Book One – Chapter 13

For such beasts and peoples, the setting of the sun heralded a plunge into shadow, while Midnight had always been able to see beyond that veil, perceiving the ethereal world with a clarity as natural to her as breathing had once been. Now, as darkness, she no longer saw in the conventional sense — she perceived. Her awareness unfurled like a shroud of mist over the land, touching and knowing everything it covered. Yet in that vast and intimate connection, she could no longer feel Sey.

The realisation twisted something deep within Midnight, beneath all the new thoughts that had begun to coil around and reshape her mind. She knew she had changed, and while she was eager — hungry — to change and become so much more still, this revelation also signified a profound loss. The moon, Sey, which had filled her with strength every night, its ethereal light coursing through her like lifeblood since her birth, now remained unseen, distant, indifferent.

As a midnight stalker, Sey’s energy had sufficed to sustain her, much like Yves drew his strength from Adhar. Her consumption of physical sustenance had always been selective, deliberate. Midnight only devoured prey she had hunted herself, creatures of value, untainted by the poisons and rot that infested so many in the barren Northlands and the northern Midlands. But could she still hunt? Could she still consume prey? She understood she no longer needed to tear flesh or gnash bone, but did not all living things possess an essence? Something she could devour, something that could feed the darkness within her?

Midnight lingered where she had emerged, despite the relentless beams of light that began to unravel her darkness. The layers of darkness surrounded her essence, the last remnants after her battle with the shadebeast, already felt perilously thin. She knew she could contain far more, that her essence had the capacity to bind and wield a much greater volume of darkness than the dwindling strands that now threatened to dissolve entirely. But the light clawed at her, like fire consuming the wax of a burning candle, gnawing its way down to the wick, her very core. She could feel it, this insidious force, pulling at the essence that defined her, threatening to consume her completely once the protective shell of darkness was exhausted. After the wax would come the wick.