The moon was a wound in the sky half violet, half red, bleeding its light over the dead rooftops of Lunareth.
I walked alone through the shattered edge of the city, where the cobblestones gave way to dirt and the dirt to ruins. The air was heavy here, thick with something that didn't belong to this world. Each breath felt like it carried whispers. And every whisper… carried my name.
"Adrien… Adrien Blackwood…"
I stopped.
That voice again. I had heard it since the eclipse night. Sometimes soft, sometimes broken. Sometimes it sounded like my mother. Sometimes… like me.
But tonight, it was different. There was another echo in it. Another rhythm, like two voices speaking through the same tongue.
Aether danced faintly around my palm as I lifted it. The energy crackled blue-white forming threads that glowed against the darkness.
And then it happened.
A gust of cold swept past me, followed by a faint shimmer in the air ahead. The space twisted like heatwaves but the temperature was freezing. A distortion, bending light itself.
From that shimmer, a figure stepped out.
Black boots touched the cracked ground, a coat swaying behind him. His presence was quiet, yet the air *moved* when he exhaled. His eyes deep crimson with streaks of faint indigo locked on mine.
I felt something snap inside me.
That aura.
It was almost identical to mine.
"...You," I muttered, my voice barely audible over the night wind. "Who are you?"
The boy smiled faintly not with warmth, but with something else. A calm, distant arrogance.
"Names are meaningless when the world's already forgotten them," he said. His voice carried strange calmness, the kind that made you believe he wasn't human anymore.
"But if you must know…" He stepped closer, his eyes glowing faintly beneath the broken moonlight. "They used to call me Lucen."
Lucen.
The name slid across my mind like a blade. It sounded both pure and sinister, like light trapped inside shadow.
He tilted his head slightly, studying me the way a scientist would study an experiment.
"So you're the other one," he said softly. "The other Eclipseborn."
That word hit me harder than expected. Eclipseborn. I had seen it written in that old cave, etched into the stone when I first discovered the meteor's truth. A prophecy whispered by the ancients.
When the twin shadows are born beneath a bleeding sky, one shall bring salvation… and the other, the end.
"So," I said, keeping my tone low. "You're saying you're the end?"
Lucen smiled a slow, unsettling grin.
"*Forse. Maybe. Or maybe I'm the one freeing this world from its illusion."
He raised his hand. The air trembled.
Dark crimson energy spiraled upward, mixing with faint streaks of blue like my own Lnx energy, but unstable, distorted, chaotic. I could feel it vibrating with hatred.
"How do you have that?" I asked, my tone sharpening. "That energy"
"Lnx?" he finished. "Oh, you know its name already. Good. Then you know it's more than mana. More than aether. It's what's left when both collapse."
He closed his hand, and the world around us darkened. Even the moon's light seemed to avoid him.
"It's the law of shadow," he whispered. "The energy that governs silence, death… and rebirth."
I clenched my fists. My heartbeat was too loud.
It wasn't fear.
It was recognition.
That same law pulsed within me but I had tried to suppress it, to control it. To make it something that wouldn't consume me. But Lucen... he *embraced* it.
Our energies rippled in the air, brushing against each other like two storms about to collide. The ground cracked beneath our feet, and pebbles began to float upward.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
"To see you," he said simply. "To see what the other half of me looks like."
"I'm nothing like you."
He smiled again, eyes half-lidded. "Really? Are you sure about this?"
A gust of violet-blue wind burst between us. My coat flared, and instinctively I stepped back, hand ready. The mana, aether, and Lnx inside me reacted violently, swirling as if something ancient inside me recognized him.
I tried to steady my breathing.
"Who sent you?" I demanded. "You're too calm for someone who just appeared out of nowhere."
Lucen's smirk faded for a brief second. His crimson eyes flickered like a candle trembling in the dark.
"Let's just say…" he murmured, "…there's someone who believes I can reshape this world. A voice that found me the night the meteor fell."
"The same voice that whispered to me…" I said quietly. "But you listened to it."
He took a step forward.
"And you resisted it. That's why we're different."
A pause. The night fell silent. Only the wind between us moved, carrying the cold scent of ruin.
"You could've been anything," Lucen said, his tone almost… regretful. "But you chose to hide among rats and broken walls. You could've ruled this city."
"I don't want to rule," I replied sharply. "I just want to live."
He looked genuinely confused for a moment, like that concept didn't exist in his world.
"Live?" he repeated. "What is 'living' in a world like this? People like us aren't meant to live, Adrien. We're meant to *change* what others fear."
His energy pulsed again, cracking the ground beneath him. My breath hitched as the wave of power hit my chest pushing me back a step. He wasn't even attacking. Just... releasing it.
"Enough," I said, forcing my Lnx energy to stabilize. My aura surged, surrounding me in faint violet light. "You talk too much."
"Oh?" Lucen's smirk widened. "Then let's speak the only language that matters power."
He raised his hand.
The space between us shattered like glass.
In an instant, a crimson blade of energy formed in his hand silent, thin as a whisper, sharp as reality itself. I barely reacted in time, summoning a burst of aether in my palm, deflecting the first slash. Sparks of violet and red exploded around us, sending debris flying.
The impact wasn't physical. It was like our energies were arguing, refusing to exist together.
Our clash didn't make sound it devoured it.
Every time our powers met, silence expanded, then shattered into light.
I could feel my lungs burning, the Lnx in my veins flaring hotter. But there was something else a faint vibration behind Lucen's power, a second presence. Like something *watching* through him.
He wasn't fighting alone.
As I blocked another strike, I saw it just for an instant his reflection in the moonlight. Behind him, a silhouette of something massive, cloaked in shadow. Eyes like fractured glass, smiling.
The mastermind.
"Who's controlling you?" I gritted out, pushing back. "Who's inside your head?"
Lucen's grin wavered. His voice came softer this time.
"Non capiresti… You wouldn't understand. But soon, you will."
A pulse of crimson light forced me back. He stepped away, the ground under his feet cracking like paper.
"Adrien Blackwood," he said slowly, "you'll see soon enough. When the next eclipse rises… the world will kneel."
And then, before I could move, he vanished into a ripple of crimson mist.
The silence that followed was deafening.
My breath came hard. The energy around me slowly dimmed, leaving the faint violet glow of my own Lnx light flickering like a dying flame.
The moon above flickered violet, then red, then blue.
I stared up at it, my reflection shimmering faintly in a puddle below.
For a brief second… I saw *two* faces.
Mine and his.
The reflection smiled first.
"Shadow and light, two faces of the same fate."
And then the puddle rippled… and the reflection was gone.
I stood there, in the ruins of Lunareth, knowing one thing for certain
The eclipse had only just begun.