Emberhollow was a village that never trusted the dark, It clung to the foot of Blackpine Ridge like a stubborn weed, small and stubborn in a world older than its own name ,The night usually carried only the hush of pines and the lonely hoot of owls.
Tonight, it carried screams, Liral woke to the scent of burning thatch thick, acrid, wrong.
She moved before fear could catch her, rolling from her cot, bare feet hitting packed earth. Her hand closed around the ash wood staff by instinct, the one she slept beside the way other girls held dolls or lovers.
Orange light flared through her lone window. Not lightning, Not fire from a hearth, Something hungry, Something alive.
She was down the ladder in a heartbeat. Out the door before her boots could be laced.
Chaos waited for her, Shadow-beasts beings shaped from smoke, bone, and too many joints—poured through a torn section of the northern palisade. They moved like spilled ink given hunger and claws. Old Marta from the bakery lay crumpled near the well, throat open to the sky. A child's small shoe lay burning beside her.
Lira pulse thundered, but her muscles remembered what her mind could not yet process.
Wolves, boar, predators she had hunted all her life. These things were wrong and ancient and fast, but the lesson was the same
Find the heart ,End the threat.
She stepped into the square, A beast turned toward her, eyes glowing like wet coal and then It lunged.
Her body moved without thought staff spinning with the fluid precision her foster father drilled into her wrist, elbow, shoulder, drive from the hips. The iron cap caught the creature under the jaw. The impact sounded like splitting green wood.
It dissolved into black mist that smelled of grave soil and cold iron.
Another came ,Then another, Lira fought like a storm, Breath sharp. Movements honed by necessity. Claws raked across her ribs—fire ripped along her side but she pivoted inside its reach, ramming the butt of her staff into the creature's chest. Another dropped from a rooftop; she ducked, braid catching on claws, rolled, and rose ready to strike.
But they were too many,
They circled, hissing, shadows tightening around her. Blood warmed her flank. Her breath dragged in her lungs, No escape. No hope.
Asilver arrow shattered the nearest beast's skull.
Then a second, then third, From between two burning houses stepped a figure cloaked in forest green, longbow drawn with the kind of ease that came only from centuries, not years. Moonlight caught in silver hair and the sharp, elegant angles of an elven face.
He did not speak, He simply loosed arrow after arrow, faster than her eyes could track. Each one found the core of a shadow-heart. In moments the pack lay dissolving into the night, Silence swallowed the square—broken only by crackling fire and far-off screams.
The elf lowered his bow and looked at her.
Eyes green as leaves touched by dawn. Eyes that saw too much.
You're bleeding, he said—voice low, melodic, edged with something dangerous and tender all at once.
Lira looked down. Her shirt clung to her ribs, dark with blood. Pain arrived a heartbeat later, sharp enough to buckle her legs, He caught her.
His hands were strong, steadying her with ease. He smelled of pine resin and winter wind. One palm pressed over her wound; warmth spread outward like glowing embers,
Stay still, he murmured.
Light flared beneath his touch soft, golden, ancient. Flesh knit. Pain ebbed. A scar remained, pale and new.
Lira stared at him, breath catching. Who are you?
"Kazeal of the Moonlit Glade." His mouth curved—not quite a smile, but enough to steal the air from her lungs. "And you, little flame, just sent up a signal the entire Shadow Empire will feel."
A burning rooftop collapsed behind them, spraying sparks into the sky like frantic fireflies.
Kazeal gaze flicked upward. "We need to go. Now. Hunters will be here soon, and I'd rather not face an army tonight."
Lira looked around at ruined homes, fallen neighbors, the only world she had ever known dying in fire and shadow. Something in her chest splintered, I have nothing to take, she whispered.
Kazeal reached out and gently brushed soot or maybe tears—from her cheek. His touch was barely there, but her body reacted as if lightning had kissed her skin.
"Then take me," he said softly.
Heat coiled low in her belly. His pupils tightened, as if he felt the shift in her pulse.
A horn sounded in the distance—deep, mournful, echoing with something older than language.
The hunters were coming.
Lira tightened her grip on her staff. Lead the way, elf.
At that, kazeal finally smiled—real, crooked, and unfairly beautiful, He offered his hand.
She took it, Together they fled into the burning night—the first sparks of a fire that might save the world or consume it entirely.