The tunnel narrowed into jagged stone passages as the Raven Sister moved silently through the deep passage ways of the Fortress Nocturne. Cradled in her arms, the baby Nyx slept, unusually quiet, her breathing soft against the warded linen swaddling.
Above them, the world stirred.
Below, only darkness and danger kept pace.
The Raven Sister was no ordinary woman her kind were born of silence and shadow, trained to walk paths between worlds. Still, the child's presence was not easily masked. Power clung to her like perfume, raw, unshaped, and potent.
A sudden tremor rippled through the stones.
She stopped.
A sound soft, distant, like the scrape of claw on rock.
Not alone.
With a flick of her wrist, the Raven Sister summoned her blade, a dagger of silver steel and whispered a protective charm over the child. She pressed Nyx close to her chest and took to the shadows.
Pale eyes glinted ahead twisted things, drawn to the scent of prophecy.
Bred to seek lost heirs. Enchanted to silence bloodlines before they bloomed.
The shadows of those that sort the child's life snarled and lunged.
But the Raven Sister moved like smoke. Blade met thick cloaked shadow spirits and when the tunnel opened into the forgotten forest beyond the walls of the Night realm, she was gone, swallowed by the veil between the night realm and earth realm.
The child lived.
For now.
Beneath a curtain of thick, flowering vines, hidden in the folds of the Nightwood, the Raven Sister reached the sanctuary. It was no grand palace but the refuge was carved deep into the belly of an obsidian cliff, veiled by old glamours and guarded by ancient oaths.
They called it the belly of Mother Earth.
A sacred place, known only to the Sisters of the Night Realm, priestesses sworn to the Realm of Night since before time wore a name. Here, lanterns glowed with starlight and runes pulsed faintly in the dark, woven into the stone walls like veins. Clear water trickled through channels flowing peacefully and fragrant smoke from the burning of medicinal roots curled upward into high ceilings where constellations had been painted in silver ink.
The Raven Sister stepped through the warded barrier and was met by others women dressed in black dresses, their faces partly obscured by veils of shadow-thread, their eyes bright with knowing. They did not speak; they simply bowed their heads and accepted the child in solemn silence.
The oldest among them, a silver-browed priestess named Meredith, stepped forward. Her hands were marked with sigils and her presence was like cool midnight wind. She gazed down at Nyx and exhaled not out of fear or grief, but deep reverence.
"She bears the mark," Meredith whispered. "The night realm lives again."
Meredith took the child gently from the Raven Sister's arms. The baby had stirred, no longer silent but restless, a small, sharp cry escaping her lips like a cutting through silence. Her eyes fluttered open for the first time since the escape, and in them, Meredith saw a storm.
"She hungers," the old priestess murmured, cradling Nyx with a reverence reserved only for relics of legend.
The Raven Sister gave a slow nod, her expression unreadable behind the black veil of her cowl. Her hands were still streaked with soot and blood, her limbs trembling beneath the weight of long flight through the passages.
"This way," Meredith said, and turned toward a passage lit by bioluminescent moss and quiet candle flames. The stone walls pulsed faintly with life, protective enchantments humming like the heartbeat of the mountain itself.
They entered a chamber shrouded in warmth and silence.
It was round, hollowed from ancient obsidian, the walls inscribed with lullaby runes that glowed faint silver in the dark. Hanging herbs swayed gently from the ceiling. A small fire glimmered in the hearth, its smoke trailing in lazy spirals toward the high stone vents.
In the center, a cushioned divan awaited, piled with thick pelts of shadowbeast fur. Beside it, a low basin of moon-milk had already been warmed with its pale surface glistening with tiny specks of stardust. A vessel crafted of silverleaf, shaped like a crescent moon, floated gently in the basin, ready to feed the child.
Meredith sat, and with skilled hands, drew the vessel to her. Nyx, now wailing with growing intensity, kicked and flailed, her tiny hands glowing faintly with flickering violet light. The priestess made a calming sound in her throat. With a half a song and half a spell, she touched the child's brow gently with her thumb.
"Peace, nightborn one," she whispered. "You are safe beneath the mountain."
The child's cries did not cease, but softened.
Meredith offered her the silver crescent bottle.
Nyx latched with greed, drinking deeply, her star-speckled eyes half-lidded with newborn exhaustion. The milk glowed faintly as she fed, her body drawing in the magic infused in every drop of milk from the moon-herd, touched by night blossoms and ancient blessings.
Outside the chamber, the Raven Sister finally allowed herself to sink to the ground. Her back met the cold stone wall, and her breath escaped in a long shaking exhale. An old mage came to stand beside the Raven Sister.
He was ancient even among their kind, white-haired, blind in one eye, the other glimmering like pearl. He leaned his staff of wood against the wall and spoke without turning.
"She is born with the mark. I felt it before she entered the belly of Mother Earth. She carries it in her blood."
The Raven Sister nodded wordlessly. Her voice, always saved for necessity, had been used too often today. Her strength was spent.
"She will not be safe forever," he added, voice low. "But for tonight… she is beyond their reach."
In the chamber, Meredith withdrew the now-empty vessel and gently wiped the child's chin. Nyx blinked once then let out a soft, contented sigh. Her small body curled inward, magic still faintly pulsing at her fingertips. She drifted into sleep in the priestess's arms, her breathing settling into a rhythm guided by the old lullaby runes glowing around the walls.
Meredith did not lay her down immediately. She held her there a while longer, eyes fixed not on the child, but on the shadows beyond the firelight that were always watching and waiting.
"For the child of darkness," she whispered, "the world will not forgive. But we will remember. We will protect her."
She placed Nyx in a stone cradle lined with starlace and fur. The warding glyphs flickered once, then steadied, the magic of the sanctuary responding to the presence of the heir.
Meredith took her seat beside the cradle and resumed her watch over the child.
The fire crackled low. The Raven Sister slept, her head tilted back against the wall, hand still resting on the hilt of her blade.
The mage's eyes had closed too, but one finger traced idle symbols in the dust and in the heart of the Earth, the last daughter of night dreamed her first dreams under watchful eyes, under sacred vows, under the mountain's eternal silence.
Nyx was raised in whispers and woven prophecy. The Sisters taught her how to read shadows and walk in dreams. They wrapped her in star lace and lullabied her with verses older than the moon. She slept beneath the Eye of Noctis, a sacred glyph etched above her cradle to mask her presence from seers and scryers.
Others who dwelled with them were women who had bled and lost in the wars above, mothers who had chosen silence over surrender and seers whose visions had led them to this hidden fate. All had sworn loyalty to the Night Realm. All had pledged to protect the child whose name must not be spoken beyond the warded stone.
In time, Nyx grew. Her laughter rang like wind-chimes in the corridors of stone. Her presence stirred the magic in the walls. But always, danger loomed just outside, the enemies of her world searched. Whispers of a lost heir still crawled through their kingdoms and every falling star was watched with suspicion.
Still, the old temple in center of the Earth endured and in its heart, the last daughter of the Night Realm bloomed a child of prophecy, watched by stars, guarded by shadows, and shaped by secrets.