Blood Moon
The forest did not sleep. It waited.
Cold settled over the world like something alive, creeping through bark and stone, sinking into the frozen streams that wound between the trees. Overhead, the spine trees clawed at the night sky, their twisted branches black against the blood moon.
Nysera felt the cold even through her gloves. It always found a way in.
The wind tugged at the edge of her cloak as she stepped out of the treeline and onto the cliff, and the forest simply stopped there, like it had been cut with a knife. Below her, the land dropped away into a valley, and in that valley sat a village that had no idea what kind of night this was.
Warm light spilled from its windows. Lanterns swung gently over doorways. Laughter drifted up on the wind — real laughter, the kind that hadn't heard of blood moons or the things that came with them.
A group of children were racing through the narrow streets below, and for a moment Nysera let herself just watch them. One little girl tripped over her own feet and went sprawling, and the others howled with laughter as she popped back up and kept running like nothing had happened.
Normal. Careless. Safe.
It made something twist painfully behind Nysera's ribs.
They have no idea what's coming.
Behind her, she heard Daniel step up beside her, silent as always until he wanted to be heard. His sharp eyes swept the village once, twice, cataloguing it the way he catalogued everything.
"They're not here," he said finally.
Ramsha came up on his other side, pulling her cloak tighter like the cold had personally offended her. "Maybe they haven't arrived yet," she offered. Then, after a beat: "Or we got bad information."
Sam, leaning against a nearby tree with the kind of forced casualness that fooled nobody, shrugged without opening his eyes. "Wouldn't be the first time."
"A diversion, then?" Ramsha asked.
"Wouldn't be the first time," he said again, and somehow made it sound like a different sentence.
For a moment nobody spoke. Nysera stayed at the edge of the cliff, eyes fixed on the village, and the blood moon burned faint and red in her irises.
Something felt wrong. Not the village — the village was fine, was normal, was everything a village was supposed to be. It was the night itself. Like the darkness around them was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen so it could let it out again.
"If they're moving somewhere else," she said at last, "we move first. We scout quietly, find them, and stay hidden until we know what we're dealing with. No one moves until I say."
The others turned to her at once — three sets of eyes, three different kinds of trust.
Nysera raised one hand. Red light flickered beneath her skin, faint at first and then brighter, and the air around them rippled like heat over stone.
"Stay close. Get ready."
The world folded in on itself.
And then it was gone.
—
A heartbeat later they were standing on the rooftops above the village, all four of them together, the cold air hitting differently up here — thinner, sharper, closer to the moon.
From this height, everything felt more fragile. Smoke curled lazily from dying hearth fires. Somewhere a dog barked at nothing. They watched in silence as the night wore on, as one by one the lanterns went dark and families shuffled indoors, as the laughter thinned out and finally vanished altogether, the village folding itself up for the night like it had somewhere better to be.
"They're idiots," Ramsha said, breaking the quiet. She was sitting on the roof's edge with her knees drawn up to her chest, glaring down at the empty streets like they owed her money.
Sam cracked one eye open. "Why?"
She jabbed a finger at the blood moon. "Because it's a blood moon." Her voice dropped, going flatter, more serious. "And they were celebrating like it's a festival."
A cold wind swept the rooftops, dragging the smell of smoke with it.
"Vampires don't share nights like this," Ramsha muttered, shaking her head.
Sam followed her gaze down to the quiet streets. "Doesn't matter." His expression darkened. "This village was next."
The words landed heavy and stayed there.
Daniel exhaled slowly through his nose. "Creatures like them don't need reasons." His eyes never left the streets below. "Breathing is enough."
Ramsha swallowed hard, and for the first time all night the confidence she'd been wearing all evening started to crack at the seams. She hated blood moons. Hated the stories that came with them. Hated, more than anything, that tonight she couldn't shake the feeling that every one of those stories was true.
She leaned in, lowering her voice like the night itself might be listening.
"I heard the prince killed someone once."
Sam snorted. "The prince?"
"They say a servant bumped into him by accident." She nodded like she was confirming something to herself. "He killed her without even looking at her."
Daniel groaned. "Here we go."
"I'm serious."
"Where exactly," Sam asked, fighting a grin, "did you hear that?"
