The air tasted of ice and ink as dawn's first sliver of light touched the obsidian sphere of the Nightfall Temple. Kieran Vale blinked against the chill, his breath a smoky ribbon in the muted gray. Behind him, Eira Wynn and Mariselle stirred their mounts, eyes fixed on the looming gates that promised either salvation or oblivion.
Chapter 6: Prelude to Eclipse
Kieran flexed his fingers around his staff, the silver sigil humming faintly at his throat. Three days ago, he'd been juggling knives in the Emberfall square; now, he stood at the brink of an ancient darkness. He swallowed, fighting the tremor in his chest.
Eira nudged Nimbus beside him. "Ready?" she asked softly, voice steady.
He managed a grin, though his heart hammered. "As ready as a clown can be for a show with no encore."
Mariselle spurred her horse forward. "First light, we reconnoiter. Then we install wards around the perimeter. We strike when the eclipse begins."
Kieran nodded. He swung into the saddle and nudged Nimbus toward the temple's outer wall. Beneath a sky still tainted with ash, three figures advanced—motley, scrolls, and blades united by a single purpose: face the darkness before it swallowed the world.
The outer wall stretched fifty paces high, built from polished black granite that drank in the morning light. Kieran dismounted, creaking like an old puppet, and approached a narrow postern gate. No keyhole marked its edge—only a carved eclipse rune above the arch.
Eira traced her fingers over the glyph. "This door responds to truth. Speak your heart, and it may yield."
Mariselle raised an eyebrow. "You want him to confess?"
Eira smiled wryly. "Not confession of deeds—I mean the core of who he is." She stepped back. "Kieran."
He inhaled, heart in his throat. "I am… a jester whose laughter scythes fear, a fool who juggles death and life, a man bound to light and shadow alike. I stand—trembling, hopeful, defiant—before the darkness you crave."
The rune glowed silver, then split in two. The gates swung inward with a low groan. Kieran stumbled through.
Behind him, Eira and Mariselle entered as the gates sealed gently behind their trio, as if the temple itself had sighed.
Inside the courtyard, shadows danced in flickering braziers lined along the black stone pathways. Statues of fallen heroes—faces eroded by time—flanked the central plaza, their gaze directed toward the vast entrance of the inner sanctum. At its mouth, a basin of still water reflected a fractured sky.
Eira examined the basin. "Mirror of Nightfall. It shows the truth behind illusions. Many cultists use it to mask their identity."
Mariselle sheathed her blade. "We'll need it. If we face the Regent of Nightfall, we must see through her lies."
Kieran ran a fingertip along the basin's rim. His reflection wavered—smiling, sobbing, laughing, crying—all at once. He blinked. "Well, that's embarrassing."
Eira placed a steady hand on his shoulder. "Only you could show a thousand truths and still call them jokes."
He returned her smile, warmth fighting back his doubts. "Let's find the wards."
They skirted the courtyard's perimeter, placing small silver mirrors at junctures and etching counter-runes into the granite. Each mirror caught a sliver of morning light, refracting it into dancing prisms that scattered the temple's cloying shadows.
Mariselle worked swiftly, her blade carving runes with precision. "One ward here," she pointed to a dark fissure, "another by the eastern brazier."
Eira chanted as she traced lines around each mirror: Lux Vincula! Ribbons of luminescence spiraled into the sky, knitting together a lattice of light above the temple floor.
Kieran attached the final mirror overhead. It clinked into place, and every shadow in the courtyard recoiled, shrinking from the gathered dawn.
He stepped back, pride shining. "Behold—the jester's chandelier."
Mariselle smirked. "Hardly subtle, but effective."
Eira's gaze drifted upward. "We must hurry inside. The eclipse doesn't wait."
They advanced toward the inner door—a grand obsidian slab engraved with interlocking stars. Mariselle placed her hand on it. "On my mark."
She counted: "One—" she pressed her palm; "Two—" the rune shivered; "Three!" Together, they pushed. The door slid aside on hidden rails, revealing a narrow corridor lit by phosphorescent mold.
The air was cold and still; the only sound, their measured footsteps. Stone pillars rose like ancient sentinels, carved with scenes of cosmic upheaval: suns devoured by moons, worlds shattered by storms.
Eira lit a brass lantern. "The walls tell the cult's epic—how they'll bind the Orb of Nightfall to the sky's lifeblood."
