🌙 CHAPTER 1 — The Night the Moon Chose Me
The moon was too bright that night.
Luce had lived sixteen peaceful years in the village of Asterden—a quiet place nestled in a valley of violet flowers where people cared only about harvest seasons, lantern festivals, and the old folktales told by hearth-fire. Life here was gentle, predictable… until this night.
Wind rustled through the wooden roofs and shook the paper fortune-strips hanging outside the houses. The moon hung so low that Luce could almost trace the grooves on its surface. He sat in his backyard, staring at the silver pendant he had found beneath the ancient oak tree earlier that day—an odd little thing engraved with crescent sigils and comet-like strokes.
“It’s glowing…” Luce whispered.
A soft blue radiance pulsed from the metal, like a heartbeat.
He wasn’t frightened. Just curious. Ever since he was small, he’d felt like he didn’t fully belong in this peaceful world—like he was meant for something else, somewhere else. But he never said that to anyone. Not even to Elise, his childhood friend.
Suddenly, the pendant trembled in his palm.
Then again.
Then harder—
“Luce!” Elise’s voice called from the gate. “You’re still awake? I saw a weird light coming from your hou—”
She stopped.
Because the moon had changed color.
The entire valley flooded with a luminous, ethereal blue, as if the moon had become a great magic orb suspended above the world. The violet flowers seemed to shimmer in response.
“What… what is happening?” Elise whispered, stepping back.
Luce stood abruptly.
“It’s not me,” he blurted. “I swear it’s not me.”
But before Elise could say anything, the ground trembled. A cold wind surged from the direction of Nightwood—the forbidden forest everyone avoided.
Then—
The sky cracked.
Not literally, but it looked that way: thin fissures of glowing light split across the heavens, as if the night sky were glass under pressure. At the center of those cracks, a circular rift opened, expanding like a widening eye.
Elise grabbed Luce’s sleeve. “Luce, something is coming. Something bad!”
Luce didn’t answer.
Because the pendant suddenly ripped free from his hand and shot upward.
A beam of silver-blue light pierced the sky.
The rift widened.
And then a voice—soft as wind, echoing like ancient bells—spoke inside Luce’s mind.
“Chosen one… the Moon of Fate has awakened…”
Luce’s breath caught.
Elise stared at him, horrified. “Luce… you heard something, didn’t you?”
Before he could answer, the sky poured down light—pure lunar brilliance swirling like a waterfall of stars—and it crashed into him.
“Luce!”
Elise ran toward him, but a shockwave of wind threw her back.
Luce’s vision exploded.
Suddenly he saw—
A floating city surrounded by rings of light.
A silver sword blazing like a comet.
Warriors clad in white cloaks.
A monstrous figure with crimson eyes.
And… a young man who looked exactly like Luce—older, colder, carrying the weight of entire worlds.
Then everything dissolved.
Luce collapsed to his knees, breathless.
Elise scrambled to him, shaking his shoulders. “Talk to me! Are you okay?!”
“I… I heard something,” Luce gasped. “It said the Moon of Fate… has chosen me…”
Elise froze. “The prophecy? You mean the ancient prophecy people say is just a fairy tale?”
Luce didn’t get a chance to reply.
A shrill, unnatural scream erupted from the forest.
A dark, twisted shape burst through the trees. Its eyes glowed bright red, its limbs jerking unnaturally, its mouth gaping with broken, bone-like fangs.
A Nightspawn.
Luce stumbled back. “No way—they went extinct a hundred years ago!”
But the creature didn’t care about history.
It lunged.
Elise screamed.
Luce instinctively stepped in front of her—but he had no weapon, no magic, nothing—
The pendant flared.
A blast of moonlight erupted, slamming into the Nightspawn.
CRACK!
The creature was thrown across the field, skidding and shrieking.
Elise clutched Luce’s arm. “What—what was that?!”
“I don’t know,” he whispered, staring at the burning-hot pendant.
The Nightspawn rose again, black blood dripping from its wounds. It let out a distorted snarl.
No second blast came.
Elise’s voice trembled. “Luce… maybe we should run…”
But Luce took a step forward.
“No. I… feel something. Like something inside me is waking up.”
The Nightspawn screeched and charged.
The pendant glowed—
But before Luce could act, a red arc of light sliced through the air.
SHRRK!
The monster was cleaved cleanly in two, dissolving into black mist.
A young man appeared from the drifting smoke—snow-gray hair, long dark coat swaying behind him, golden eyes burning like dawnlight in winter.
He planted his glowing sword into the ground and looked directly at Luce.
“At last,” he said. “I’ve found you.”
Luce’s heartbeat stuttered. Elise clung to him.
The young man touched his chest with a knight’s gesture.
“I am Kael,” he said. “Warrior of the Lunar Vanguard.”
He stepped closer, the moonlight casting him in silver.
“And from this moment on…” His gaze pierced Luce’s as if seeing through his soul. “…I am your protector, Chosen of the Moon.”
Luce swallowed, his world tilted, rewritten.
“Protector?” he echoed weakly.
Kael nodded once, solemn.
“The Moon has marked you, Luce Asterden. And destiny will not wait.”
