The castle had no name spoken aloud. It rose from the cliff like a wound in the sky—its spires jagged, its windows narrow, its stones slick with centuries of rain and regret. Inside, the air was colder than the frost outside, thick with the scent of mildew, candle wax, and something older. Something buried.
Leopole Heller, historian of forbidden rites, sat strapped to a chair carved from black oak. His spectacles lay shattered on the floor beside a pile of parchment—notes on the Blood Moon, sketches of the societies, half-translated incantations. A Christian cross hung crooked above the altar behind him, its edges rusted, its shadow long. Bats stirred in the rafters. Skulls lined the alcoves like trophies, each one marked with a symbol no living tongue could name.
The room was silent, save for the distant toll of a bell and the soft, rhythmic drip of water from a cracked stone arch. From the window behind him, the abandoned lighthouse stood in silhouette—its glass shattered, its beacon long dead. It watched the castle like a blind eye.
Then came the axe.
It was not ceremonial. It was not clean. It was holy only in name, its blade etched with Latin scripture and dried blood. The strike was swift, brutal, final. No scream. Just the sound of bone meeting steel, and the quiet gasp of the castle itself—as if it had inhaled the moment.
The societies would deny it. The villagers would forget it. But the Blood Moon had marked its first witness. And the lighthouse, though silent, had begun to stir.
and then Add to home screen.