Whispers of the Hollow Moon
1089 Words
"When the light dies, so do the boundaries..."
The old rhyme stirred in Elowen's mind like ash caught on the wind. She didn't remember when she first heard it, only that it had clung to her soul ever since.
Nocturnis was holding its breath.
From the rooftop of a weathered stone building, she perched with the poise of a predator and the stillness of prophecy. Cloaked in charcoal-gray fabric that rippled like smoke around her frame, Elowen stared across the city's fading skyline. Her hair, wind-tossed and damp from the earlier drizzle, clung to her cheek like tendrils of stormcloud.
Far below, the city was folding in on itself. Market vendors packed up their goods faster than usual. Street performers abandoned half-finished songs. Doors slammed with urgency, windows locked with care. Even the drunks stumbled home early, casting nervous glances skyward.
Dusk had always belonged to Nocturnis, it was when the city came alive. But tonight, it recoiled. Even the air seemed wary of touching her skin.
Elowen felt the shift deep inside her ribcage, a rhythm, an awakening. Not fear. Not yet. But something ancient, and it was rising fast.
A whisper tugged at her.
"Elowen."
She didn't turn. The voice was familiar, threaded with irritation and concern in equal parts. Cassian.
"You're not supposed to be up here," he said, stepping lightly onto the roof behind her. His boots made barely a sound on the stone, but Elowen still tracked him without looking.
"I see better from above," she replied, her voice low. "And tonight, the city's hiding something."
Cassian moved beside her, his cloak billowing in the wind. "Or it's warning us."
She exhaled slowly, watching a raven circle once above a crumbling bell tower, then vanish into the gloom. It left no sound behind, no call. Even the birds were silent tonight.
"Nocturnis doesn't warn," she murmured. "It whispers. And it's whispering too loud."
The city lights flickered. One streetlamp sputtered and went out. Another dimmed, then flared with unnatural violet light before vanishing altogether. One by one, the glow of the city began to die, not all at once, but like a pattern unraveling.
Elowen leaned forward. "Do you feel that?"
Cassian frowned. "Feel what?"
"The pull. It's like—" she paused, eyes narrowing, "—like something beneath the city is breathing again."
He hesitated. "You mean the Seal?"
"I mean something older."
The wind curled around them like a serpent, teasing her cloak, lifting the fine hairs on her neck. She reached instinctively for the dagger strapped to her thigh. Not fear. Instinct.
The moon crept out from behind the clouds, swollen and wrong. Too large. Too close. Its light wasn't silver, it was a pale violet, tinged with something... humming.
Cassian's breath hitched. "That's not right."
"No," Elowen agreed. "It's begun."
From their rooftop vantage, the skyline stretched like a painting in decay, towers half-collapsed, overgrown temples, the Watchtower of Hollowlight looming like a skeletal finger. These were not just ruins. They were graves. And tonight, they mourned.
"You shouldn't be glowing," Cassian said suddenly.
She turned to him, and his eyes widened.
Her irises shimmered. Faint, yes, but pulsing with the same violet light that bled across the sky.
"You awakened early."
"Fate doesn't follow timetables," she said.
"This changes everything."
"Good," Elowen replied. "Everything needs to change."
She looked up again, and the violet moon began to shift. Not move, shift. Runes formed inside it, rotating like gears. Circles within circles. It was like watching the gods think.
The Eclipse.
The one carved into the obsidian vaults of the Moonstone Ruins.
The one that marked the beginning of the Bound Moon Prophecy.
"The old stories said it would return when the bloodlines called it back," she whispered. "I didn't think I'd be the echo."
Cassian gritted his teeth. "The elders will try to stop you."
"Then they can try."
"You'll go to the catacombs?"
Elowen stood, her silhouette framed by the eerie light. "I don't have a choice."
He grabbed her wrist. "You do. You always do. You're not some puppet for destiny."
She yanked free, fire flashing in her eyes. "It's not destiny I'm chasing. It's truth."
There was a beat of silence between them, thick, ancient.
Then she turned and leapt from the rooftop.
Balcony. Ledge. Gutter. Stone. Her descent was fluid, practiced, the art of someone who moved between shadows like they belonged to her. When her boots hit the ground, the city trembled. Subtle. But enough.
Cassian stayed above, staring after her as though she were already a myth.
⸻
Elowen's feet pounded through the backstreets of Nocturnis. She moved with purpose, yet something in her gait said even she wasn't sure where she'd end up. Her body led. Her magic followed.
And then—
She heard it.
Not a sound.
A hum.
A song deep below the cobblestones. Faint, reverberating, not through air, but through her. A vibration in her bones. A call written in marrow.
She stopped in a shadowed alley, pressed a palm to the wall.
Stone trembled beneath her touch.
Something was rising.
A streetlamp behind her flickered once, then died.
Footsteps.
She turned, reaching for her blade—
But it wasn't Cassian.
A figure emerged from the mist, tall, hooded in silver-tattered robes, his face obscured by a carved moonstone mask. Runes shimmered faintly across the stone, and his breath left frost in the air.
He bowed his head.
"Elowen of the Hollow Flame."
Her eyes narrowed. "You're late."
"You weren't supposed to awaken this early."
She tilted her head. "Yet here we are."
He studied her in silence. "You've felt it then? The breach?"
"I've felt everything. The seal's cracking. The city's shifting. Even the wind's got secrets tonight."
His voice dropped. "You walk into danger you don't yet understand."
She stepped forward, eyes blazing. "I was born in danger. Raised in it. I don't need understanding. I need answers."
He didn't move. "Then may the gods forgive us."
"There are no gods in Nocturnis," she said coldly, brushing past him.
"Only secrets," he whispered.
She stopped. Just for a second. Then smiled bitterly.
"Only dusk."
⸻
She didn't look back.
Not when the moon pulsed a second time.
Not when the ground beneath her feet whispered her name.
And not when the last light in the alley winked out, leaving behind only the violet gleam of something eternal awakening.
Elowen walked toward it anyway.
Into the dark.
Into the truth.
Into the prophecy that bore her name.
- Writer
