Ellis Vane

Morlet's Tear

We left the village and its lingering scent of fear. Days of trudging across endless plains settled into my bones like heavy mud. Above, the bruised sky faded to star-pricked indigo, offering no shelter—only vast, unsettling emptiness.

Yet despite deep fatigue etching her face, Elara’s eyes burned fierce. She sank onto a worn blanket near our campfire—a fragile bubble against the dark—and unfolded an ancient tome bound in leather dark and aged beyond memory. Her calloused finger traced faded script like dried blood, moving with familiarity.

Before a word formed, cool presence settled beside me. Caius. Appearing like solidified shadow, firelight painting deceptive warmth on skin untouched by true heat. He leaned close, voice a low purr meant only for my ears. 'Luna.' He tasted the name, drawing it out slowly—not hostile, but weighted like unwelcome intimacy. 'Evocative name for one Shadow-touched. Tell me... why Luna?'

His gaze slid over my face, lingering at my throat's pulse. The proximity suffocated. I caught his scent—old parchment and frost on stone. 'I don't know,' I replied flatly. Fear was death here. 'Just my name. Always has been.'

A ghost-smile touched his lips. One pale finger rose, hovering near a stray strand of hair at my temple. He didn't touch. 'Is that so? How... ordinary.' His voice dropped to velvet murmur. 'In certain circles, little wolf, 'Luna' isn't just a name. It means the moon's chosen consort. The pack's heart. The Alpha's mate.' His pale eyes trapped mine. 'Does it fit? Or fate's jest for a beast-marked girl?'

Heat flooded my face—anger warring with awareness. Was he mocking my lack of pack? My battle with the Shadow? His gaze burned. I held it, the Shadow stirring inside, a silent growl deep. Hold. Just hold. 'It's a name,' I repeated, tighter. 'Nothing more.'

His finger brushed away dirt on my leather forearm—brief, cold, deliberate. 'Pity,' he sighed. 'The moon deserves a fitting consort.'

'Enough, Thorne.' Elara's voice cut like rusty steel. She hadn't looked up, but her tone brooked no argument. 'Save your venom. The pup has enough snapping wolves.' She lifted her head, flame-reflecting eyes pinning us. 'Stories end. Now, we speak of the stone.' Her finger tapped the grimy illustration—the thorn-wrapped, eye-split gem. 'Settle. It's time you learned what Gromm hunts. What the Moonstone truly is.'

The weight slammed back. Caius leaned back slightly, his predatory gaze sharpening. My embarrassment vanished, replaced by cold dread. The unsettling dance was over. Elara's dark knowledge would be laid bare.

'It wasn't called the Moon's Eye,' she began, words heavy from a buried place. 'In the Annals of the Duskfall, it's 'Morlet's Tear'.'

Caius's eyes snapped open—silver coins catching fire. A flicker of cold, sharp recognition. Gone instantly, but the air chilled.

Elara ignored him. Voice flat, she recited nightmare: 'Morlet. Neither alive nor dead. Neither flesh, blood, nor bone. An abomination forged in forbidden arts. Wolf savagery. Vine hunger. Human cunning... fused in chaos. Its power drowned cities. Left only ruin.' Firelight carved deep lines on her face. 'The Alpha of Alphas roared defiance. Vampire Princes bared fangs. Covens wove sun-blotching spells. The Argent Hunter's Guild loosed silver storms... All converging to drive it to the Blackstone Peaks summit.'

Her gaze swept over me, then anchored on Caius's impassive face. 'The chronicles say the final blow shattered its form. Power scattered... crystallized.' Her finger stabbed the grimy gemstone illustration. 'Like tears shed by a bleeding moon. Wolves took the Claw-Stone. Covens claimed the mind-Crystal. Vampires...' Her eyes locked with Caius's for a heartbeat. '...took the heart-core. The font of its power.' Her voice hardened. 'But the core fragment... the unbreakable shard holding its primal will and raw chaos... was This. The 'Right Eye.' Morlet's Tear. Different names. Same cursed essence.'

The campfire cracked violently, spitting embers that threw monstrous shadows.

'It's not inert,' Elara whispered, clear in the sudden stillness. 'It's an echo of that will, crystallized power. Wield it, and you might command earth's bones... cheat death itself...' She paused, letting the terror hang. '...or be consumed. Remade into something... Other.'

Silence crashed down, heavier than the plains' night. Only wind whispered through rocks like lost souls. The weight of that small gem on the page pressed in. The path ahead felt paved with gods' bones. And Gromm wanted its heart.

'Derelict nonsense.'

Caius's voice sliced the heavy air, colder than mountain ice. He rose with predator grace. Firelight played over his perfect features, failing to warm the ancient chill beneath. An icy smile touched his lips—part mock, part distant calculation.

Wolf's savagery? Vine's hunger? Man's reason? 'Poetic, Witch,' he drawled, each word deliberate and freezing. 'And this grand 'alliance'... Pure fancy.'

He stepped to the firelight's edge, moonlight and flame warring on his form. His gaze fixed on the distant Blackstone peaks—or perhaps a blood-soaked dusk only he recalled.

'The creature's power... was destructive,' he conceded, detached. 'Ending it was necessary. Wolf claws were insect stings. Witch spells... buzzing gnats. Hunter silver?' A dismissive flick of his fingers. 'Barely marked its hide.' He turned, silver eyes pinning Elara and encompassing me. 'The blow that ended it... fell from my hand.'

The air itself seemed to freeze. Elara's breath hitched. My nails bit deep into my palms. He killed it?

'A Starfall silver dagger,' he stated flatly. 'Tempered in betrayers' blood. Blessed—or cursed—by the full Blood Court of Thirteen.' His tone was clinical. 'I drove it into Morlet's core. Here.' His pale hand lifted, indicating a spot high on his own left chest. 'I witnessed its core—that knot of screaming wills—unravel. Saw its monstrous shell collapse, desiccate, turn to dust on the wind... Heard its final, maddened cry fade beneath the stars. It died. Utterly.'

He looked back to the flames. 'Its remnants... the heart-shard, mind-crystal, claw-fragments... scattered. Trinkets for lesser beings to squabble over. Call them 'Moonstones'? Fitting. Residue, nothing more. Tainted utterly by Death.'

Shock punched through me. He killed it? The nightmare fusion that drowned cities? My gaze snapped to the vampire. Not merely ancient danger—a slayer of abominations? A chill deeper than the plains night crept along my spine.

Elara didn't flinch. Her near-black eyes held Caius's silver gaze, unnervingly calm. 'You witnessed its end,' she acknowledged, voice sharp as flint. 'Shattered its physical form. But Thorne... you grasp only the surface. Secrets fester beneath the blood and dust you walked away from.'

Caius's icy composure held, yet the air perceptibly chilled. A predator sensing stealth. 'Enlighten me.'

Elara tapped the grimy illustration. 'Your dagger shattered the core. Wolves, covens, your own brethren... they tore at the obvious prizes. Claw-Stone. Mind-Crystal. Heart-Core.' Her lips thinned. 'But in victory's chaotic shadow... others slithered.'

She closed the book with a soft thud. 'A cabal. Unsanctioned. They styled themselves Shadow Weavers. Necromancers, power-seekers, drawn to the corpse like flies.' Her gaze drilled into Caius. 'While victors brawled over the great shards, they crept into the ruins of Morlet's death place.' She paused. 'They sought not the known fragments. They sought the body. The desiccated husk abandoned on the mountain.'

They stole the corpse? The thought curdled my stomach. My skin prickled with revulsion. What depraved purpose...?