The candle had long burned to a stump. The house of Elder Draven was dark save for the silver wash of moonlight spilling through a cracked window.
The scroll lay open across the table, its blackened parchment breathing faint whispers only Draven could hear. The symbols shifted restlessly, curling like smoke, their shapes refusing to remain still.
Draven sat cross-legged before it. His cane leaned against the wall, forgotten. His body was frail—veins raised, breath shallow, bones sharp beneath loose robes—but his eyes gleamed with the hunger of a wolf.
He pressed a finger to the first line of the scroll.
The First Step of the Sealed Moon.
Absorb. Endure. Survive.
That was the opening instruction. Simple words, but Draven knew better. Nothing about cultivation was ever simple.
He closed his eyes and let the room fade away. He steadied his breath, though each inhale rattled faintly in his chest. His mind reached outward—not far, not yet—only to the edges of himself. He remembered the feeling from long ago, the stretching of the spirit, the aching need to open one's body to the world.
And then he felt it: the moonlight.
It was everywhere, of course. Every rock, every leaf, every breath of air was drowned in it. But only a cultivator could sense what lay beneath that silver glow: the lunar essence, sharp as blades and cold as frost, a power that cut as much as it nourished.
Draven guided a thread of it inward.
It was like drinking ice and swallowing knives.
The essence tore through his frail veins, scraping against bone, searing the marrow. His body convulsed, his hand clutching the mat beneath him until the straw snapped.
Absorb. Endure. Survive.
He gritted his teeth.
"Endure? Ha…" His whisper was bitter. "You've forgotten who I am, old scroll. I have endured more than you could dream."
The pain deepened. His heart pounded erratically, a fragile drum that might stop at any beat. His skin split in fine cracks along his arms, thin rivulets of blood seeping like ink.
Yet within that torment, there was power.
The essence settled in the pit of his abdomen, faint, flickering—a single ember in the dark. Weak. Incomplete. But alive.
The first trace of cultivation.
Draven opened his eyes. The room swam in shadow and silver, and his breath came in ragged bursts. But a smile crept across his cracked lips.
He had done it.
After decades of silence, Elder Draven Noctis had taken the first step once more—becoming a Shade Initiate.
The following morning, the village stirred with routine life. Chickens clucked, smoke rose from chimneys, hunters strapped on leather armor. Children splashed water from the well, laughing despite the unease of the night before.
Draven walked slowly through the square, his cane tapping against the stone path. To the villagers, he looked no different: the same frail elder, the same soft smile, the same patient nod to every greeting.
But inside, he felt the faint ember burning in his core. Weak though it was, it steadied his limbs, sharpened his senses. He could hear whispers more clearly, smell the iron tang of the blacksmith's forge, see the shimmer of frost on the distant trees.
Mira hurried up to him, carrying a basket of roots and dried meat.
"Elder, the hunters say the claw marks grew deeper overnight. Some trees are nearly split. They… they're frightened."
Draven paused, letting his brow furrow in kindly concern.
"Fear binds men tighter than chains," he said. "But sometimes, it keeps them alive. Tell them not to linger near the forest's edge. Tonight, they must burn incense at the shrine. The moon watches those who forget their prayers."
Mira nodded, though she glanced nervously at the forest anyway.
Draven's eyes followed hers. The treeline stood like a wall of black, the branches silvered by moonlight. For a moment, he thought he saw movement—a shape too large, too silent. But when he blinked, it was gone.
That night, Draven returned to his crooked house. He barred the door, dimmed the lantern, and unrolled the scroll again.
The next passage was clear enough:
Strength is not taken freely. It demands cost.
He snorted softly. "Always the same truth, dressed in different words."
To deepen his cultivation, he would need Moon Shards—rare fragments of silver ore that fell from the sky, each piece humming with concentrated lunar essence. Even a speck could fuel an entire week of practice.
But Moon Shards were not something a frail village elder could simply ask for. They were treasures, traded between merchants, hoarded by sects, fought over in blood.
Draven closed the scroll. His fingers lingered on it as if it might answer.
So be it. If I lack Shards, then I will use what I have always used.Cunning. Patience. Others.
The village inn was louder that evening. Hunters drank heavily, voices rising, fear drowned in ale. Draven entered slowly, nodding to each man, and silence fell like a dropped stone.
"Elder," Taron the blacksmith said, standing. "We saw something last night. Not just marks this time. A shadow. It… it moved against the moonlight."
Murmurs rippled through the room.
Draven's cane tapped once against the floor. He smiled, gentle, unthreatening.
"Then you must keep the fires burning brighter. The moon chases shadows away."
The men relaxed, reassured by his presence. Only one voice cut through, rasping from the corner: the Nameless Beggar.
He cackled, pointing a filthy finger at Draven. "Chases shadows? No, no… the moon births them! You know it, don't you, old wolf? You know what she seals!"
The room went stiff. The hunters muttered curses, some throwing scraps at the beggar. He only laughed, his eyes rolling, words tumbling into nonsense.
Draven met the beggar's gaze. For an instant, just an instant, he saw clarity in those mad eyes—like a man staring through every mask he wore.
Then it was gone.
The beggar curled up, muttering, ignored once more.
Draven turned back to the men. His voice was calm, but inside, the ember in his core flickered hungrily.
"Yes," he thought, "some shadows cannot be chased away. Only… endured."
At midnight, when the village slept, Draven climbed the hill behind his house. The wind was sharp, carrying the scent of pine and frost. At the top lay the Observatory Ruins—a shattered dome of black stone, cracked pillars, stairways leading nowhere.
Once, long ago, scholars and cultivators had studied the heavens here. Now, it was silent but for the whispers of wind. Villagers avoided it, calling it cursed.
Draven placed a hand on one broken pillar. The stone was cold, almost humming faintly under his palm. Symbols were etched deep into its surface, half-erased by time, half-glowing with faint silver light.
He closed his eyes. The ember in his core flared.
The ruins were not dead.
They were waiting.
Thus began the nights of Elder Draven Noctis—days spent as the kind elder of Black Hollow, and nights spent in shadows, drawing in the cold essence of the moon, each thread carving pain into his frail body, each ember strengthening the flame within.
No one noticed the way his back straightened slightly, the way his voice grew firmer, the way his eyes seemed to watch too keenly.
No one, except perhaps the Nameless Beggar, who laughed whenever Draven passed by, as though he alone knew what stirred beneath the mask of a dying man.
And above them all, the moon hung vast and eternal.Silent. Watching.
As Draven whispered to the night:
"I have returned."