Chapter 1

Chapter 1 of my fantasy novel

Prologue: The Light That Burns the Dark

They said the city of Ithmere was made of light. Marble towers reached for the stars like outstretched fingers. Silver bridges arched over canals that shimmered with reflected moonlight. The scent of lavender oil and rosewater drifted from gilded balconies where nobles laughed in soft silk and never once looked down.

By day, Ithmere gleamed like a city spun from starlight. It’s white walls and buildings etched into the mountainside like pearl amidst the bleak grey granite behind. The upper tiers, the Celestium, were paved with polished white cobblestones that never stained, swept clean by servants who moved silently like ghosts beneath the feet of nobles. Sunlight scattered through stained glass towers, casting rainbows on marble courtyards where silver fountains whispered and doves roosted on golden spires. Perfumed gardens bloomed between sanctuaries and academies, where robed scholars quoted ancient scripture and children of high blood learned to wield charm like a blade.

At night, Ithmere shimmered like a dream half-remembered—its towers bathed in moonlight, its silver bridges aglow with enchanted lanterns that never flickered. The canals mirrored the stars so perfectly they seemed to flow through the heavens themselves, and music drifted from balconies where nobles in jeweled masks danced beneath silk canopies. Soft laughter echoed in the warm summer air, mingling with the scent of roses and wine. From afar, the city seemed untouched by sorrow - an eternal beacon of grace, blind to the darkness coiled at its roots. For beneath all that light, the shadows listened.

Far below the spires and sanctified halls, in the hollowed-out tenements that clung like scabs to the base of the walls, the light could not reach.

There, the Gray Wards festered—narrow alleys of cracked stone, black chimneys, and hungry eyes. Smoke wreathed every corner, and rats were not always the smallest mouths to feed. Guards patrolled in polished armor bearing the mark of the Conclave, the seat of power in Ithmere. They nobility believed they descended the wooden lifts to the awards to promote peace, but their presence was anything but peaceful. They came only to collect debts or make examples. For the poor, the Light was no salvation. It was a sentence.

In Ithmere, all were equal under the Light—or so said the sermons echoing from the Ivory Tower. But equality meant this: remember your place, and keep the balance. The Light demanded it.

And the Light, so said the acolytes, had other demands. Every Summer Solstice, when the sun stood highest and the Light was said to burn away all shadow, every firstborn child of the approved age, noble or beggar, belonged to the Conclave. At the age of twelve, they were taken, registered, sealed, and sent to serve. In the upper city, the nobility treated it as a sacred rite—an offering of gratitude, cloaked in song and silken robes. They spoke of it as a mercy, a gift of purpose granted by the Conclave, and mothers wept with pride as their children were led away through rose-strewn courtyards. To give one’s firstborn was to prove devotion, to bind one’s blood to the sanctity of Ithmere. But in the Hollow Wards, the solstice meant only silence—empty cribs, locked doors, and the distant toll of bells no one could reach.

Refuse, and your blood was forfeit. The nobles offered their sons and daughters with ceremony and hymns. The poor hid theirs beneath floorboards. And when the Conclave came to collect, they sent the Draeven.

One such night, as the midnight bell was about to toll, deep and cold as a grave, Elira Thorne’s family made their choice.

Far below the glistening halls and polished stone, behind the shuttered windows of a small wooden house nestled at the end of a crooked, mud trodden alley, a candle flickered into life.

“We must go now,” Elira’s mother whispered, voice tight as she stuffed their last blanket into a sack. Her hands shook as she fumbled to tie the drawstring. “They’ll come before dawn.”

Her father lit his oil lantern with trembling fingers, shadows flickering across the cramped walls. His face was a mask of grave determination. “They’re already in the Wards. Smithy saw them at the Arches.”

Elira stood barefoot by the doorway, clutching her brother’s tiny bundle of clothes. She stepped forward and handed them to her mother who stowed them quickly into another sack.

“What about Tobin?” She asked quietly.

Her mother glanced at the crib and sleeping form of her baby brother. Her breath caught. “We’ll just have to carry him. But it won’t be for long.”

“We can’t leave him somewhere!” Elira cried.

Her father knelt beside her, rough hands gripping her shoulders. “If they catch us, they’ll take all of us. Smithy and his wife will look after Tobin for a span. As for us,” her father looked sternly into her eyes, “We run, and we pray. That’s all we have now.”

The wind howled outside, dry and cold. Somewhere, in the distance horses hooves sounded on cobblestone. Her mother’s eyes went wide with fear.

“They’re nearly here!” She whispered frantically, scooping baby Tobin into her arms and gesturing to her husband to follow as she darted to the wooden door. “We have to go now! They’re coming!”

Her father was already on his feet, throwing the travel sacks over his shoulder and grabbing Elira roughly by the hand. He bent low to her ear. “When we’re outside, you stay right beside me, do you hear? No noise, quiet as a mouse?” Elira gave the barest of nods. “Good. Remember complete silence.”

