Chapter One
The Lantern Keeper of Greyhaven
Chapter One: The Light That Should Not Exist
Greyhaven was a town that believed in darkness.
Not the poetic kind that poets praised or lovers shared, but a practical, stubborn darkness that settled into bones and habits. The cliffs swallowed the sun early, the fog arrived without invitation, and the sea whispered warnings no one fully understood. In Greyhaven, doors were bolted before nightfall, children were called indoors at dusk, and everyone agreed on one rule:
No light should burn on the cliffs after midnight.
So when a lantern appeared there—steady, golden, and alive—people noticed.
Elias Crowe noticed first.
He was the keeper of the old lighthouse, a structure so ancient it had become part of the cliff itself. Elias had inherited the duty from his father, and his father before him, though the lighthouse had not been lit in over twenty years. Ships no longer passed close enough to need it, and the town claimed the sea had learned to navigate itself.
Elias did not argue. He simply maintained the tower.
On the night the lantern appeared, Elias was halfway through his rounds when he saw it—far beyond the lighthouse, where the cliffs broke into jagged stone. The light did not flicker like fire or pulse like magic. It breathed, as if alive.
His first instinct was fear. His second was curiosity.
Against his better judgment, Elias took his coat, a spare lantern, and climbed the narrow path toward the forbidden edge. The fog thickened as he walked, swallowing sound, until the world was nothing but stone, breath, and light.
At the cliff's edge stood a girl.
She could not have been older than eighteen. Her dark hair was tied back poorly, and her boots were worn thin. In her hands, she held the lantern.
"You shouldn't be here," Elias said, his voice sharper than intended.
She turned slowly, eyes reflecting gold. "Neither should the light," she replied. "But here we are."
Before Elias could ask another question, the fog surged upward like a living thing, and the world vanished.