The Luna's Dark Protector

Shadows Unleashed

The silence after Kael’s departure was more deafening than the unmaking. The space where the blue-eyed rogue had been was a vacuum that seemed to suck the warmth from the world. Brynnan, the Frostfang envoy, stood frozen, his pale face slack with a terror that went beyond physical fear. He had seen a fundamental law broken. His glacial blue eyes were wide, fixed on the empty patch of frosted grass.

Elara’s own guards were statues, their weapons half-lowered, caught between their duty to her and the primal instinct to flee from what they’d just witnessed. Gorven was the first to move, swallowing hard and stepping closer to her, his sword pointed shakily at Brynnan. “You heard him. Deliver the message. Then get out of our territory.”

Brynnan’s gaze slowly dragged from the emptiness to Elara. The fear in his eyes curdled into something sharper, more desperate. “You see?” he hissed, his smooth voice frayed. “You see what you have unleashed? An unguided, primordial force! It will not just kill our goddess. It will unravel the fabric of magic itself if left to its whims! You must control it!”

“He is not an ‘it,’” Elara snapped, though her own heart was a frantic drum. “And he is not ours to control.”

“Then he is everyone’s doom!” Brynnan spat. He took a step back, signaling to his remaining rogues with a sharp flick of his wrist. The blue-eyed beasts, still unnervingly silent, began to melt back into the pine shadows. “The alliance stands, Luna,” he called, his voice regaining a sliver of its icy composure as he retreated. “When the void-light turns on you and it will remember we offered a leash. The Frostfang will be waiting in the cold.”

In moments, they were gone, leaving only the scent of pine, frost, and the lingering, ozone-like emptiness of the unmade rogue.

The ride back to Silvermane Keep was a blur of tense silence. Elara’s mind raced, trying to map the new, horrifying landscape. Two ancient, rival horrors. A pack of ice-guardians wanting to weaponize Kael. And Kael himself, a shattered relic transformed into a walking cataclysm who had just declared war on everything.

As they clattered into the main courtyard, chaos greeted them. Guards were running, shouting. The captain of the gatehouse rushed to her, his face ashen.

“Luna! Thank the Moon! He’s gone! The Shadow-Stalker just… walked through the tower wall! Solid stone! Left no hole, no c***k! One moment the guards saw him in his room, the next he was on the battlements, and then… he was just gone!”

“We know,” Elara said, her voice weary. She dismounted, her legs unsteady. “Send word to the Alpha. I will report to him directly.”

But before she could take two steps toward the keep, a new cry went up from the western wall.

“Riders! Approaching fast! Not ours!”

Elara turned, dreading a cold stone in her stomach. Not Frostfang. They’d just left. Who else?

She climbed the nearest steps to the ramparts, Gorven at her heels. On the winding mountain road below, a contingent of riders approached under a familiar banner: a stylized stone fang on a field of grey. Stonefang.

And at their head, clad in gleaming, ceremonial armor, rode Kaelen.

He looked restored, perfect, his golden hair bright against the gloomy day. There was no sign of the green fire, no hint of possession. He wore the face of the concerned ally, the betrothed prince coming to check on his bride after terrible events. It was a mask so convincing that it was more terrifying than any monster.

“Open the gates for Prince Kaelen!” a guard shouted, following protocol.

“NO!” Elara’s command ripped from her throat, echoing off the stone. Every head on the wall swiveled to her. “Keep the gates sealed! Archers to the ready!”

Shocked murmurs rippled through the guards. Denying a royal ally at the gate was an act of profound hostility.

Down below, Kaelen reined in his horse, looking up at her with a mask of puzzled hurt. “Elara, my love? What is this? We heard of the attack, the cave-in! I rode day and night to ensure you were safe!”

“I am safe,” she called down, her voice cold and carrying. “Safer with the gates closed. Your… recovery… was remarkably swift, Prince Kaelen.”

His smile was gentle, forgiving. “The healers of Stonefang are the best in the territories. And my father was furious that such a blight touched me. He has sent me with a full century of our best warriors to bolster your defenses.” He gestured to the grim, well-armed riders behind him. An army, not an escort.

An army she would have to let in to avoid a diplomatic incident. An army led by a man who had been a vessel for the enemy.

It was a masterful move. Political, plausible, and perfectly trapping.

As Elara hesitated, weighing the risk of invasion against the certainty of war, the shadows at the base of the wall… twitched.

