🌕 Moonblood: The curse of Arodan
Chapter Twenty-eight: 28
The forest of Ashvale was no ordinary woodland. Thick mists rolled across the ground like sleeping ghosts, and the trees were ancient and twisted, their bark blackened with age. A strange silence hung in the air, broken only by the occasional snap of a twig underfoot or the rustling of leaves with no wind to move them.
Draven walked ahead, his eyes scanning the strange red vines that grew along the trees. Elira and Callen followed closely, their hands never far from their weapons. The deeper they moved into the forest, the more they felt the pressure of unseen eyes watching them from the dark.
"We're close," Draven said, his voice low but certain.
Callen looked around. "Close to what? A graveyard?"
"No," Elira whispered. "Something older. Something forgotten."
The trail beneath them was narrow, almost hidden beneath curling blood-red plants that shimmered faintly even in the shadows. This was no ordinary path—it was the Crimson Path, a trail of legend, whispered about in old stories and feared by even the bravest wanderers.
As they walked, the air grew heavy, thick with the scent of damp earth and magic long buried. Strange symbols began to appear on the ground—faint rune marks carved into flat stones beneath their feet. Draven's pulse quickened as the symbols seemed to respond to him, glowing ever so slightly as he passed.
The mark on his arm—the one shaped like a crescent moon with a broken star—began to tingle again.
"Elira," Draven said, stopping. "Something is happening…"
She turned to him, eyes wide. "Your mark is glowing."
Draven rolled up his sleeve. The mark pulsed softly, a red hue rising beneath the skin like fire trapped in glass.
Suddenly, a powerful image struck his mind. A silver-armored warrior screaming in the rain. A child, wrapped in a black cloak, standing beneath a blood-red moon. A throne burning.
He stumbled forward, catching himself against a tree.
"You saw something, didn't you?" Callen asked, stepping up beside him.
Draven nodded. "Visions. Like memories. Not mine… but from someone like me."
They continued walking until the trees thinned, and the forest opened into a wide circle of stone ruins. Pillars, cracked and fallen, surrounded a black stone altar. And sitting upon that altar was a book.
It was bound in dark leather, etched with silver threads, and shimmered faintly in the red light that now began to pierce through the mist.
Draven's feet moved before he could think.
"Wait—" Elira said, reaching out.
But it was too late.
He stepped onto the altar, reaching out a hand to touch the book.
The moment his fingers brushed it, the world around him shattered.
He was somewhere else.
A battlefield.
Flames licking the horizon. Soldiers screaming. A red moon above them, casting the world in blood. And standing amidst it all was a man—tall, dark-haired, wearing the mark of the Moonblood on his bare chest. His face looked like Draven's. Older. Wiser. Tired.
"I am the first of the broken," the man said, voice heavy with sorrow. "I carried the curse… and now you must too."
"What does it mean?" Draven asked, though he wasn't sure how he could speak inside this vision.
"The Moonblood were never meant to survive," the man said. "We were made to be weapons."
The world snapped again.
Draven collapsed back into the forest, gasping.
Elira caught him. "What did you see?"
"Someone like me," he said, his eyes still wide. "He said we were created… cursed… used."
Callen's jaw tightened. "Then it's time we find the ones who used you."
Draven looked down at the book, now in his hands. Its glow had faded, but the power inside it was alive—waiting.
Above them, the clouds parted.
And the moon hung low and red once more.
The Crimson Path had shown them its secret.
And the truth it carried was only the beginning.