The wind that stirred across the Barrens carried the scent of ash and time-worn metal. It whispered through the sun-bleached bones of ancient machines and crumbled towers, remnants of an age that had burned itself out long before memory. The sky overhead glowed faint red—neither day nor night—locked in eternal dusk. This was the world beyond the cities, beyond safety. This was the frontier.
And in its heart, a lone rider approached.
The figure sat astride a jet-black stallion, hooves soundless against cracked stone and dirt. His cloak, worn and weathered, shifted with every gust of wind like a shadow with weight. A wide-brimmed hat shaded most of his face, but what little could be seen was too still, too perfect. A longsword, sleek and unadorned, rested against his back like a quiet threat.
He was not a man.
Nor was he a monster.
He was Valen Nocturne, the last of the dhampirs—half-human, half-Noble—and wholly feared.
Where he traveled, legends followed. And in the wildlands of Duskmere, legends were currency worth more than coin.
Beneath the rise of a thorn-choked hill, nestled in a shallow valley dusted with frost and gloom, the village of Duskmere Hollow sat withering under the weight of silence. No trade route passed this place. No soldier patrolled its edge. The few who remained were those too stubborn to leave—or too afraid to move.
At the top of the hill stood the decaying silhouette of Blackreach Hold. Built from obsidian bricks and old-world steel, it loomed like a mausoleum over the village, its towers crooked and half-swallowed by ivy. For centuries, the villagers had believed the place cursed but uninhabited.
They were wrong.
In a loft above an old barn on the outskirts of Duskmere Hollow, a young woman paced in silence, fighting sleep. Lyra Caelwyn, just shy of twenty winters, was the kind of girl whose hands bore the story of her life—rough palms from farmwork, half-healed blisters from splitting firewood, and a small scar across her knuckle from the time she'd fought off a wild dog to save her brother.
But none of that mattered now.
Three nights ago, she had seen him.
Or… it.
She had been alone, returning late from the far fields. The moon had been low. The wind had died. And then something cold—too cold—touched the back of her neck.
She woke on the floor of her bedroom with no memory of how she'd gotten there. Only a burning, searing pain just above her collarbone.
Two marks.
Two perfect punctures, still red even days later. Bruised veins radiated from the wound like spider legs. She had tried to hide it. But her younger brother, Taren, had seen. And her father—hard, skeptical, broken by years of hardship—had fallen into a silence he hadn't broken since.
The village priest, a bent old man with shaking hands, had looked upon the mark and fled.
Because they all knew.
The Noble who once ruled Blackreach Hold had returned.
His name was spoken only in whispers, and even then, only by the desperate.
Lord Malrath Voss—one of the elderbloods, whose family had bathed in the sunless power of the old empire.
And now he had chosen her.
She remembered the voice that had brushed her dreams since that night.
"You are beautiful, Lyra Caelwyn. So rare. So perfect. On the seventh night, I shall come to bring you home."
It was then, with her hands trembling and breath ragged, that she made a decision. She packed what little she owned, kissed her brother's sleeping forehead, and left under the cover of false night.
There was only one kind of person who might save her now.
A Hunter.
She found him near dusk, where the ash trail bent near the edge of the old world.
He stood alone at a fallen obelisk—one of the forgotten markers of a kingdom that had not existed in a thousand years. His horse waited in silence beside him, unmoving as stone.
Lyra slowed her mount. Her heart pounded, but she pressed forward.
"Are you a Hunter?" she called out.
The figure turned.
For a moment, all she could do was stare.
He was too pale to be human. Too composed. His silver-gray eyes regarded her not with curiosity or kindness, but calculation. The wind curled around him and died.
"I am," he said, voice low and even. "Who marked you?"
Lyra swallowed and pulled her collar aside, revealing the bite.
The air grew colder.
After a long pause, he said: "Malrath Voss."
She nodded. "He said he'd come back for me in four nights."
She stepped down from her horse, legs shaking.
"I—I have no coin. No silver. But if you help me… I'll work for you, serve you, anything. Just don't let him take me."
He studied her, not with hunger or contempt—but with unreadable stillness. Then he nodded once.
"I will take the contract. My name is Valen Nocturne."
They returned to Duskmere Hollow beneath a bleeding sky.
The village had changed in only three nights. Doors were barred. Fires were scarce. The people they passed ducked their heads and disappeared inside. Even the birds were silent.
Valen said nothing.
They reached the Caelwyn homestead—Windhollow Farm, a small cottage surrounded by frost-bitten grain fields. Taren ran out to greet them, a crude crossbow clutched in his shaking arms.
"Lyra!" he cried, "You—you came back!"
"It's alright," she said, dismounting. "I brought help."
The boy stared at Valen, wide-eyed.
"He looks like one of them…"
Valen met the boy's gaze but said nothing.
"He's not," Lyra said. "He's worse."
That night, the wind howled against the eaves of Windhollow Farm.
Valen sat in the dark near the hearth, cloak wrapped tight around his shoulders, blade unsheathed across his lap. He did not speak. He did not blink. Lyra sat opposite him, staring at the fire, hands wrapped around a mug of cold broth she could not bring herself to drink.
"He said he'll come on the seventh night," she murmured. "Why wait?"
Valen did not look up. "Because that is what makes it hurt more."
Outside, the fog thickened like a living thing.
Then, the howls began.
At first, one—long and low, echoing over the hills.
Then two. Then five.
Then a chorus.
Lyra's breath caught in her throat. Taren whimpered in the other room.
Valen stood without a sound.
And then the door exploded.
Three creatures burst into the room—quadrupedal beasts with stretched skin, elongated limbs, and glowing amber eyes. Their claws screeched across the wooden floor. Their fangs dripped black saliva.
They were not wolves.
They were gravehounds, bred by the Nobles in the time of empire.
Valen moved like lightning.
The first beast died before it could breathe. A clean, arcing cut. The second leapt—Valen sidestepped, impaled it midair, and hurled its body into the fireplace.
The third tried to flee.
Valen whispered a word in a dead tongue and threw his blade.
It pinned the creature to the far wall—silent, final.
When the storm ended, only the sound of crackling fire remained.
Valen retrieved his sword and wiped the blade clean on the corpse's skin.
Then he turned to Lyra.
"They were testing the threshold," he said.
Her lips trembled. "What does that mean?"
Valen looked to the east, where Blackreach Hold loomed on the horizon like a jagged tooth.
"It means," he said, "the real hunt begins tomorrow."