Moonlight in Ashvale
Seraphine moved with measured grace, her boots clicking against the damp cobblestones. Her dress—black lace and leather stitched in a pattern that clung to her like armor—brushed against her legs. The coffee cup in her hands steamed faintly, though the flame flickering within it was no ordinary light.
It burned without smoke, an ember pulled from the void itself.
Perched on her shoulder was Nyx, her familiar—a cat with fur darker than midnight, eyes like molten amber, and wings that stretched wide as if carved from the shadows around them. The creature’s claws rested lightly on her sleeve, but the weight of its gaze tracked every movement in the alley.
“Do you smell that?” Nyx’s voice was a whisper only Seraphine could hear. “Blood and rust. Something hunts.”
Seraphine tightened her grip on the cup. “Then let it hunt,” she murmured, her voice smooth but edged with steel. “It will find me, and I’ll be ready.”
Ashvale was not her home. It was a place she drifted to when the moon was full and the veil between worlds thinned. A city of broken dreams, graffiti-marked walls, and lanterns that flickered even when the air was still. Tonight, the veil was gossamer-thin.
She paused beneath a streetlamp. The light buzzed faintly overhead, illuminating her pale face and the fire-red gleam in her eyes. She lifted the cup to her lips, though she didn’t drink. Instead, she whispered a word into it, and the flame flared, painting the alley in strokes of orange-gold.
The runes etched on the cup’s surface pulsed faintly. Protection wards, old and stubborn.
“Seraphine.” Nyx’s tail flicked, brushing against her neck. “It comes.”
From the fog, a figure emerged—tall, cloaked, faceless in the shadows. Its presence bent the air, warping the silence into something suffocating.
“Witch,” it said, though no mouth moved. The word rippled inside her skull. “You carry what belongs to us.”
Seraphine smirked, sharp and cold. “If it belonged to you, you would still have it.” She raised the cup, tilting it so the flame hissed higher. “But I won it fairly, from the bones of your master.”
The figure shifted, wings unfurling from its back—vast, leathery, ancient. Not unlike Nyx’s, but vaster, older.
A shriek tore through the night. Windows rattled in their frames, and somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once before falling silent.
“Nyx,” Seraphine said softly.
The cat leapt from her shoulder, landing with a flutter of wings. Its shape rippled, elongating, and in a breath, it was no longer a small companion but a beast half the alley’s width. Its eyes burned like suns, and its claws scraped sparks from the cobblestones.
The cloaked figure lunged.
Seraphine’s cup ignited fully, spilling light across the walls. She flung the liquid forward, but instead of coffee, it poured fire—liquid flame that licked at the figure’s wings. It shrieked, the sound cracking brick and stone.
“Stay with me,” she commanded Nyx, her voice low but ironclad.
The beast roared in answer, slashing forward. Claws ripped fabric, revealing not flesh beneath but void—endless darkness, stars glimmering faintly in its depths. This was no mortal enemy but something older, born of the gaps between worlds.
Seraphine stepped closer, flame dancing around her fingers. She was not afraid. Fear was what it fed on.
“I am not prey,” she whispered, each word sharp as a blade. “I am the fire between heartbeats. The silence after screams. Do you hear me, shadow?”
The void-thing faltered. Her words bound it, each syllable stitching into the unseen seams of reality.
It reached for her, talons like razors slicing the air, but Seraphine lifted the cup once more. The flame leapt higher, licking toward the full moon above. In its glow, her eyes burned crimson, her lips curling into something halfway between fury and joy.
The alley erupted in light.
When the brilliance faded, the figure was gone. Only ashes clung to the cobblestones, smoldering faintly like fallen stars. The silence that followed was deep, broken only by Nyx’s steady breathing as he shrank back to his smaller form and perched once again on her shoulder.
“You should rest,” the cat murmured, voice a low rumble. “Every battle takes more than you admit.”
Seraphine sipped from the cup now, the flame gone, replaced by bitter warmth that grounded her. “Rest when the night ends,” she said. “Until then, the city is not safe.”
Her gaze lifted to the moon, luminous and whole in the sky. It watched her like an old friend, or perhaps a judge. She wasn’t sure which.
Somewhere deep inside, she knew tonight was only one of many. The void would send more. The veil would keep thinning. And she—witch, warrior, outcast—would keep walking these alleys with her familiar at her side, holding fire in her hands like a promise.
Not a savior. Not a martyr.
Simply the one who burned too brightly to be consumed.
And in Ashvale, that was enough.
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