Kieran ran his hand over a relief: a weeping moon dissolving into bats. He shivered. "Lovely bedtime reading."
Mariselle pressed forward. "If we make it to the central chamber before dusk, we can disrupt the ritual sequence."
Deeper into the temple, the corridor branched into three forks, each marked by a symbol: the Sun, the Moon, and the Eclipse itself.
Eira consulted her scroll. "The path to the ritual hall bears the Eclipse rune." She stepped toward the middle arch. "This way."
Kieran hesitated at the Moon arch. "It feels… inviting."
Mariselle's steel voice brooked no dissent. "Trust the texts, jester."
He nodded and followed Eira beneath the Eclipse arch. The other corridors vanished behind a shimmering veil the moment they passed.
The final stretch was a sloping ramp hewn from night-black stone. Supralunar glyphs glowed along its edge, each step reverberating with a hum of power. Kieran felt the vibration in his bones—as though the temple itself were alive, pulsing toward a heart of darkness.
At the ramp's end, a massive circular door rose to meet the ceiling. Its surface was smooth obsidian, save for a single keyhole in the shape of a star. No handle or hinge.
Eira held up the silver reliquary containing Emberheart's fragments. "This will weaken the seal—enough for your laughter-ward to shatter it."
Mariselle produced a jagged star-shaped key of blackened steel, formed from the sentinel's shattered armor. "Insert this… then step back."
Kieran swallowed and took both hands. He inserted the key. The door trembled, then slid open in a whisper of stone dust.
Beyond lay the central chamber: a domed hall illuminated by the dying light of the evening sky. At its center, the Orb of Nightfall hovered above a carved pedestal, its surface a void-stain in the air. Around the Orb, cultists in cloaks of midnight chanted in a low, resonant rhythm that echoed like distant thunder.
They wore masks of silver—each carved with a different lunar phase—and raised their hands as one.
Eira's voice was a hiss. "That is the Regent of Nightfall—Selene Noctis."
Kieran's throat tightened at the sight: a tall woman whose hair spilled like liquid night, robes swirling with starlight. In her hands, she held an obsidian chalice, brimful of black ink that pulsed with lunar tears. Her voice—a low soprano—rose above the chant:
"When moon devours the day,
And light concedes to silent sway,
I bind the sky with velvet lace,
And seal the world in night's embrace."
The Orb flickered, responding to her incantation. Shadows surged from its core, racing along the floor toward the temple's mirrors.
Kieran's heart pounded. Eira hurled a glowing scroll-tome at the pedestal, disrupting the glyphs carved beneath it. Mariselle launched herself at the chanting cultists.
"Now, jester!" Eira shouted. "Give them laughter, not despair!"
He clicked the sigil-crystal, igniting a surge of mirth so intense it rippled the very air. His laughter-ward exploded from his staff in a wave of kaleidoscopic sound. Cultist cloaks billowed; silver masks cracked as shockwaves of joy shredded their focus.
Selene Noctis froze mid-verse, her eyes locking onto Kieran's. For a heartbeat, the chamber stood still—light and shadow suspended in tension.
Then, with a voice honed by centuries of ritual, she whispered: "Your mirth is but a spark against the eternal night."
She lifted her chalice, and the Orb of Nightfall pulsed in response—shadows recoiling, then rushing forward in a tidal wave.
Eira called a ward; Mariselle cleaved through the chanting circle; but Kieran felt the darkness coil around him, potent and cold as the void itself.
He planted his staff, summoning one final laughter-ward—an opus of mirth forged from every joyous moment he'd ever known.
"BY THE JESTER'S OATH!" he bellowed.
His laughter shattered silence, a symphony of defiance. Light erupted, blinding, rebirthing the chamber in dawn's golden glow.
When the luminance faded, the Orb lay cracked on the floor, its void seeping away. The mirrors around the hall blazed like stars. Cultists lay unconscious or fleeing in terror.
Selene Noctis knelt before Kieran, mask shattered, hair wild around her face. She reached out, trembling: "Mercy…"
Kieran wavered—caught between triumph and despair at what he'd unleashed.
Eira and Mariselle stood at his sides, hearts pounding. The fate of the world hung on his next breath.
Would he grant mercy to darkness itself… or let the eclipse claim an unbreakable victory?
The answer would shape the dawn.