Waning Crescent [COMPLETE]

Nox took off his brown gloves made of soft calfskin and looked at the back of his right hand. His Mark, which only three years ago had looked like a filled circle, now formed a thin crescent.

‘What bad luck...’ he thought.

Like every Marked person, Nox was born with a Mark in the shape of a full moon. And like everyone else, he knew that when its shape was reduced to a new moon, it would mean his end.

Completely exhausted, lying on a barren slope, Nox thought, ‘So this is how it ends’.

He was calm; the fatigue was taking away the clarity of his mind.

Nearby, the fire was slowly dying out, everything was fading, just like the fire in his heart.

He had just wanted to walk a short distance to get more firewood, and yet he was failing to muster the strength to get back to his makeshift camp after collapsing on the way back.

He reminded himself that with only a few hours or days left to live, he mustn’t forget to untie his horse from the branch of the only tree in this cursed land. He hoped at least the horse would make it out alive. It would be disastrous if it got lost or returned here looking for its rider.

Most Marked lived long, unremarkable lives. They wielded the Power of the Moon with care, knowing that every use chipped away at their vitality, shortening the span of their years.

Not Nox.

He had no power.

No strength, no abilities. Just that birthmark on his hand; dull, misshapen...

...and utterly useless.

He couldn’t use it, couldn’t channel, let alone even feel the Moon’s strength. And yet, somehow, his Mark had begun to change. It had quickly faded, shrivelled at the edges, as if he’d been using power he knew he didn’t have. As if something inside him was burning it anyway.

Nox had always considered his Moon to be incredibly ugly, a brown circle the colour of a muddy puddle. It might have even seemed like a normal birthmark to someone who had never encountered the Marked. He had never met anyone outside his family who bore a brown one. Their purpose? Unknown. No inherited skill, no obvious blessing. The world didn’t even classify them. Nox believed the brown Marks were simply a mistake, a fluke, the Moon’s oversight. It was a curse. Taking away their lives, one by one.

‘Oh Moon, you gave us some real crap’, Nox muttered under his breath.

Out of four brothers, only two were left: him and his youngest brother Abram.

Just like Nox, Abram also had the same brown Mark in the same place, but on the top of his left hand. Luckily, unlike Nox’s, his Moon was completely intact and still looked like a filled circle.For now.

Each of the brothers had started to lose strength at some point, as if one by one they were falling ill with some strange disease. The smooth edges of their circles began to blur, then warp, curling inward into the shape of a crescent. As the form twisted, so did their strength falter, subtle at first, then catastrophic. Now, there were only two of them.

Or rather, one.

Nox already thought of himself as dead.

The greatest support for the family had been their father, Karn, who was also Marked. His broad chest was adorned not with the brown but with a bright red Mark in the shape of three-quarters of the moon instead. His name was well-known because he was truly a great swordsman. It was thanks to him that his family was able to live a quite comfortable life. Nox’s father mostly relied on his own skills, rarely using the power of the Moon, unlike other warriors, who, despite their young age, had already reduced their power to a half-moon.

All swordsmen had red Marks, and Nox always thought that the warrior Red class was probably the best thing that could happen to you.

But if you didn’t have too much bad luck, you could be born with a Blue Mark, as a healer instead. Blue Moons were rarer still. Their colour marked healers; people with the ability to soothe pain, accelerate healing, and, sometimes, cure even the most grievous wounds.

And then... There were the Green Marks. Nox shuddered at the mere thought, unwilling to remember what one of said bearers had done to him in his last weeks.

But Brown ones? Those seemed just useless.

He laughed humourlessly, still looking at his hand. “What a joke,” he muttered, gasping for air. “No power, and yet I still even more pathetic than any other marked person.” His sword, while still within reach, was now nothing more than a decoration.

Now lying down in this mud, he hoped that someone would send his final letter to his family that he had in his pocket. His beloved father and Abram had supported him as best they could. Nox thought about how much he would give now to return to them.

Nox felt tears begin to well in his eyes. At first, it was just a single drop, which he wiped away with his right thumb, but soon the floodgates opened, and streams of tears spilled down his face, soaking into his shirt.‘At my old age, I have turned into a softie’, he thought.

Nox cried from longing and the injustice of fate. If he had known that his desperate search for a cure would be for nothing, he would never have left his family. To be able to curl up in the arms of his father and brother.

Oh, if only he could go back in time just to slap himself for making that stupid decision...

He closed his eyes again and drifted back to the events of the past few years.