Flames danced in the night.
Though the fire had died out, the village still smoldered, and the stench of
blood still hung thick in the air. Cloak torn, crescent moon cleaver slick with blood, Nocte stood in the middle of a ruined shrine.
Behind him, the Midnight Suns moved like shadows — silent, disciplined, deadly.
Crow flew through the night like a hungry ghost, his twin blades eating their fill whenever they vanished into flesh. An invader hiding behind a collapsed hut couldn't even gasp in surprise before he felt a blade pierce deep into his lungs from behind.
Jackal, braids matted in blood, laughed at the gurgling man left behind by his vice-captain.
"It's rude to speak with a full mouth," he cackled.
He then caught up to a fleeing invader who pleaded for his life. Jackal smiled, but his axe did not.
The quietest of the three — but most feared — Lobo stalked the edges of the ruins. A growl could be heard as he prowled, more beast than man. He found two survivors hiding beneath an overturned cart. One scream. Then silence.
Nocte watched without comment. These invaders had razed a village under their protection down; they deserved no mercy.
One after another, they returned to their captain in the center of the village — Crow wiping his blade on a special cloth, Jackal still grinning like a drunk hyena, Lobo quiet as smoke. Behind them, the rest of the warriors fell in line, awaiting orders.
He gazed over the carnage with eyes few dared meet. The whites were not white at all, but black as a starless sky — a trait known to belong only to Noctarii.
The blood of Noctis Primara.
Feeling uncomfortable, Jackal broke the silence.
"They fought too hard for a nothing-village," he muttered, jerking his chin toward the fallen invaders. "Outsiders. Not even from this tribe."
"No, not outsiders. Ashsworn." Lobo said as he flipped over a shirtless corpse, revealing a large pyre with people dancing around it, etched into his back with ink.
The silence grew heavy with the weight of Lobo's words.
The Ashsworn were a part of a heretical group called the Cindermarchers. They were not only opposed to tradition, but to the seven tribes that ruled Isla Spectrus — and all who followed the old ways.
It is said that when the Cindermarchers pass through, only ashes are left behind.
"Only ashes indeed..." Crow said, contemplative.
"Still, even if we know the who, we still don't know the why. Just look at this place! Nothing grows. No trade. Not even a shrine worth pissing on." Jackal interjected, kicking debris as he spoke.
Nocte said nothing.
He stood over a dead war-chief, leader of this Ashsworn party, face half-crushed. He was not sent out on a simple raid. He was armed too well, died too hard.
"They were looking for something," Nocte said, kneeling beside the corpse.
He fished a parchment note from the man's cloak — a drawing etched with a radiant sun encircled by night.
"Or someone."
A silence spread through the warband once again.
Jackal narrowed his eyes. "You think it's that prophecy nonsense again?"
Lobo growled in response. "The mountain-born myth?"
"I thought heretics didn't believe in tradition," Crow said jokingly.
Nocte didn't answer. His gaze had shifted elsewhere — past the corpses, past the crumbling walls, to the faint echoes still resonating beneath it all.
A cry. Small. Human.
The wind stirred. The ash whispered.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
hey found it at the edge of the village — the only structure still standing.
Smoke clung to the air like a needy lover, but the building itself was untouched.
No scorch marks. No splinters. Not even a crack in the old stone walls.
The same could not be said for its surroundings.
Corpses were littered around it in a broken ring — invaders in leather and armor, villagers in cloth, bodies tangled together like the roots of some vile tree. Shattered bones, torn throats, and broken spears turned the ground to a slaughterbed.
"They died fighting for it," Crow said, voice low.
"For what?" Lobo muttered.
Jackal kicked over a body, revealing a young defender — no older than fifteen — still clutching a bent sword in lifeless hands.
"Why defend a house when the village burns?" he asked. "No grain. No steel. No shrine. Just rot and dust."
"No," Nocte said. His voice was flat, final. "Something's inside."
He moved first, stepping over corpses without hesitation. The others followed, spreading out — alert, cautious.
The door stood slightly open. Not broken. Not barred. Just... waiting.
Nocte pushed it gently.
The door creaked open, letting stale, cold air spill out. Colder than it should've been.
And the warband froze.
Not from discipline. Not from command.
Instinct.
Even seasoned killers like Lobo and Crow hesitated at the threshold. Jackal, always grinning, was suddenly quiet — until he wasn't.
"Spirits don't guard their dead like this," he muttered, one hand near his blade. "Feels like walking into a grave that still knows your name."
One of the warriors cursed under his breath.
Jackal tried to shrug it off. "Probably nothing in there but dust and smart ghosts. And I hate smart ghosts."
His tone was sharp with humor, but his eyes darted around. Superstition ran deep in him — the kind born from half-whispered tales of the Noctis Primara. Of spirits that remembered names... and debts.
Crow raised an eyebrow. "If it's nothing, why don't you go in instead of the captain?"
Jackal straightened, chest puffed. "Ha! A brave Noctarii like me fears no spirit born of wind or womb."
But when he stood in front of the door, his feet didn't move. Sweat lined his neck.
"Smells like a ghost choked on its own secrets," he muttered. "Even the air's afraid to breathe."
Nocte shook his head and almost smiled.
"Cowards," he said without turning. "The dead can't hurt you."
He pointed. "You three — on me. The rest form perimeter. Clean up the rest."
Then he stepped inside, like the cold meant nothing. Like the fear wasn't real.
One by one, the others followed — blades drawn, shoulders tight, eyes wide.
The interior had no furniture. The walls were bare. The only sign of life was a slit of warm light spilling from beneath the farthest door.
"Captain," Crow said quietly, "whatever's behind that door was worth enough to kill for."
"For once, I agree with bird-brain," Jackal added, hands twitching near his blades. "Feels like something sacred and stupid. Let it stay buried."
Nocte turned to reply—
Then he heard it.
A sound too alive for a grave.
A cry.
A human cry.
The four warriors stiffened. Crow and Lobo exchanged a glance. Jackal swore.
Nocte said nothing. He walked forward, drawn by it.
The crying grew louder — soft, broken, like a question whispered through smoke.
He placed a hand on the handle.
Then he opened the door.
Candles bathed the room in warm, flickering light. A grand mural covered the walls and ceiling — Moon Drop Mountain, jagged and divine, beneath an endless night sky, and the golden sun rising above.
A single set of black armor stood at the center — obsidian, etched in gold, a hand on the hilt of its twin-colored blade. Its visor was empty, but it felt like it watched.
Nocte stepped in slowly, reverently.
Behind the armor — in a shallow stone basin, circled in dried herbs and candles — lay a woman.
Pale. Lifeless. Curled around a bundle of cloth.
A shaman.
A protection ritual had been drawn around her in dried blood. It had held.
The bundle stirred.
Then it cried.
The warriors flinched. Nocte did not.
He stepped past the armor, past the mural, and knelt by the body.
Gently, he peeled back the cloth.
A baby.
Eyes wide. Skin warm. Alive.
The whites of his eyes were not white at all — but deep, starless black.
Much deeper and darker than his own.
But the irises...
Gold. Bright, burning gold.
"One of ours?" Crow whispered.
Nocte didn't answer.
Something was tucked inside the child's swaddle — a brittle strip of parchment, sealed with old wax.
He unfolded it.
Ancient script danced across the page. At the center, a single line:
"He descended the mountain alone — but with his progeny, we shall ascend together."
Nocte stared at it. At the child.
The weight of prophecy pressed down like the Moon Drop Mountain.
The child's breathing was soft. Steady.
"This child..." Nocte murmured, "was meant to be found."