Not the long, late afternoon shadows. A pool of darkness that was too deep, too concentrated, directly below where Kaelen sat smiling on his horse. It bubbled, like tar, and then rose.

It resolved into the form of a man.

Kael.

He did not step out of the shadows. He was the shadows, pulling themselves into his shape. He stood, barefoot on the frozen road, between the sealed gate and Kaelen’s approaching army.

He had never left. He had been waiting.

Kaelen’s perfect smile faltered. A flicker of that ancient, hungry green light sparked deep in his eyes before he banked it. “The Shadow-Stalker. We heard you were… indisposed.”

Kael didn’t look at him. He looked up at Elara on the wall, his silver eyes like polished coins in the gloom. “You cannot let him in,” he said, his voice carrying without effort. “The stone of his ring.” He pointed a finger at Kaelen’s hand. On his right ring finger, a large onyx stone set in silver gleamed. “It’s not a Stonefang sigil. It’s a listening stone. A fragment of the tomb. She hears through it. Every word spoken in its presence, she hears. Every person near it, she can trace.”

Kaelen’s face went from faux-hurt to cold fury. “You dare accuse a prince of Stonefang of espionage? Of consorting with the enemy? After your own… transformations?” He drew his sword, the metal singing. “This is an insult to be answered!”

He gestured, and a squad of his warriors dismounted, drawing their own blades, advancing on Kael.

Kael didn't move. He simply said, “I told you. I am done being a tool.”

Then, he dissolved.

Not into mist, or smoke. Into living shadow. His form lost its edges, bleeding into the gathering dusk, becoming a swirling vortex of absolute darkness. It was not the white, silent void-light of the clearing. This was something older, darker—the original power of the Shadow-Stalker, but unfettered, unrestrained by any mark or oath.

The shadows attacked.

They lashed out like liquid whips, not at the warriors, but at their weapons. Swords shattered on contact, the metal rusting to dust in a heartbeat. Shields splintered into dry rot. The shadows moved with impossible speed, a blur of obliteration, disarming the entire squad in the space of two heartbeats, leaving them stumbling back, clutching numb hands, staring at piles of rust and decay where steel had been.

Then, the shadow-vortex coalesced behind Kaelen’s horse. Kael reformed, solid, his hand shooting out to snatch the prince’s wrist. Before Kaelen could react, Kael twisted the ring from his finger.

Kaelen howled a sound of pure, scorching agony that was too deep, too raw to be human. Green fire erupted from his eyes, his mouth, his pores. The possession wasn't hidden anymore; it was enraged, exposed.

“YOU BROKEN THING! GIVE IT BACK!” the layered voice shrieked from Kaelen’s throat.

Kael held up the onyx ring between thumb and forefinger. He looked at the screaming, green-fire-wreathed prince with utter dispassion. Then, he closed his silver eyes.

The shadows that had disarmed the warriors rushed inward, wrapping around the ring, around Kael’s fist. There was a sound of grinding stone and snapping magic. When the shadows retreated, the ring was gone. Crushed to magical dust.

Kaelen’s shriek cut off. He slumped in his saddle, unconscious, the green fire snuffed out. The connection was severed.

Kael looked up at the wall, at Elara, at the stunned Silvermane archers. “The gate stays closed,” he said, his voice final.

Then his form bled into the shadows once more, not swirling, but stretching, elongating, shooting up the sheer stone wall like a reverse waterfall of darkness. He flowed over the battlements, reforming beside Elara, the scent of ozone and cold stone wafting from him.

He stood next to her, a quiet, terrifying monument. Below, the Stonefang army milled in confusion, their prince unconscious, their weapons turned to dust, their purpose shattered.

On the walls, every guard had their bow or sword pointed not at the army below, but at him. At the being who had just demonstrated power that defied all understanding.

Kael ignored them. His silver eyes were fixed on the distant, darkening woods.

“He was the first,” Kael said softly, so only she could hear. “The listening stone. They are everywhere. In the gifts, the trinkets, the stones of the hall.” He finally turned that luminous, alien gaze on her. “Your keep is not a sanctuary, Elara. It is a hive. And you are the queen, surrounded by whispers.”

He had not come back to protect her. He had come back to show her the true depth of the infestation.

And as he stood there, a target for every arrow on the wall, he made no move to defend himself. The unspoken challenge hung in the air:

Did she trust the monster on the wall who had just saved them from a spy?

Or the terrified pack pointing weapons at their only true defense?