Title: Whispers Beneath the Loud Moon
The moon hung low and swollen, like a pale eye rotting in a sea of ash. It hadn't blinked in centuries. Beneath its gaze, the forest of Virelyn twisted with thorns that bled and trees that whispered names of the dead. Fires no longer burned there—not since the Night of Hollowing—only cold embers that sighed in the wind, carrying the scent of old bones and broken oaths.
In the heart of this blighted realm stood a heartbroken boy with silver blood on his hands and a name he refused to speak. Around his neck, a pendant pulsed with something not quite alive—and not quite dead. He had not come seeking salvation but to come to wake something older than sin.
Something buried beneath the ash.