"A tavern."
"A tavern."
"A very reliable tavern."
Daniel laughed under his breath despite himself. Ramsha folded her arms, unimpressed by the lack of respect being shown to her sources.
"Laugh all you want. When he shows up and turns all of you into decorative furniture, don't come crying to me."
Sam nearly choked trying not to laugh outright, and even Daniel's mouth twitched at the corner.
Only Nysera stayed quiet. Watching. Listening. Waiting for something none of them could name yet.
Then she froze.
It happened so fast that Daniel caught it immediately — the change in her, subtle but total, like a candle being pinched out. His smile vanished.
"What is it?"
She didn't answer. Couldn't, really — not with words. The hair on the back of her neck had risen on its own, and every instinct she had was screaming at once. Not a sound. Not movement. A presence. Heavy. Ancient. Wrong in a way that settled into her bones before her mind had even caught up.
The air thickened around them. The temperature dropped so fast it felt like a slap.
Ramsha felt it too. Whatever joke she'd been about to make died in her throat, and her stomach twisted itself into a knot.
Below them, fog began pooling into the streets — slow at first, drifting lazily between the houses, and then not slow at all. It spread thick and dark and somehow alive, swallowing one street, then another, then another, until the entire village had vanished beneath it.
And then the silence came. Total silence. No dogs. No laughter. No voices.
Nothing.
Daniel crouched lower without a word. Sam's hand curled tight against the roof tiles. Ramsha could hear her own pulse hammering in her ears, loud enough to drown out everything else.
The fog shifted. Parted.
And they came walking out of it.
They didn't sneak. Didn't bother hiding. They walked through the ruined, silent streets like kings coming home to a kingdom that already belonged to them.
At the center of it all was a man in black.
Tall. Elegant. The kind of terrifying that didn't need to raise its voice.
Vaerion.
His name alone had haunted half the continent for years. And somehow, in person, he was worse — because there was no rage in him, no visible cruelty twisting his features. Just boredom. As if the entire world, villages and screaming and blood moons included, had simply failed to hold his attention.
Beside him walked Marcus, hands tucked lazily into his pockets, looking for all the world like a man strolling to a party instead of a massacre.
Vaerion's gaze swept across the ruined streets below with all the interest of a man reading a shopping list. Then he laughed. Quietly. And the sound of it slid under Ramsha's skin like a splinter.
Her breath caught. For the first time all night, the fear stopped being an idea and became something real.
"Guys…" Her voice came out smaller than she meant it to.
Nobody looked away from the street.
"I'm actually scared," she admitted.
Sam burst out laughing — a short, disbelieving bark. "Scared of who?"
She smacked his arm hard enough to sting. "Be serious."
Daniel's eyes never left Vaerion. And for once — for the first time Ramsha could remember — he wasn't smiling either.
"Stay focused," he said quietly.
The joking died instantly. Because if Daniel was worried, things were bad. That was just how it worked.
His gaze stayed locked on the figures below. "We'll handle the others."
His voice was calm. Too calm — the kind of calm people wore like armor when they didn't want to think too hard about how dangerous the night had just become.
A moment passed. Then he turned to Nysera.
"Nysera handles the prince."
Ramsha's head snapped around so fast her neck nearly cracked. "What?"
Daniel didn't look away from the street. "You heard me."
"Have you completely lost your mind?" Her voice rose before she caught it and dragged it back down. "That's Vaerion."
He finally turned to face her. "And?"
"And he'll kill her."
The words came out faster than she meant them to, sharp and a little too honest. Nysera glanced at her sideways. Ramsha ignored it, too wound up to care.
"Look at him." She pointed down at the street like the gesture might make her point for her. "That thing isn't normal."
"Neither is Nysera," Daniel said, unbothered.
Ramsha stared at him.
He nodded toward their friend. "Her power doesn't work like ours."
Sam smirked, already bracing himself. Here we go.
"She doesn't command the elements," Daniel went on.
A cold breeze swept the rooftops, and for the first time that night even Ramsha looked genuinely curious instead of annoyed.
Daniel's eyes stayed on Nysera. "The elements listen to her."
Silence.
Ramsha blinked. Once. Twice.
