Night fell over the middle tier quietly, without warning, like a blanket covering a sleeping child. Nox lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling, where shadows from a candle left on the windowsill danced. Lin was already asleep, her breathing even and deep, and the Abyss on her wrists flickered in time with that breath, like a living ornament, like a second skin that never came off.
Sleep would not come. Too many thoughts swarmed in his head, too many questions for which he had no answers. Who was he now? A boy from the slums who had become a Shadow bearer? The last of the Endragon bloodline, hunted by a goddess? A witch's apprentice who had to be forged into a weapon in a month? All of it was true, and none of it fit completely in his mind.
He got up, careful not to wake Lin, and walked to the window. Beyond the dirty glass, the middle tier slept: rare lanterns burned like yellow spots, somewhere in the distance a magic train hummed, heading out on its night run, and the moon, pale and enormous, hung over the rooftops like an eye that never closed. Nox looked at it and felt Shadow inside him reaching toward that light, cold and alien, trying to absorb it, devour it, destroy it.
«Can't sleep?»
He turned around. Sylvana stood in the doorway, leaning her shoulder against the frame. She wore a long dark robe, her hair loose and falling over her shoulders in a silver wave, in her hand her usual cup of something steaming. In the faint moonlight filtering through the window, she looked almost ghostly, like a vision from another world, another life.
«Can't sleep,» he admitted.
«Come downstairs. Since neither of us can sleep, we need to talk.»
They went down to the kitchen. Sylvana lit the magical lamp, dimmed it to a soft amber glow, and sat at the table, gesturing for Nox to do the same. He sat across from her and waited. He had learned to recognize when she wanted to say something important and not to rush her.
«Tomorrow I will begin teaching you to sense another's Shadow at a distance,» she said finally, looking into her cup. «It is harder than anything you have done before. You will sit for hours, trying to grasp what cannot be seen or heard, and at first, you will fail. That is normal. Everyone goes through it. Even your father, in his first days, wanted to bash his head against the wall out of frustration.»
Nox smiled slightly, imagining the scene. A man he had never seen but whose blood he carried inside him, sitting somewhere, angry at his own inability to do what seemed impossible. It made his father closer. More human.
«But there is something else,» Sylvana continued, and her voice changed, grew quieter, heavier. «Something I have not told you before. Something that might help you in this training, but could also harm you.»
«What is it?»
She paused, then took a small object from her robe pocket and placed it on the table between them. It was a pendant, old and tarnished, on a thin silver chain that seemed as if it could break with one careless touch. The pendant itself was a round plate of dark metal with a symbol engraved on it that Nox did not recognize, but that resonated within him with a strange, almost painful familiarity. Somewhere deep, at the level of blood, he knew this symbol. He had always known it.
«This is the crest of House Endragon,» Sylvana said. «The Shadow Dragon coiled in a ring. Your family's symbol. Your father wore this pendant constantly, and when he came to me for the last time, he gave it to me. He said, "If my children survive, give it to them. If not, keep it as a memory." I have kept it for thirteen years. Now it is yours.»
Nox reached out his hand but stopped his fingers a centimeter from the pendant. Something inside him screamed: do not touch it, it is dangerous, it will change you. And something else, deeper, more ancient, demanded: take it, it is yours by right of blood, by right of birth.
He took it.
The world exploded.
Not literally, not with fire or thunder. It simply disappeared. The kitchen, Sylvana, the lamp light, the moon outside the window, all of it vanished in an instant, replaced by darkness. Absolute. All consuming. So deep that Nox stopped feeling his own body, stopped understanding where was up, where was down, where he himself was. He was just a consciousness floating in a void, and that void was as ancient as the world itself.
And then a voice came out of the darkness.
«Nox.»
He recognized it. He had never heard that voice in reality, but he recognized it instantly, with every cell, every drop of blood. His father. It was his father.
«Can you hear me?»
«Yes,» Nox wanted to say, but could not. He had no mouth, no voice, no body. But his father seemed to hear his thoughts.
«Good. We have little time. The pendant you are holding is not just a piece of jewelry. I put part of my memory into it, part of my soul, if you will. I knew I would not survive, and I wanted you to someday hear what I did not have time to say in life. Listen carefully. This is important.»
A pause. The darkness around Nox began to change, vague outlines emerging within it, as if he were looking at the world through very dirty glass. He saw a room, large, richly furnished, with tall windows and a fireplace in which a fire burned. And in that room stood a man. Tall, broad shouldered, with dark hair and a tired face. His eyes, gray like Lin's, looked directly at Nox, and there was love in them. So much love that Nox caught his breath, even though he was not breathing.
«My name is Dorian Endragon,» the man said. «I am your father. And I need to tell you the truth. All of it. About why the Moon Goddess hunts our bloodline. About what I did to protect you. And about what you must do to stop her.»
