Part I: The Exile and the Shard, Arc 1 — The Mercenary Prince
The road out of Nocturne was a skeleton.
The cobblestones were cracked and blackened, bones of a civilization gnawed by time and war. Charred signposts leaned drunkenly against the wind, their inscriptions long since burned away. The leaves on the trees lining the highway were gone, leaving only ashen fingers to reach toward a moon that refused to die.
Selric rode alone.
The horse beneath him, the coal-gray destrier, exhaled clouds of vapor into the cold, its eyes like embers. The hooves echoed through the hollow valleys at a steady, patient, unhurried rhythm — the rhythm of a man who no longer had a destination.
In the distance, lightning licked the horizon. It was always storming somewhere these days.
He kept his hood drawn low. The night bit at his exposed skin, though it couldn't truly harm him. The cold didn't bother the dead.
But the hunger did.
He felt it even now, coiled beneath his ribs -the slow ache that whispered feed. The longer he went without, the sharper it became, until every heartbeat around him was a drum calling his name.
Smirking into the wind, he said, "You'd think immortality would come with better appetites."
The horse flicked its ears and said nothing.
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He found the first body at dawn.
A trader, maybe, or a pilgrim — slumped beside the road, his cloak torn, his face thrown skyward as if he'd been asking the moon a question it never answered. Already, flies hovered around the wounds.
Selric squatted, peering at the gashes along the neck. Clean. Shallow. Not the work of beasts.
"Blades," he muttered. "Cheap ones."
Deeper in the woods, he followed the trail, his boots making barely a sound on the frost. The smell of iron thickened, tinged with smoke and rot. When he reached the clearing, he saw the rest.
A wagon overturned, its cargo of grain spilled into the mud. A family — three of them — lay nearby, cut down where they'd run.
Raiders.
There had always been raiders.
But these were new - human, hungry, desperate enough to kill the very people they once traded with. The war between vampires and werewolves had shattered the balance that kept human settlements safe. Now the lower races preyed upon themselves, and the noble clans pretended not to see.
Selric didn't feign surprise.
Six sets of footprints, heading north. Two days old.
He smiled faintly. "Guess I'm working again."
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By nightfall, he found their camp: a cluster of crude tents near the river, firelight flickering on rusted blades and stolen jewelry, the raiders laughing loudly, drunk on looted wine.
Selric dismounted quietly, tethering his horse to a dead tree. He drew his sword, a slender black blade whose edge shimmered faintly red under the moonlight.
As he drew closer, the voices became sharper.
"...found him starved in the ditch," one man was saying. "Couldn't tell if he was a man or a ghost."
"Ghosts don't bleed," another laughed.
Selric stepped out of the shadows. "Neither do gods."
The laughter died.
Eight men. Rough garments, patchwork armor, reek of desperation. One reached for his weapon.
Selric's eyes flashed silver. "Don't."
The man froze. The others shifted uneasily, looking from his pale face to the sword.
"Who are you?" a woman demanded. Older, missing an eye, voice cracked like old leather.
"Just a traveler," Selric said. "Looking for work."
The woman snorted. "You're no trader."
"No." He smiled, and it wasn't pleasant. "I'm more of a... problem solver."
One of the younger men laughed nervously. "We already solved our problems."
Selric nodded toward the remains of the wagon piled near their fire. "By murdering farmers?"
Silence.
"They were hoarding grain," said the woman. "We took what they wouldn't share."
Selric's head tilted. "Then you'll understand when I take what you won't give."
They drew their weapons.
He sighed. "Every time."
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The fight was brief.
Too short, maybe.
They lunged at him in the firelight, clumsy, untrained, swinging more out of fear than fury. Selric moved like a whisper, like moonlight sliding over steel.
A parry, a cut, a twist.
The blood hissed in the fire as it fell.
When it was done, just the woman remained, on her knees in the dirt, one arm broken, eyes wide.
Selric wiped his blade on his cloak. "There's a village three miles west. Go there. Tell them what happens when they prey on their own."
The woman spat blood. "Who are you to judge us? Vampire."
He froze.
This word hung in the air, like a curse.
"How long?" he asked quietly.
She smiled through cracked lips. "Long enough to smell it. You think the hunger hides just because you wear a prince's name?"
Selric's eyes clouded. "Go."
She hesitated, then crawled away into the trees.
He watched until she vanished. Then he knelt by the fire, staring at the blood soaking into the soil.
The scent was maddening.
The hunger roared.
He clenched his jaw, forcing himself still. "Not tonight."
But the whisper came again — low, intimate, mocking.
You can't starve a curse, Selric.
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He stayed till dawn. The fire burnt to embers, the stench of death faded with the mist.
As he packed his gear, he heard movement at the edge of the clearing.
A child — human, no older than ten — emerged from behind a log; her face smeared, clothes torn.
Selric froze.
She looked up to him with hollow eyes. "You killed them."
He nodded. "They would've killed you next."
"They were my brothers."
The words hit harder than any blade.
He knelt slowly, his eyes locking onto hers. "Your name is?"
"Lira."
"Do you have anyone left?"
She shook her head.
Selric sighed. He could hear her heartbeat-fast, fragile, bright.
He reached into his pack and pulled out a strip of dried meat, holding it out. "Eat."
She hesitated.
"It is not poisoned," he said almost gently.
She took it and ate quickly, eyes darting between him and the corpses.
"You're not like them," she said finally.
He smiled faintly. "No. I'm worse."
She frowned. "Then why help me?"
Selric looked past her to where the first sunlight was breaking over the trees. Its light touched his skin like knives, searing faintly, but he didn't flinch.
"Because someone should," he said.
He turned away before she could ask more.
By the time she looked back, he was gone-a shadow vanishing into the rising day, his footprints already fading in the ash.
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The highway was endless and broken.
Selric rode until the horizon swallowed the ruins, till there was only the whisper of the wind. The moon above him was pale and watchful, no longer crimson but silvered with regret.
He thought about the girl, the corpses, the way hunger still clawed beneath his ribs.
He thought of Nocturne, burning behind him.
And he wondered — not for the first time — whether exile was punishment, or mercy.