Her father turned, and nodded. Then, taking her by the hand, he followed his wife and son, and led her out into the darkness. Elira turned to move towards the main entrance to the alley, but her father tugged her arm, leading them instead further back into the shadows.

As one, they fled through the crumbling alleyways, past broken gates and rotting fences. Her mother held Tobin wrapped in an old shawl. Her father led the way with a dull knife gripped in white knuckles, his other Elira followed, heart pounding, bare feet slapping the warm mud below her.

“Faster,” he urged. “The Garden Wall—if we reach it, we can get out though the trees and get to the southern hills.”

They slipped ahead, stopping suddenly each time they heard movement or her father had a bad feeling about the back street they were in, slinking forward through the shadows. When it came time to cross a wide street where the darkness didn’t hold such a strong grip, he would motion them to stop before scouting ahead a few yards.

“Hood up!” He whispered looking at Elira. Quickly she threw up the hood of her cloak, several sizes too small, concealing her flash of brilliant white hair. Tucking the strands back behind her ears she nodded, and they darted forward, crossing the cobblestones and back into the mud of the alleyway opposite.

“I hear them,” her mother hissed. Horses hooves sounded again followed by a stifled cry in the distance. “They’re close.”

The bell tower high above the Wards struck once more, its single note long and final.

“Just keep moving Jean,” her father said softly. “We’re nearly at the courtyard. Then it’s just into the woods and we’re gone. We’ll have to take Tobin - we can’t risk losing time dropping him off.”

Elira’s mother paused, her breathing hard, still clutching her infant son close to her bosom where, still, he slept soundly. Then they had slipped into the shadows once more. Soon they reached the courtyard.

Behind the crumbling shell of a forgotten inn, the courtyard sagged with neglect. Moss crept between uneven cobblestones, and weeds burst through the cracks like desperate fingers grasping for light. A rusted well leaned crooked near the wall, its rope frayed and water long gone. Empty bottles lay scattered among broken crates, and a tangle of laundry lines hung limp between soot-blackened buildings. The inn’s rear door was warped and swollen from rain, its hinges ready to shriek when touched. Overhead, a single lantern swung on a rusted chain, casting a sickly glow that did little to chase the dark. It was a place for whispered dealings, quiet disappearances—and the kind of silence that listened back.

Her father paused, then stepped cautiously forward, one step, then two, careful to place his feet between the debris for fear of making the slightest sound. At the far side of the courtyard, a wall of trees guarded the way ahead to the Garden Wall. Elira followed closely behind, tracing his steps with her own when from behind her mother let out an audible gasp and tumbled, doing all she could to stop Tobin from being hurt by the fall. Turning they watched as she scrambled to her feet, her child’s cry of shock sounding out through the silence. Her eyes wide, her skin pale in the moonlight, she pointed a trembling finger at the tree line behind her husband.

From the shadows of the overgrown trees, they came. The Scathren. The servants of the Light who hunted in darkness.
Tall as gallows, draped in black robes that whispered like leaves, faces hidden behind masks carved from bone. Metal boots sounded against the cobblestones aside from which there was no sound, just stillness that hurt the ears.

Three emerged wraith like from the darkness, their eerie forms barring the path ahead. Their leader, slightly taller than the two flanking him, stepped forward and drew its sword, pale runes glowing faintly along the length of its blade in the moonlight.

“Elira Thorne,” it intoned, voice like metal ground over stone. “You have reached the appointed age.”

Her mother backed away, clutching Tobin, empty bottles from the inn scattering as she walked, their sound shrill. “Please,” she pleaded, “she’s just a child.”

“All firstborn serve,” came the cold reply. In unison the Scathren stepped forward. “This is mercy.”

Her father raised the knife. “Come near her and I swear to the Hollow—”

His words never came. Another cloaked figure appeared behind him, silent as fog. The knife clattered to the ground. Her father gasped, falling to his knees, clutching at the fresh wound line on his neck.

“Resisting is debt,” the figure said. “Debt is death.”

“Run, Elira!” her mother screamed. She turned, shielding Tobin, but there was no time. A flash of steel. A cry. Then silence. Elira froze as her mother slumped to the earth, arms still curled around the bundle that was her baby brother. Tobin wailed once before the sound vanished beneath a shadowed hand.

The Scathren glided past, treating her fallen parents as no more than debris, already forgotten. Her father convulsed violently on the ground behind as slowly his life left him like water from cupped hands.

Moving forward, one bent close to Elira, the bone mask inches from her face.

“You belong to the Light now,” it whispered. “Fear is loyalty.”

She didn’t scream. She couldn’t. They did not bind her. They did not comfort her. They simply took her by the wrist—firm, cold—and began walking. Past the alleys where the slums slept on stone. Past the gates to the lifts and up to where no poor child ever returned. Across the Bridge of Sighs, where names were stripped and new ones given.

At the top of the Temple steps, they placed her before the iron doors. The leader of the Scathren raised its hand in benediction.

“May the Light burn what was.”

The gates groaned open, and Elira, barefoot and blood-speckled, stepped into the place her parents had died to keep her from.