SILVER SHADOWS

AWAKENING

Chapter 1

Lunara was always dark. Not night-dark. Just… dim. Like the sun tried and gave up halfway. Fog hung everywhere, thick and cold, clinging to skin and clothes. You could walk the same street a hundred times and still feel lost. Elara liked it that way. Fog meant hiding. Fog meant survival.

She’d lived here her whole life. Seventeen years. Every crack in the road, every alley shortcut, every place where the Watch didn’t bother looking—she knew them. The city raised her in its own cruel way. Took everything first, then taught her how not to die.

Her boots scraped softly against stone as she crouched on a rooftop, knees pulled in, cloak wrapped tight. The moon was full tonight. Too bright. She didn’t like that. Full moons made people nervous. Made shadows act strange. Or maybe that was just old stories people told to scare kids.

Elara wasn’t a kid anymore.

Across from her sat Lord Harlan’s manor. Big. Fat. Too clean. Too rich. Lights burning inside like he had nothing to fear. She hated places like that. People like him ate while others starved. Simple as that.

“Quick job,” she muttered to herself. Talking helped sometimes. Kept her steady.

She jumped.

The gap was wide but manageable. Her fingers caught iron railings, skin scraping. Pain shot through her palm but she didn’t make a sound. Sounds got you caught. She pulled herself up and stayed low, heart pounding harder than she liked to admit.

Inside, the room smelled like wood polish and old paper. Expensive smell. Moonlight slipped through heavy curtains, landing on a desk stacked with coins, papers, and a purse so full it sagged. Jackpot.

She moved fast. Fingers working the strings, coins sliding into her satchel. Gold. Silver. Enough to eat for weeks. Maybe months if she was careful.

Then she felt it.

Cold.

Not air-cold. Something else. Like being watched from the inside.

Her shadow stretched across the floor. Too long. Wrong shape.

Elara froze.

The shadow moved.

It lifted. Peeled itself off the ground like smoke pulling free. Her breath caught. Her hand flew to her dagger, knuckles white.

“What the hell…” she whispered.

The thing didn’t rush her. Didn’t attack. It just hovered there, dark and soft around the edges. Then eyes opened inside it. Blue. Bright. Too aware.

Her head buzzed. Not a sound—more like a thought pushed into her skull.

Don’t be afraid.

“Easy for you to say,” she breathed.

I am Whisper, the voice said. And you are not alone anymore.

Before she could ask anything else, boots thundered outside the door.

The door slammed open.

A man rushed in, blade glowing sick green. Assassin. She knew the look. No hesitation in his eyes. No mercy either.

“Wrong place,” he snarled.

Elara moved without thinking. Dove aside as the blade struck the desk. Wood splintered. She rolled, heart in her throat. The window was blocked. No escape.

Help me, she thought, not even sure why she thought it.

The shadow exploded forward.

It wrapped around the man, fast and brutal. He screamed. Elara turned away, stomach twisting. She heard bones crack. Then nothing.

When she looked again, the man was on the floor. Still. Pale. Wrong.

The shadow slid back. Calm. Waiting.

Elara didn’t stay to think. She ran.

Out the window. Down trellises. Through alleys. Shouts echoed behind her but she didn’t stop. Didn’t slow until her lungs burned and her legs shook.

She collapsed inside an old warehouse near the docks, hands trembling.

The shadow stood nearby, quiet.

“What are you?” she asked, voice barely holding.

A bond, it replied. Awakened by the moon. By you.

She laughed once. Short. Unsteady. “Figures.”

Footsteps came again. Different ones. Careful.

She raised her dagger, but the people who stepped in weren’t guards.

A group. Tired faces. Weapons worn from use.

The man in front had one eye and too many scars. “Easy,” he said. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

“You saw it,” another said. “The shadow.”

Elara didn’t lower the blade. “So?”

The one-eyed man nodded. “Then it’s started. The Bond. And trust me, girl… nothing ever stays small after that.”

Elara leaned back against the wall, breathing slow, the city humming outside. For the first time in years, fear wasn’t the only thing she felt.

Something else stirred under it.

Something dangerous.