The vision blurred, changing. The room disappeared, replaced by another place: a vast hall carved into rock, lit not by torches but by something else, cold and silvery. In the center of the hall stood an altar, and on the altar lay a body. A woman. Beautiful and terrifying at once, with skin glowing with moonlight, and eyes in which there was nothing but emptiness.
«The Moon Goddess,» his father's voice sounded. «Once, she was mortal. One of us. The first Shadow bearer, the strongest who ever lived. But it was not enough for her. She wanted more. She found a way to enter the halls of the Lord of Shadows, the true god of our power, and steal part of his essence. She became a goddess, but not a true one. Her divinity is incomplete, and it is slowly fading. To survive, she needs Shadow. All the Shadow that exists in the world. That is why she hunts the bearers. That is why she destroyed our bloodline.»
The vision changed again. Now Nox saw a battlefield. Dozens, hundreds of people fighting each other, and above them swirled shadows, alive and hungry, devouring everything in their path. In the center of this chaos stood his father, and in his hands burned Bloodshadow, the hybrid of Blood and Shadow that Sylvana had told him about. He fought like a demon, like a god, like death itself, and enemies fell before him one by one.
«I tried to stop her,» the voice continued. «I gathered every Shadow bearer I could find and went to war against her halls. We almost won. Almost. But she was stronger. She destroyed my army and made me watch as my friends, my brothers in arms, died. Then she let me go. She said I would live and know that she would come for my children. For you. For Lin. And she will come.»
The vision faded, and Nox found himself again in the darkness, face to face with his father. The man looked at him with infinite sadness and infinite love.
«I could not protect you in life. But I did everything to protect you after death. The pendant you are holding not only holds my memory. It holds a fragment of my power. Bloodshadow. When you are ready, when your Shadow reaches the required level, the pendant will give you that power. You will become a hybrid, like me. And then you will have a chance. Not to defeat the Goddess, no. But to survive. And perhaps to find a way to free the Lord of Shadows. Only he can truly destroy her.»
A pause. His father stepped closer, and Nox felt something warm touch his forehead. A hand. Large, with calluses. The very hand he remembered.
«I love you, son. I love Lin. Tell her that. And remember: you are not alone. Even when it seems the whole world is against you, you are not alone. In your blood flows the strength of generations. In your hearts is a love that no goddess can take away. Fight. Survive. And be happy. That is all I ever wanted for you.»
The vision began to fade. The darkness receded, and Nox felt himself returning to his body, to the kitchen, to the table, to Sylvana, who was watching him with concern.
«Father,» he wanted to cry out. «Wait, I still…»
«We will meet again. When you are ready. Now wake up. You are needed.»
Nox opened his eyes.
He was sitting at the kitchen table, the pendant clutched in his hand, and tears were streaming down his cheeks. He did not remember the last time he had cried. Perhaps never. But now the tears flowed on their own, and he could not stop them, and did not want to. Sylvana looked at him, and in her violet eyes were answering tears that she did not allow herself to shed.
«You saw him,» she said. Not a question.
«Yes. He spoke to me. He… he loves us. He always loved us.»
«I know. He was a good man. The best I ever knew.»
Nox opened his hand and looked at the pendant. The Shadow Dragon coiled in a ring now glowed faintly from within, as if a tiny light burned inside the metal. He put the chain around his neck, and the pendant settled on his chest, warm and heavy, like a promise. Like a reminder.
«He said the pendant holds a fragment of his power. Bloodshadow. And that when I am ready, it will become mine.»
Sylvana nodded.
«I suspected as much. That is why I kept the pendant all these years. Your father was not just a Shadow bearer. He was one of the most powerful mages of his generation. If you inherit even part of his power, you will have a chance. A real chance.»
Nox looked up. The scars on his face seemed to burn brighter than usual in the lamplight, and in his eyes, usually dark and wary, a new fire now burned. Not rage. Not fear. Determination. The same determination that had led his father into battle against a goddess. The same determination that flowed in his blood.
«I will become stronger,» he said. «I will learn to sense another's Shadow. I will master everything you can teach me. And when the time comes, I will accept my father's power and become a hybrid. And then…»
He did not finish. Words were not needed. Sylvana understood anyway.
Outside the window, the moon, pale and cold, continued its journey across the sky. It looked down on the small house in the middle tier, on the witch and the boy sitting at the table, and something in its eternal light wavered. For a second. For a fraction of a second. But it wavered.
Because somewhere deep in her halls, the Moon Goddess felt that something had changed. The last of the Endragons was no longer just a boy who survived. He had become an heir. He had learned the truth. And he had begun his path.
The ancient Shadow she had sent was still on its way. It moved through the night, through forests and mountains, through rivers and wastelands, never stopping, never resting. It knew its target. It knew its orders. Find. Track. Destroy.
But now its target had a name. And that name burned in the darkness like a beacon, like a challenge, like a promise.
Nox Endragon.
Child of Shadows.
Heir to Bloodshadow.
And he was not going to die.