THE BLOOD OF NOCTURNE.

Chapter One: The Dream That Bled Elara's POV: Elara Vornescu woke with the taste of iron in her mouth and a scream tangled in her throat. For a moment, she couldn’t move. The room around her pulsed—walls breathing in and out like a lung. Shadows stretched, long fingers across the wooden beams of the ceiling reaching for her. Her shift clung damp to her skin, and her hair stuck to her neck like a second shroud. The dream hadn’t faded. Not this time. She could still see him—tall, cloaked in red armor that shimmered like molten rubies beneath a bleeding moon. He had stood in a field of ash and cinders, reaching for her with a hand wrapped in black gauntlets. His mouth had moved, forming a name she knew too well. Elara. Her name, spoken like a vow. A knock startled her. Three slow raps. Then a voice—soft, frayed with age. “Elara? Are you awake?” Ana. “I’m here,” she said, her voice hoarse. The door creaked open. Ana stepped inside carrying a lamp, its glow pushing back the shadows in flickering strokes. She was still in her nightclothes, robe hastily tied, gray hair braided over one shoulder. Ana took one look at Elara and sighed. “The dream again.” Elara nodded. “Same one?” “He spoke this time.” Elara’s fingers curled in the bedsheet. “He said my name.” Ana moved to her side and brushed damp strands of hair from her forehead. “You’re burning.” “He was… close,” Elara whispered. “Not just in the dream. It felt like he was inside me. Like I was remembering him, not imagining him.” Ana’s hand stilled. She said nothing for a beat too long. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet. “Did he touch you?” “No.” Elara paused. “But I could feel it, all the same.” Ana turned, reaching for a cloth. “We’ll speak to the priest in the morning.” “No.” Elara sat up too quickly, and the room tilted. “You know what they’ll say. That I’m cursed. Touched by a demon. They’ll bleed me again. I won’t—” Ana’s eyes narrowed. “You’d rather wait until whatever this is takes you? Until you’re no longer Elara but... something else?” Elara didn’t answer. Ana shook her head and turned to wring the cloth—then froze. “Child… you’re bleeding.” “What?” Ana reached forward and gently pulled aside Elara’s braid. Her fingers brushed the skin behind Elara’s right ear. Elara flinched. “You weren’t scratched,” Ana murmured. She held up her fingers—crimson and glistening. “The skin is unbroken. The blood just... appeared.” Elara touched the spot. It burned beneath her fingers, not a wound but something deeper—like a hot coal pressed under her skin. Ana took a shaky breath. “The mark is waking.” Elara looked away. She didn’t need Ana to say what came next. Her mother had died with the same mark. So had her grandmother. A line of women, each cursed by blood and shadow. It wasn’t a birthright. It was a sentence. --- The next morning dawned gray and cold. A thin veil of mist clung to the trees, coiling between the bare branches like smoke. Even the crows were silent. Elara stood at the window, eyes fixed on the path leading down to the village well. Then she saw it—no, him. A man lay crumpled in the dirt, his limbs twisted, mouth agape in a final, silent scream. She ran from the room without thinking, feet bare, ignoring Ana’s voice behind her. When she reached the edge of the hill, her breath caught in her chest. The man—Tomas, the cooper’s son—was stone still. His face had gone waxen, his eyes wide open and unfocused. There were no wounds. No blood. Only a strange hollowness to him, like the soul had been scooped out and discarded. She took a shaky step back. Then the horses came. --- They rode in silence. Five of them. All clad in black robes, hoods drawn low, faces half-hidden. Their mounts were pale, grayish-white with eyes like polished glass, and not one of them steamed in the chill air. They stopped at the edge of the well. The lead rider dismounted. He moved with quiet authority, kneeling beside Tomas’s body. Elara couldn’t hear what he said, but she watched his fingers move in the air, drawing shapes that shimmered faintly, then vanished. The mist around the corpse thickened. He stood slowly, gaze lifting—and locked directly onto Elara. --- She ran back to the manor, her breath tearing at her lungs. By the time she returned to her room, Ana was waiting, holding a coat and a packed satchel. “I saw them,” Elara gasped. “At the well.” “I know. They’ve come for you.” “Who are they?” “Monks,” Ana said. “Of a sort. They call themselves the Ordo Nocturne. They protect what the rest of the world pretends doesn’t exist.” “Then why are they here?” Ana’s mouth drew into a line. “Because it’s starting. Like it started for your mother. Like it always begins.” A knock came again—measured, deliberate. Not at her bedroom door. At the front. --- The man who entered was not what Elara expected. He looked older than he was, with dark eyes sunken deep beneath brows like storm clouds. Scars ran down one side of his jaw, just beneath the salt-and-iron stubble. He did not carry a weapon, but something about him—his silence, his stillness—was more dangerous than blades. “I am Father Calderon,” he said, bowing slightly. “I believe you’ve seen him.” Elara’s lips parted. “Who?” “The man in red.” She said nothing. But her silence was its own answer. He stepped forward, gently, carefully—as if she might break if he moved too fast. “You bear the Mark of the Veil. It is not a curse, Elara. It is a key.” “A key to what?” “To something we sealed long ago. Something that dreams in shadow. Something that wants you back.” Elara felt the burn behind her ear again, sharp and sudden. Her breath caught. “What happens,” she asked quietly, “if the seal breaks?” Father Calderon looked past her, through the window where the sun hung behind a veil of red-tinged clouds. For a moment, she thought she saw fear in his eyes. “The world remembers him,” he said. Then softer, as if confessing a sin: “And then it forgets itself.”