The wind screamed through Eldermere's crooked alleys, tearing at loose shutters and sending tavern signs swinging on their hinges. Elias Vaelin hunched his shoulders against the gale, his wool cloak snapping like a ship's sail. The damp air carried the iron tang of the nearby docks mixed with woodsmoke from the poorer quarters - a smell that always made his nose wrinkle.
He'd been chasing rumors all week. Tavern whispers about hooded figures gathering after dark, about strange lights in abandoned buildings. The kind of stories most guards dismissed as drunkards' tales. But Elias had seen what happened when people ignored such warnings.
A callused hand gripped his elbow. Kaela's face appeared beside him, her dark braid whipping in the wind. "They're moving," she hissed, jerking her chin toward the docks. "That rotting warehouse by the old fish market. Just like the beggar boy said."
Elias thumbed the worn leather grip of his sword. The warehouse. Of course. The place had been condemned for years, its sagging roof held up more by luck than timber. Perfect for people who didn't want witnesses.
"Let's go," he growled. "Before they finish whatever madness they've started."
---
The warehouse loomed against the storm-lit sky like a broken tooth. Moonlight bled through gaps in the boarded windows, painting jagged stripes across the muddy ground. Elias pressed his ear to the splintered door and heard it - the low drone of chanting, just beneath the wind's howl.
Kaela wrinkled her nose. "Smells like a temple brothel in there. Incense and sweat."
Elias nodded. He knew that stench - the cloying reek of dark rituals. His stomach knotted as he eased the door open a finger's width.
The sight inside froze his blood.
A dozen figures knelt in a perfect circle, their hooded heads bowed. At their center stood a man Elias would have recognized even without the jagged Arcanum tattoos peeking from his collar - Dain Marchek, the scholar who'd been expelled for stealing forbidden texts. The man who'd once begged Elias for mercy when the guards came for him.
Now Dain's arms were raised in triumph, his lips moving in a chant that made Elias's teeth ache. The air shimmered around him like heat off a forge.
Elias kicked the door wide. "By order of the High Council!" His voice cracked like a whip. "This gathering is over!"
The hooded figures turned as one. Too fast. Too smooth. Their faces...
"Gods above," Kaela breathed.
Glowing sigils crawled across their skin like burning worms. Their eyes reflected the candlelight like cats' eyes - empty of anything human.
Dain smiled. "Elias! Just in time for the awakening!"
Then the screaming started.
---
Kaela moved first, her daggers flashing as she gutted the nearest thrall. The thing didn't bleed. Didn't scream. Just kept coming.
Elias barely got his sword up in time. Steel shrieked against steel as a woman with hollow cheeks and burning eyes hacked at him with a rusted cleaver. He pivoted, driving his boot into her stomach. She flew back - and scrambled up like a kicked dog.
"They're not stopping!" Kaela shouted, dancing between two attackers. Her left sleeve was already torn, blood welling from a shallow cut.
Elias knew that look in their eyes. He'd seen it in war - men so far gone into bloodlust they'd fight with their guts hanging out. But this was worse. These weren't men anymore.
He made the hard choice.
His sword took the cleaver-woman's head in one clean stroke. The body crumpled. The head kept snarling for three heartbeats before going still.
Across the room, Dain's chanting rose to a fever pitch. The candles flared blue. The ground trembled.
Kaela lunged for him - and flew backward as if swatted by a giant's hand. Elias heard ribs crack as she hit the wall.
Something in Elias snapped.
He cut through the thralls like a scythe through wheat. One lost an arm and kept coming. Another took a sword through the chest and grinned with blackened teeth. Elias fought like a man possessed, his muscles burning, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
The room stank of sweat and blood and burning wax. The screams faded into grunts and steel on flesh. His thoughts narrowed to the arc of his blade, the timing of each parry, the weight of every strike. Pain bloomed where a talon scraped across his ribs, but he ignored it.
Then - silence.
The candles went out.
In the sudden dark, something chuckled.
---
The sound crawled up Elias's spine like a spider. Not human. Not animal. Something that had forgotten what either of those words meant.
"Kaela?" he hissed. No answer.
Then the whispers started.
Hundreds of voices overlapping, slithering into his ears in languages he shouldn't understand. They spoke of his dead mother. Of battles he'd lost. Of the night he'd let an entire village burn.
"You watched them die," the voices crooned. "You could have saved them."
Elias's sword arm trembled. He knew that voice. Knew it from his nightmares.
A shape moved in the dark. Too tall. Too thin. Its limbs bent wrong, like a puppet with cut strings. Eyes like dying embers fixed on him.
Dain's voice rang out, cracked with triumph: "Behold! The First Shadow!"
The thing stepped forward. The very air curdled around it.
Elias had faced necromancers. Had fought demons. But this...
This was different.
And it was smiling at him.
---
Outside, the storm began to break. Rain slashed the rooftops of Eldermere, washing grime from cobblestones and guttering torches alike. But within the warehouse, time felt frozen. Elias could barely breathe beneath the weight of that thing's presence.
It didn't rush him. It didn't need to. The pressure of its gaze alone made his knees lock. His mind swam with intrusive memories that weren't entirely his. Fields of ash. Children with hollow eyes. A woman calling his name from beneath black water.
Behind him, Kaela groaned.
He turned, relief flooding through him—she was alive. Blood trickled from her scalp, and one of her arms hung limp, but her eyes were fierce. She met his gaze, and for a brief moment, something unspoken passed between them.
Elias drew a shallow breath. "We're not dying here."
Kaela gave a weak nod. She slipped her good hand into her coat, fingers closing around a charm. A simple thing, carved from bone and blessed by a traveling monk months ago. She didn't know if it worked.
But right now, it was all they had.
The First Shadow tilted its head, curious.
Elias stepped forward. Just one pace. Just enough to draw its attention fully. He raised his sword again, his knuckles white.
"You want a host," he said quietly. "You won't find one here."
The creature didn't speak. But its smile widened.
Then Kaela hurled the charm.
It struck the ground between them and shattered.
A flash of gold erupted—brief, blinding. The air recoiled, and the First Shadow shrieked. Not in pain. In annoyance. The kind a god might spare for an insect that dared bite it.
But it hesitated.
That was all Elias needed.
He lunged.
Not at the Shadow—it would be like stabbing mist. He drove his sword into the ritual circle at the center of the room, breaking the lines, scattering candles and ash and blood. The pulse of energy broke like glass underfoot.
Dain screamed. "No! You don't know what you've done!"
Elias turned, breath ragged. "Don't I?"
The warehouse buckled with the backlash. Wood groaned. A beam snapped. The First Shadow let out a long, low exhale and began to fade, its form unraveling like smoke in the wind.
As it vanished, its ember eyes never left Elias.
Its final whisper echoed in his head: "You opened the door."
And then it was gone.
---
They collapsed outside, coughing in the rain, drenched and broken but alive.
Kaela leaned against a post, holding her ribs. "We need to tell someone. The Council. The Arcanum."
Elias stared back at the warehouse. The roof had caved. Flames crackled where lightning had struck.
"No," he said. "Not yet."
Kaela frowned. "Why?"
"Because this wasn't the end." He turned to her, eyes hollow. "It was the beginning."