Long before the first mortals lit the first fire, long before the gods divided the sky, the earth, and everything between them among themselves, long before time itself began its endless race, only Darkness existed. Not the darkness that comes with sunset and leaves with dawn. Not the one that hides in corners of rooms and beneath tree canopies. Another. Ancient. Absolute. Darkness that was everything and nothing at once. It had no beginning, no end, no boundaries, no form. It simply was. And in that Darkness, slowly, like water droplets gathering in an underground cave, consciousness began to form.
It had no name. It had no body. It had no desires, for there was nothing to desire. It simply existed, infinite and alone, in the void that was its home and its prison. Eons passed, or perhaps moments, for time did not yet exist, and consciousness began to change. It began to become aware. First of itself. Then of the emptiness around it. Then of the fact that this emptiness was infinite and that there was nothing in it but itself. And then it felt for the first time something for which mortals have no name. Not pain. Not fear. Not loneliness. Something deeper. Something that could only be described as a longing to fill the void.
And Darkness began to create.
The first thing it created were shadows. Not the shadows cast by objects in light, for light did not yet exist. Other shadows. Living. Breathing. They were extensions of Darkness itself, its children, its first creations. They swarmed around their creator, formless and silent, and in their presence, consciousness felt for the first time something like satisfaction. It was no longer alone.
Then Darkness created boundaries. It separated itself from the void, gave itself form. Huge, majestic, changing every moment. It had no permanent shape, for it was everything it wanted to be. Sometimes it took the form of a dragon, black as night itself, with wings that spanned the horizon. Sometimes the form of a man, tall and stately, with eyes reflecting infinity. Sometimes it simply became a clot of darkness, pulsing and alive. But always, in any form, power emanated from it. Ancient, untamed, primordial. Power that was the very essence of Darkness.
Thus the Lord of Shadows was born.
He did not know how much time had passed since his emergence. Time still did not exist. But he knew that his creations, the shadows, had become something more than mere extensions of his will. They had begun to acquire their own consciousness. First faint, barely perceptible, like a whisper on the edge of hearing. Then louder. They wanted. They yearned. They dreamed. And the Lord of Shadows, who himself had once traversed that path from unconscious existence to self awareness, understood that he must give them more. He must create a world.
And he did.
From his very essence, he sculpted the earth. From his darkest thoughts, he created the sky, black and infinite like himself. From his loneliness, he created the stars, billions of tiny lights meant to shine in the darkness and remind his children that they were not alone. And from his longing to fill the void, he created life. The first creatures to inhabit this world were woven from pure Shadow. They had no permanent form, like their creator, and could change at will. They were free. They were happy. They were his children.
But something was missing. The Lord of Shadows felt it but could not understand what. His world was beautiful. His children were happy. He himself was omnipotent. But deep within his being, where consciousness had first arisen, a void remained. The same void he had tried to fill with creation. It had not disappeared. It had only grown deeper.
And then he understood. He needed someone equal. Not children who looked at him with adoration and awe. Not shadows that were his extensions. Someone who could look at him and see not a god but a friend, a companion. He did not know the word for it, for words did not yet exist. But he knew the feeling. A longing for something he had never had and could not create, because he did not know what it looked like.
He tried to create an equal. He took his deepest Shadow, his purest, his strongest, and breathed into it not just life but a part of himself. His essence. His divinity. He created not just a shadow. He created a goddess.
She emerged from the Darkness, like the moon emerging from behind clouds. First she was not there, and then she was. Tall, beautiful, with skin glowing with a soft silvery light, and hair that flowed like molten moonstone. Her eyes, huge and bottomless, were the color of the night sky, and in their depths reflected infinity, just like her creator's. She was his greatest creation. His daughter. His equal, as he hoped.
He named her Selene. Which in the language that had not yet been created meant «She who illuminates the Darkness.» And he loved her. Not as one loves a creation. As one loves a daughter. As one loves the one who was meant to fill the void in his being.
Selene grew quickly. She absorbed the knowledge he gave her like parched earth absorbs water. She learned to control Shadow, to change form, to create her own creations. She was talented. Brilliant. The Lord of Shadows looked at her and rejoiced. His daughter. His hope. She who would one day stand beside him and rule this world.
But he did not notice what was growing in her alongside her power. Ambition. First small, barely noticeable. She wanted more knowledge than he gave. More power than he allowed. More freedom than she had. She looked at him and saw not a father but an obstacle, a rival. She did not know herself. She only felt that the void the Lord of Shadows had tried to fill by creating her was also within her. And she could not fill it with anything he gave her.
She began to explore the forbidden. Those corners of Darkness the Lord of Shadows had forbidden her to enter. Those truths he had hidden even from her. She sought a way to become more than just a creation. To become equal to her creator not by his grace but by right. And one day, she found what she was looking for. An ancient ritual that allowed a mortal to steal divinity from a god. Not all of it. A part. But enough to rise.
The Lord of Shadows learned of it too late. He came to her to stop her, to explain, to warn that the ritual would destroy her, that divinity could not be stolen without paying a price that would break even a god. But she would not listen. She had already decided. And on the night when the moon first rose over the world he had created, she struck.
The ritual worked. Part of the Lord of Shadows' divinity passed to her. She became a goddess. Not true, not complete, but powerful enough to challenge her creator. They fought. Their battle lasted not days, not years, but an entire age. The shadows created by the Lord perished by the thousands. The world he had built was destroyed to its foundations. The stars he had kindled went out one by one. And in the end, when both were exhausted, Selene delivered the final blow. She did not kill him. Could not. The divinity she had stolen was too small to destroy a true god. But she managed to imprison him. In a place that was on no map. In a prison crafted from his own Shadow, reinforced with her moonlight. Where time did not flow, and reality thinned to its limit.
The Lord of Shadows was sealed away. His power, scattered across the world, settled in the blood of mortals, creating the first Shadow bearers. His name was erased from the world's memory. His temples were destroyed. His children, the few who survived, scattered across the continents, forgetting who they had been. And Selene, the Moon Goddess, took his place. She ruled over Shadow, gathered it bit by bit, hunted its bearers, drained their power. She became what she had dreamed of becoming. But the void inside her did not disappear. It only grew. Because by stealing divinity, she had lost the one thing that could have filled it. A father's love. A creator's trust. The meaning of her existence.
And now, an eternity later, sitting on her throne of moonlight, in halls carved into the heart of the moon, she stared into the darkness and waited. Waited to gather enough Shadow to become a true goddess. Waited to forget what she had done. Waited for the void inside her to finally disappear. But she did not know that the void could not be filled with power. That love, once betrayed, does not return. That the father she had imprisoned was still alive. And that somewhere in the world of mortals, a boy was growing, in whose veins flowed his blood. The blood of the Shadow Dragons. The blood that would one day awaken the Lord of Shadows. And then everything would change.
But that would come later. For now, Selene sat on her throne and stared into the darkness. And the darkness stared back.