The sky never changed.
Black clouds drifted slow and endless, their edges lit by a pale glow that was neither day nor true night. And above them, like a broken lantern trying to hold together its pieces, hung the shattered moon. Its fractured shards floated in orbit, chained by invisible force, bleeding silver light into the world below.
Every mortal in the realm had been born under that light. Every ghost beast too. The fractured moon was the only truth in their lives: cold, merciless, eternal.
Draven Noctis hated it.
He stood alone at the edge of the Ashen Marsh, barefoot in mud that swallowed his ankles, his thin frame wrapped in a torn cloak stolen from a dead man. The air was thick with yin mist, the type that made bones ache and lungs burn. It should have killed him long ago—yet he still endured.
"Another night," he whispered, staring up at the fractured moon. His lips were cracked, his skin pallid like a corpse. At nineteen, he already looked like a ghost who had forgotten how to die.
The marsh growled.
Water rippled as a shape rose from the mist—a beast with scales glistening silver, its jaw filled with too many teeth. A Marsh Wraith Serpent. Its tongue lashed the air, tasting his weakness.
Draven's hands trembled. He had no weapon, no cultivation, nothing but a rusted dagger bound to his hip with cord. Against a beast touched by yin qi, a mortal might as well swing straw.
But he did not run.
"Come," Draven said. His voice was hoarse, but steady. "Come and test whether the moon truly favors you."
The serpent lunged.
The marsh erupted with splashes as the beast's body struck forward. Draven rolled aside, mud clinging to his body. The serpent's fangs snapped shut where his chest had been a heartbeat before.
Draven's eyes were cold, calculating. He was no reckless fool—he survived because he observed. Always watching, always waiting.
And he had been waiting for the beast to show its weakness.
The serpent twisted to strike again, but its scales near the gills glowed faintly with cracks of leaking yin qi. Too much of the marsh's corruption had seeped into it. It was strong, yes—but unstable.
Draven leapt, plunging his dagger into that crack. The blade shattered instantly, but the beast shrieked as yin qi ruptured through its body.
The serpent thrashed. Its massive tail slammed into him, hurling him against a dead tree. His chest caved with pain. He coughed blood, vision swimming.
The beast convulsed. Then, with a sound like bursting water, it collapsed back into the marsh, dissolving into mist.
Draven staggered, clutching his ribs. His dagger was gone, his strength failing, but he had survived. Again.
"Still not enough," he muttered, spitting blood into the mud. His gaze turned upward again, toward the fractured moon. "You want me dead. All of us dead. But I will not die for you."
That was when he saw it.
High above, among the fractured shards of the moon, a line of light shifted. Not silver—not pale moonlight—but golden. A warmth that did not belong to this world.
For a moment, Draven froze. He had never seen such light. Stories whispered of a thing called the sun, a forgotten flame from before the Seal, but those were myths. Tales told by lunatics and beggars.
Yet the golden line shimmered again, and this time he heard a whisper.
The sun once existed.
Draven's heart hammered. The voice was not outside. It was in his mind, soft yet vast, like an ocean pressed into a single drop.
He stumbled backward. "Who—?"
The Observatory watches. The chains must be broken. Seek, and you shall ascend.
Draven dropped to his knees, clutching his head. The whisper was not madness. It was too sharp, too measured, too heavy with meaning.
The fractured moon pulsed above.
And he understood.
This was no hallucination. No mere ghost whisper. It was a calling.
For the first time in his miserable life, Draven felt something bloom inside his chest—not hope, not joy, but hunger. A hunger so vast it consumed the pain in his ribs, the ache in his bones, the fear of death itself.
Freedom.
If what the voice promised was true, then the fractured moon was not eternal. It was a cage. And cages could be broken.
The marsh went silent.
Draven rose, swaying on his feet. His cloak clung to him with blood and mud, but his eyes burned with new fire.
From the distance came footsteps—light, deliberate. He turned.
An old man approached, robes tattered, leaning on a crooked staff. His hair was white, but his eyes sharp as blades.
The Hermit-Healer.
Draven had seen him before in the outskirts of the sect-controlled villages. A wanderer who tended the dying in exchange for nothing but silence. Some said he was cursed. Others whispered he had once been an Inner Disciple of a great sect, cast out for a crime unspeakable.
The old man studied him with cold detachment. "You should not have survived that serpent."
Draven coughed, blood dripping down his chin. "Then perhaps the moon made a mistake."
A flicker of amusement crossed the Hermit-Healer's face. "Bold tongue for a dying boy." He knelt, placing his hand on Draven's chest. His palm glowed faintly, yin qi unraveling into warmth that eased the broken ribs.
But the warmth did not feel like mercy. It was measured, probing.
"You carry no cultivation veins," the Hermit murmured. "And yet… there is something inside you. Something watching." His eyes narrowed. "What did you see, boy?"
Draven hesitated. He had survived this long because he knew when to lie, when to speak, and when to remain silent. But the whisper of the Observatory still echoed in his mind, and instinct told him this man could not be trusted.
"Nothing," Draven said. "Only the serpent."
The Hermit studied him for a long time, then withdrew his hand. "Lie, then. Keep your secrets. But remember: every secret under the fractured moon has a price."
He turned and began walking away, his staff tapping against the mud.
Draven's eyes narrowed. He had no intention of following the man. Yet the whisper returned.
He will be useful. All pawns are useful.
Draven's lips curled into a faint smile. "Then I will keep him close, until he is no longer useful."
That night, Draven returned to the ruins he called shelter—an abandoned shrine carved into the roots of a dead tree. He collapsed on the stone floor, staring at the cracks in the ceiling where moonlight leaked through.
His body screamed with pain. But his mind was awake, sharper than ever.
The whisper had not lied. He could still feel it, faint, urging him forward. A path unseen.
And in that moment, Draven made his vow.
"I will not die a mortal slave beneath your broken chains," he whispered to the fractured moon. His voice was low, steady, almost ritualistic. "I will rise. I will seize freedom. And when I stand above all… I will shatter you."
The Observatory stirred.
And the fractured moon seemed to tremble.
As Draven closed his eyes, a shadow formed at the edge of the shrine. A figure cloaked in silver robes, face hidden behind a porcelain mask, watched him silently.
An Outer Disciple scout of the Silver Chain Sect.
The sect had noticed him.