"…Cool," she said finally. Then, after a beat: "So my best friend is basically not human anymore."
Sam laughed. Daniel rolled his eyes. Nysera looked genuinely, sincerely offended.
Ramsha pointed at her triumphantly. "See? That look right there. That's exactly the kind of look a human would make."
A small, involuntary smile touched Nysera's lips before she could stop it, there and gone in half a second.
And then it was gone for real. Because something below had shifted.
Vaerion had stopped walking.
He stood in the middle of the street, head tilted just slightly, listening to something none of the rest of them could hear. Feeling something. Searching for something.
Nysera's stomach dropped.
He sensed her. Not where she was. Not who she was. Just that something powerful was watching him from somewhere close.
At that exact moment, a door creaked open below.
Every eye on the rooftop shifted at once.
A small boy peeked out into the street, squinting through the fog, a younger child clutching the back of his shirt behind him.
"There's nobody out there," the older boy whispered, half to himself.
"Then who is it?" the little one asked, voice trembling.
The boy looked toward the strangers standing motionless in the street. "Just people."
Vaerion turned. Slowly. His gaze settled on the child, and whatever ghost of amusement had been on his face vanished completely.
"People?"
He said the word like it had personally insulted him.
The boy froze solid. Even from the rooftop, Ramsha could see the fear spreading over his small face like spilled ink.
Vaerion took one unhurried step forward.
"Do I look like people to you?"
The door slammed shut. For one brief, fragile second, the silence held.
Then—
CRACK.
The doorway exploded inward, wood splintering across the floor in a spray of jagged shards. Ramsha jumped despite herself. Somewhere inside, the younger child screamed, and shadows moved frantically through the broken frame.
Vaerion stepped through the wreckage without hurrying, without a flicker of anything on his face — like he was walking into his own home instead of tearing someone else's apart.
A knot of dread formed in Ramsha's stomach. Somehow the calm made it worse. Much worse.
A few moments later he emerged again, the older boy struggling uselessly in his grip — kicking, crying, begging in a voice too young to know it wouldn't matter. Vaerion didn't seem to notice any of it. The child might as well have weighed nothing at all.
"No," Ramsha whispered, the word slipping out before she could stop it.
Vaerion tossed the boy into the street like discarding something he'd already grown bored of. The child hit the ground hard and scrambled backward on instinct, desperate, terrified, trying to survive a fight he didn't understand.
Vaerion simply watched. Then he lifted one foot.
The world seemed to hold its breath along with Ramsha.
And Nysera moved.
Red light flashed across the street. The air folded in on itself, reality rippling like water — and the child vanished.
Vaerion's foot came down on empty stone.
Silence followed. He lowered his leg slowly, and then he smiled — not angry, not even surprised.
Interested.
The expression sent a chill through everyone watching from above.
"Found you," he said softly, to no one and everyone at once.
—
In a narrow alley several streets away, Nysera crouched beside the boy, his small hands twisted into the fabric of her cloak, his whole body shaking against her.
She could feel it radiating off him. Fear, pure and overwhelming, the kind that didn't need words.
For half a second — just half a second — she was somewhere else. Another village. Another blood moon. Another child she hadn't reached in time. The memory struck like a blade, brief and sharp and utterly unwelcome, and she shoved it down hard.
Not tonight.
She placed a hand gently on the boy's shoulder. "It's okay," she murmured, and her voice softened in a way it rarely did for anyone. "You're safe now."
He looked up at her with eyes swimming in tears, and Nysera wished, uselessly, that she could actually promise that was true.
The same red light that had carried her here flickered once more at the mouth of the alley, and a heartbeat later Daniel, Ramsha, and Sam dropped down beside her — her power reaching back for them the instant it had reached for the child, the way it always did when the group needed to move as one.
The scouting was over. Whatever quiet, careful plan they'd had — watch from a distance, stay hidden, learn what they could before anyone noticed them — had died the second Vaerion turned his head toward the rooftops.
And somewhere close behind them, closer than any of them expected—
Marcus laughed.
The sound carried down the alley, warm and playful and completely, horribly wrong for the amount of blood already spilled tonight.
"Well," he said, stepping out of the dark like he'd been waiting for his cue all along, "this just became interesting."
To be continued…1
