nether fire followed, burning the shadows where the chains could not reach.
Seraphine screamed. He turned — too late.
The closest Preta charged. Elias swung it down in chains, pulling back, but the strength sent him crashing to the cobblestones. Agony ripped through him, and he saw, beyond the veil of flame and darkness, Seraphine falling. The beast's claws had struck her.
"No!"
He leapt to his feet, lantern burning brighter, chains lashing like storm-torn ropes, fire twirling down the alley. The Preta screamed and fled from the double ferocity of loss and darkness. But the harm was accomplished. Seraphine did not move, white under the gaslamp light, life extinguished from her eyes.
Elias collapsed beside her, trembling, the light of the lantern creating long, shaking shadows on the pavement.
Why… why now?" His voice wavered, his words ringing from the Ashenlight walls. The lantern's green-blue flames lapped back at him in response, feeding on his despair. Chains cinched around the Preta bodies lying on the ground; nether flames danced voraciously.
He knew, with a cold understanding, that this was no longer survival. This was power — power to avenge, power to protect, power to comprehend the darkness that had stolen her from him. The lantern had stirred, not as a weapon, but as part of him.
And it had selected him.
He climbed upward, holding Seraphine for one last moment before depositing her into the alley. The city was peaceful now, too still — the Howler's wail lost, but the shudder in the streets remaining. Eyes peered out from dark windows; tomorrow, whispers would circulate. They would term it tragedy, accident, misfortune. They would not know what had truly occurred.
Elias's hands blazed with the light of the lantern. Chains wrapped his wrists, their metal tight and living. Nether fire danced along the boundaries of the alley, burning nothing and changing everything that they touched.
He lived. She died.
And from that night forward, Ashenlight would know a fear unlike any other: the green-blue, quiet light of the boy who had lost all, and gained enough power to fight back against the darkness itself.
As he vanished into the mist, the lantern throbbed again — a beat of sorrow, revenge, and something ancient, calling from somewhere else: the Preta were not done, and neither was he.
//
A/N-
Heyya fellas, Arch Tysonoo here!
The world I am building right now would be around 1900s gothic theme, you'll know more about as we progress but be sure to give Powerstones and comment if you can.