The moon began to bleed.
It started as a subtle stain at the edge of its silver perfection—a faint blush of crimson that quickly deepened, spreading like a fever across the celestial skin. This was no ordinary shadow. This was a transformation, a violent alchemy that turned the gentle orb into a great, wounded eye staring down at a world holding its breath. As the last sliver of pure light surrendered, the moon pulsed with a sickly, internal luminescence, drenching the night in the color of fresh, open wounds and forbidden desire.
The Blood Moon had risen. Its light fell not as illumination, but as a judgment.
---
High in the Dragon's Spine mountains, where the air was thin enough to burn and the wind sang a constant, mournful dirge, a man stood carved from the landscape itself. The bloody light sculpted the harsh, beautiful planes of his face, catching in eyes that should not exist together.
Lucien.
One eye burned with the deep, infernal crimson of a vampire's eternal thirst—a promise of ancient hungers and long, cold nights. The other shone with the molten, feral gold of the wolf—a vow of untamed instinct and raw, earth-shattering power. They were a perfect, terrible record of the war that never ceased within him.
The gale, sharp enough to flay flesh from bone, tore at his dark clothing and whipped that wild, jet-black mane—threaded with subtle, blood-crimson strands—into a chaotic dance. He felt none of it. All his senses were turned inward, consumed by the cacophony of his dual nature.
The Thirst was a serrated knot in his gut, a hollow ache demanding to be filled with hot, coppery life. The Instinct was a low, rolling growl in his marrow, a primal drumbeat urging him to run, to hunt, to dominate. These warring halves of his soul pulled him in opposite directions, and the space between was a loneliness so vast it made the mountain's frozen heart feel warm.
He was an exile in his own skin. To the vampires of the Blood Council, he was "the impurity," a stain on their pristine ancient lineages. To the wolf packs roaming the forests below, he was "the abomination," a violation of their sacred bond with the lunar cycle. He belonged nowhere, a king of nothing but these lonely heights.
---
Far below, in the emerald, secret heart of the Whispering Woods, the crimson light fell differently. Here, it filtered through a canopy of ancient oaks, fracturing into a thousand shifting patterns of ruby and deep plum upon the mossy floor. The air was thick here, humming with a power older than the mountains—a living, breathing magic that made the very trees seem to whisper.
In a natural clearing where moonlight gathered as if summoned, a woman stood barefoot on the damp earth.
Luna.
Her hair was not merely white, but a cascading river of liquid moonlight, capturing the grim hue and reflecting it back with a softer, purer, almost opalescent radiance. It seemed to hold its own light, a personal halo in the bloody dark. Her skin was porcelain-perfect, with the subtle, cool shimmer of mother-of-pearl. She stood motionless, head tilted back, eyes closed. She didn't just see the blood-red sky; she felt the cosmic disturbance it represented deep in her witch-born soul, a vibration that resonated with the ancient power in her blood.
Then she began to move.
Her pale, slender hands lifted, tracing slow, deliberate sigils in the air. These were not mere gestures but acts of celestial weaving. With each movement, a thread of silver light, spun from the very essence of the Starlit Veil, shimmered into existence. It hung in the air for a heartbeat, vibrating with cosmic power, before fading, its energy absorbed by the waiting world. Her chanting voice was a low melody that seemed to come from the earth itself—less a sound than a vibration that made dewdrops tremble on spiderwebs and roots stir in their sleep.
She was pulling on the celestial threads of fate, practicing magic her coven had warned was too dangerous. Too close to the ancient entities that slumbered beyond the gods themselves.
As the final, resonant syllable left her lips, the forest floor shuddered.
It wasn't a violent shake, but a deep, visceral tremor, as if the world had taken a sharp, indrawn breath. Every leaf on every tree quivered in perfect unison, though the air remained utterly still.
---
On his mountain peak, Lucien flinched as if struck.
The Thirst—that constant, screaming need—vanished.
The Instinct—the wolf's eternal drumbeat—fell silent.
The war inside him ceased, replaced by a void more startling than any noise. Into that silence poured a new sensation, terrifying in its purity: a pull. It was a distant, resonant chord plucked from reality's fabric, a vibration of power so clean, so fundamentally other than his corrupted nature, that it felt like a hook in his very soul. It tugged him insistently downward, toward the heart of the dark woods.
His dual-toned eyes widened, then narrowed, the crimson and gold focusing into a single, predatory point on the seemingly placid sea of trees below. His breath caught, a strange, unfamiliar thrill sparking in his chest, cutting through centuries of isolation.
What magic was this that could silence his demons?
And what being dared to wield such power beneath this damned sky?
---
Far above them both, in the silent realm of dreams and destiny, the Moon Goddess opened her eyes. They were vast and silver, reflecting all of creation. Her gaze fell upon the bleeding moon, a violation of her symbol. It fell upon the hybrid, a beautiful, broken contradiction standing alone in the wind. Finally, it fell upon the witch, her hands still glowing with the dangerous, ancient power of the Celestia.
A single, perfect tear formed in the corner of her divine eye. It was as cold as a diamond and heavy with the weight of prophecies yet to unfold. It traced a slow, shimmering path down her cheek.
No words were spoken. None were needed.
The first move in a game older than time had been made.
The eclipse had begun. And with it, the end of everything they knew.