The daughter of night
"Not all monsters bare their teeth. Some simply watch—and wait."
The mist swallowed the world, soft and silver like breath over a mirror.
Caelan didn't move.
He stood at the edge of the ancient stone path, heart hammering in his chest, eyes fixed on the figure approaching through the veil of fog.
She didn't speak. She didn't rush. She walked as if time bent around her.
As she drew closer, her form came into focus. Armor, not the crude kind worn for war, but a regal plating sculpted in shadows and silver, flowing like it had been poured onto her skin by moonlight itself. Intricate patterns—runes, perhaps—spiraled faintly across her pauldrons and breastplate, their light pulsing with a rhythm older than his blood.
Her cloak dragged along the stone, fluid and silent, like the night had decided to follow her in folds.
Caelan opened his mouth to speak.
Nothing came out.
She stopped three paces away. Her eyes—violet and firelit—met his. He felt as if the air had been pulled from his lungs.
This was not someone you met.
This was someone you were summoned by.
> "So," she said, her voice smooth and cold like glass held too long in winter.
"You are the boy the blood remembers."
Her tone held no warmth. No welcome. Just truth—measured, and unnervingly calm.
Caelan's throat tightened. He swallowed. "Who… are you?"
> "I am she who walks where silence is law."
"First Daughter of King Kael Noctaryn. Head of House Viremont."
"And for now, your guide."
She offered no name. Only titles. They hung in the air like swords.
Caelan shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't ask for a guide."
> "No," she replied. "You asked nothing at all. And yet you stepped through."
Her eyes didn't blink. She watched him the way a falcon watches a mouse that hasn't yet realized it's being hunted.
> "The emissaries brought me here," Caelan said, trying to keep his voice steady. "They said they weren't allowed to stay. That I'd… figure it out."
A faint movement at the edge of her mouth—almost a smile, but not kind.
> "They were correct. They were also cowards."
The wind curled around them both, lifting the edge of her cloak. Caelan glanced back at the path behind him, now swallowed by mist. The Mirror Arch had vanished completely.
He was trapped in a world he didn't understand. And this woman—this ice-bound warrior—was his only anchor.
> "What is this place?" he asked. "Where… am I?"
> "You stand in the Borderlands of Dusk," she answered. "The threshold between the lesser realms and the heart of our kingdom."
> "Our kingdom?" he echoed. "You mean the Kingdom of Dusk and Fang?"
That earned him her full attention. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
> "You do remember more than you should," she murmured. "Interesting."
She turned then, as if satisfied, and began to walk again—past him, down the path that led into a grove of trees that glowed faintly like dying embers.
> "Come," she said without looking back. "This land does not favor the lost. And the court does not wait."
> "Wait, court? Whose court?"
> "You crossed the Veil, Caelan Duskwither," she called over her shoulder.
"Now you must be seen."
He stood frozen for a moment longer, then followed, his steps unsure, his heart caught somewhere between wonder and terror.
Above them, the moons moved in silence.
And the realm watched.