Chapter 1 – The Town of Ebonfall
The town of Ebonfall always seemed to exist in twilight, even when the sun was high. Its cobbled streets curled like veins through the mist, and the old iron lamps—forever sputtering with dim fire—looked more like watchful eyes than beacons of light. Few travelers came here willingly. Fewer still stayed.
For Aria, however, Ebonfall was all she had ever known. The daughter of a healer, she had grown up tending herbs, learning remedies, and carrying baskets of dried lavender to the sick. By day she moved among neighbors who greeted her with weary smiles, but by night she wandered. Always wandering, always restless.
The moon was her secret friend. She would slip out long after her mother had gone to bed, barefoot on the damp stones, following the silver glow through empty alleys. Something in the darkness called to her—something the town whispered about but never named aloud.
That night, the call felt stronger.
The mist had thickened, swallowing sound and sight. As Aria turned down an alley near the old church ruins, she heard it: a muffled groan, sharp and pained, like someone trying to stifle their suffering.
Her heart raced, but her healer's instincts overpowered fear. She followed the sound.
There, crumpled against the wall, was a man.
His clothes—dark, torn, and dusted with blood—clung to him like a second skin. His hair was black as raven feathers, his face pale, striking, almost inhumanly beautiful even in pain. His hand clutched his side where blood seeped between his fingers.
"Sir… you're hurt," Aria whispered, kneeling beside him.
The man's eyes shot open.
They were not the eyes of any man she had ever seen. Crimson. Glowing faintly in the mist.
Aria froze. Every warning she had ever heard about monsters, about creatures of the night, slammed into her mind. Her throat went dry, her legs urged her to run—yet she stayed.
Because in those eyes she saw not hunger, but desperation. A silent plea.
"Leave," he rasped, voice low and edged with something dangerous. "For your own sake."
Aria shook her head, pulling cloth from her satchel. "No. If I leave you like this, you'll die."
A bitter smile curved his lips. "Death does not come so easily to me."
He tried to push her away, but his strength faltered. She pressed the cloth against his wound anyway, ignoring the heat of his gaze.
"What's your name?" she asked, hands trembling but steady in their work.
The man hesitated, then whispered, "Lucian."
The name felt heavy, like a secret carried for centuries.
And though Aria didn't yet understand it, this moment—her kneeling in the moonlit mist, him broken and bleeding yet still terrifying—was the beginning of everything.
Because once you touch darkness, it never lets you go.