The eastern sky was still bruised with dawn when Serena stepped through Aramore's postern gate. The last echo of the bell faded behind her; ahead, only the long trade road and the promise of blood.
She reached Waymeet as the sun bled gold across the thatched roofs. Smoke rose from skewer stalls; the smell of fire-roasted shard-beast made her stomach clench. She bought two sticks, chewed the peppered meat while leaning against a crumbling fountain, and listened.
"Black Lantern's holding a grand auction come winter solstice," a drover told his friend. "Rumor says there'll be a Monarch Tear on the block."
Coins clinked, voices ebbed. Serena wiped grease from her fingers and crossed the square to the inn itself. Black Lantern was three stories of soot-dark timber, its sign a brass lamp with no flame inside. Behind the counter stood Lysander Crowe—ink-stained ledger, calculating eyes. He looked up, paused at the wolf-shaped shadow pooling around her boots, then smiled like a man who had seen stranger things.
"Rooms are five silver, baths extra. Staying long?"
"One night," she answered. "And I'll need a bidding paddle in two months."
"First-timers get one free," he said, stamping a wooden token with a stylised flame. "Name?"
"Shade."
He did not ask for another. Acquaintance sealed.
She slept four hours under a thin blanket, dreamed of ticking clocks, and left before the second moon set.
By mid-morning the road dwindled into a deer track. Pines gave way to ashleaf trees whose silver undersides flashed like mirrors whenever wind passed. The air tasted of sap and distant storms.
The first ambush came without warning.
A dusk-wolf burst from the underbrush, charcoal fur striped with purple toxin-veins. Serena twisted, scythe already singing. Crescent Arc swept ankle-high, the curved blade slicing through dew and grass before it bit into the beast's foreleg. Bone cracked; the wolf howled, fangs spraying venom. Serena ducked the arc of saliva, rolled beneath the second wolf's pounce, and came up spinning.
Moonfall Sweep.
Her body dipped, one knee skimming the earth. The scythe carved a shallow half-moon through loam and air alike. A razor-thin crescent of wind and darkness tore free, striking the second wolf across the ribs. Hide split like wet parchment; the beast tumbled, breath whistling through a broken cage of bone.
The third wolf lunged from her blind spot. Umbren solidified mid-leap, jaws clamping around the creature's throat. Black fangs met black fur; the wolf thrashed once, then stilled.
Serena exhaled once, steady. Blood painted her forearm where venom had grazed skin. She knelt, slit the three chests with clinical precision, and drew out two thumb-sized beast cores—glowing ember-red, warm as coals.
< Core Crystal (beast-grade) x2 acquired >
She cleaned the scythe on moss, then the claws of dusk-wolves. Umbren shook gore from his muzzle and trotted ahead, no longer bothering to hide inside her shadow.
She chose a hollow beside a stream, set three ward-stones in a triangle, and kindled a smokeless fire. Beast cores lay wrapped in oil-cloth inside system storage; the carcasses she left for scavengers. Serena seated herself cross-legged, scythe across her lap, and drew the residual essence from the cores through her meridians—not as fuel, but as whetstone. Mana cycled, slow and searing, each rotation grinding the bottleneck to Core Bloom 5 a fraction thinner.
Umbren prowled the perimeter, violet eyes reflecting fireflies. Somewhere deeper in the forest, something large snapped a branch and did not come closer.
The trees thinned; red cliffs rose like broken teeth. Mist pooled in the gorge below, thick enough to drown sound. Serena tightened her cloak, tested the edge of her scythe against her thumb, and started the descent.
Behind her, the forest settled into silence. Ahead, only the red mist and the promise of blood.
< 27 days remain >