The moon hung low over Lera, swollen and pale as bone, like it carried secrets too heavy for the sky. Its silver light bled across the village rooftops, pooling in doorways and stretching shadows that clung to stone like living things. The night air cut sharp and clean, finding every gap in wool and leather, every inch of bare skin left unguarded.
From the woods beyond, a branch snapped—one clean break that rang through the silence like a blade drawn from its sheath.
Lera lay hushed beneath the moonlight. Not the peaceful quiet of sleep, but the breathless stillness that comes before lightning strikes. The kind of silence that presses against your chest, makes your heartbeat sound like thunder in your ears. No owls called from the eaves. No dogs stirred in their yards. Even the wind had died, leaving the trees frozen mid-sway, their leaves hanging motionless as painted things.
The world wasn't resting. It was holding its breath.
Inside a timber hut at the village's edge, Mara fought a battle written in blood and agony.
Pain wracked her body in relentless waves, each one crashing higher than the last. Her hands gripped the bedframe until splinters buried themselves deep in her palms—tiny wounds she couldn't feel beneath the greater fire consuming her. Sweat rolled down her face in hot streams, then chilled on her neck and shoulders. Her breathing came in ragged gasps, each inhale like swallowing smoke, each exhale a surrender to the next wave of torment.
The air inside reeked of iron and herbs—bitter roots burning in clay bowls, sage smoke that hung thick as fog. Candles guttered by the hearth, their flames dancing too slow, casting shadows that stretched and writhed across the walls like grasping fingers.
Beside her, Daren knelt on the rough wooden floor. His weathered hands—hands that had gripped sword hilts and plow handles, that had never trembled in battle—shook as they held hers. He'd faced down raiders in the dark. He'd stood against wolves with nothing but steel and will. But this... this unmade him. The raw terror in Mara's eyes, the way she bit back screams until her lips bled, the helplessness of watching her suffer—it cut deeper than any blade ever had.
"Almost there," he whispered, his voice cracking like a boy's. "Hold on. Just hold on."
Mara's lips parted, but no words came. Only a low moan that seemed to rise from somewhere deeper than her throat, older than her bones.
The midwife worked in focused silence. Ancient and small, her parchment skin stretched thin over bird-delicate bones, but her hands moved with the certainty of decades. She muttered under her breath—not prayers, but something older, words meant to ward and protect, to keep hungry shadows at bay. Her eyes darted to the window again and again, watching something only she could see.
Outside, the moon dimmed. One star flickered and died. Then another. The sky itself seemed to pulse, breathing slow and deep like some vast creature stirring from sleep.
The midwife's chanting grew urgent, each syllable sharp as broken glass. She didn't look away from the window again.
Something was coming. She could feel it pressing against the night, testing the boundaries between worlds.
Inside the hut, the air thickened until it felt solid, heavy as water. The smoke from burning herbs curled in unnatural patterns, forming shapes that almost looked like faces before dissolving. The fire hissed and spat, casting light but no warmth. Every creak of the timber walls rang sharp and hollow, as if the wood itself had grown brittle with fear.
Then the pain struck again—harder, deeper, like lightning made flesh.
Mara's scream tore through the night, raw and wild and desperate. Her spine arched until it seemed it might snap, her fingers clawing gouges in the bedpost. Sweat and tears carved rivers down her face, salt stinging her eyes. Her voice shattered, dissolved into gasping sobs, and for a terrible moment she couldn't breathe at all.
"Push," the midwife commanded, her voice cutting through the haze like a blade through silk.
And Mara pushed. Pushed with everything left in her—all her strength, all her love, all her desperate hope. Her cry stretched long and thin, then broke into silence. Her body convulsed once, twice, then went still. Each breath came wet and shallow, barely stirring her chest.
Daren leaned close, panic clawing at his throat. Her face had gone milk-pale, her lips touched with blue. She was slipping away, sliding toward a darkness he couldn't follow.
"Stay with me," he pleaded. "Please. Just a little more."
Blood touched her lips when she tried to smile.
Then—
Lightning split the clear sky. No thunder followed. No clouds had gathered. Just one brilliant crack of white fire that illuminated the world for a heartbeat, then vanished, leaving the night darker than before.
And in that deeper darkness came the cry.
A baby's cry—fierce and wild, ringing through the hut like struck silver. It shattered the oppressive quiet, defied the waiting silence, announced a new life to a world that had forgotten how to breathe.
The midwife caught him—slick and red and perfect, a small squirming miracle wrapped in blood and starlight. She bundled him quickly in herb-scented cloth—juniper and myrrh, old protections passed down through generations of wise women. Her mouth set in a grim line. No joy touched her weathered features. Only wariness.
"A son," she said simply.
Mara stirred, her trembling arms reaching out despite their weakness. When the child was placed against her breast, she sighed—not relief, but recognition. Tears carved clean paths through the grime on her cheeks. Her eyes fluttered, fighting to stay open, to see this miracle she had bought with pain.
Daren looked at his son.
And felt his world tilt on its axis.
The child's eyes were open—not cloudy and unfocused as newborns' should be, but alert, aware, watching. And they were black. Not brown or grey or even deep blue, but black as the spaces between stars, black as the heart of winter nights. So utterly dark that the gentle darkness outside suddenly seemed pale and weak by comparison, as if true night lived only in those tiny, impossible eyes.
The fire flickered and dimmed. The shadows on the walls stretched toward the child like supplicants reaching for their god.
Daren's breath caught in his throat. Something primitive and animal in him whispered warnings, spoke of things that hunted in the dark places of the world. But beneath the fear lay wonder—terrible and beautiful and vast as the night sky.
The midwife tied the cord with practiced efficiency, but her hands trembled now. She glanced toward the window where strange lights danced just beyond the glass—not fireflies, but something colder, hungrier. Her final blessing came as barely a whisper, words meant not for mother or child but for whatever prowled the darkness beyond the walls.
Outside, the wind held its breath. But something else stirred—patient and ancient and interested.
Daren tried to swallow, tried to speak, but his throat had closed tight with wonder and terror. He had faced death on a dozen battlefields, had stood unflinching before blade and claw and flame. But this child—his son—carried something in those midnight eyes that made warriors' courage seem like a child's game.
The boy hadn't simply been born into the world.
He had changed it.
The night no longer watched.
It worshipped.