Page 1 of Moonlit Desires

Chapter one

The Mark

Silverfogweavesthroughthe woods, painting the trunks of ancient trees with glimmering frost. Shadows move within the mist—shapes at the periphery, watching with patient, predatory intent. Lyra runs, breath knifing in and out, her boots biting the frozen ground. The trees lean closer. Their roots clutch at her ankles with delicate malice. Above, the moon pulses—obscenely full, bleeding light across the clearing where she is forced to halt, pulse screaming in her ears.

Something waits for her in the center of the clearing. It has no name, only hunger. A voice— her own? Calls through the hush, reverberating like a song caught in the hollows of bone. Lyra, Lyra, Lyra.

She spins. The silver woods collapse inward. Eyes blink open, a thousand at once, each rimmed in ink and silver, unblinking, knowing. The air thickens, calcifies, seizes her lungs and tongue.

Then she is falling through ice, tumbling out of the clearing, the dream fracturing around her like blown glass—

She wakes gasping, clawing for the bedsheet, her throat raw with the aftertaste of fear. The cheap ceiling above her is mottled with age spots and hairline cracks, each fissure mapped by years of humid summers and leaking radiators. Lyra blinks the dream away, breath catching, heart still a caged thing.

The room is swaddled in predawn gray, broken by the rhythmic buzz of the neon sign outside her window. She lies unmoving, sweat cooling on her skin, sheets damp and tangled around her legs. Her right calf cramps with the memory of flight. She flexes, unclenching her jaw, and rolls onto her side to face the window.

Lythven’s streets simmer in fog and shadow, the city’s outline a smear of slate rooftops and phosphorescent shop fronts. The tavern sign—her sign—glows a battered blue, casting fractured light over the alley’s trash bins and puddles. Upstairs, in her small and battered kingdom, Lyra is queen of nothing but dust motes and peeling wallpaper.

She draws a hand through her hair, copper strands sticky with sweat at the nape. Even without a clock, she knows exactly how little time remains before the day’s responsibilities begin gnawing at her heels. Routine is her sanctuary. She sits up, peels the wet sheet from her back, and swings her feet onto the icy linoleum. The floor is scattered with months of dropped coins, bottlecaps, and receipts. She nudges a crumpled pair of jeans aside with her toes and makes for the kitchenette.

Coffee first, always. She grinds the beans by hand, rhythmically, ignoring the tremor still lingering in her wrist. The machine is ancient but loyal; it sputters to life, filling the one-room apartment with a scent both bitter and clean. While it percolates, Lyra moves through her morning with an efficiency bordering on the monastic. Dishes from last night—two chipped mugs, one bowl—are stacked neatly beside the sink. She washes them in cold water, sets them to dry, and stares out the window as she dries her hands on the back of her sweatpants.

Lythven is waking, too. Figures drift through the fog, blurring into anonymity. Somewhere, a cart vendor shouts the day’s special. Farther down, a patrol of city watch clatters across the wet pavement. The border city is always alive, even in this dead hour. She almost envies it. Almost.

When the coffee is ready, she pours it black and stands beside the warped radiator, sipping and watching the apartment gradually fill with light. Every morning, she expects the dream to fade. Every morning, it lingers—silver woods at the edge of her sight, hunger curling beneath her ribs.

By the time the mug is empty, she’s decided to call it a normal day. She peels off the sweat-soaked tank top, wincing as the cotton sticks to her skin, and tosses it into the hamper. The bathroom is the only space in her apartment with a door, though privacy here is a suggestion more than a reality; the hinges creak, and the lock never quite catches. Still, she steps inside, showers cold, and watches the steam pool on the cracked mirror above the sink.

Lyra regards herself with the critical eye of someone who expects to find flaws and is rarely disappointed. Her face is sharp, angles too pronounced for beauty, softened only by a smattering of freckles over her nose and cheekbones. She bares her teeth at her reflection, half-daring it to startle her. The mirror offers only indifference.

She dresses quickly. A black long-sleeve, snug enough to layer beneath the bartender’s vest. Jeans. Sturdy boots. She tugs the hem of the shirt to ensure it rides low on her hips—no accidentalflashes of skin, especially not on her back. Finally, she wrangles her hair into a loose braid, twisting it tight enough to keep the waves at bay but not so tight as to give her a headache. She stares at herself for a long moment, green eyes catching the morning’s watery light. For a second, the irises seem to glow, picking up motes of silver from the window.

She blinks, and the effect is gone.

Lyra retrieves her keys from the battered end table, checks her pockets twice, and shrugs on a faded denim jacket. As she opens the door, she hesitates, glancing over her shoulder at the empty room. The dream lingers, an afterimage on the retina, persistent as moonlight. She shakes it off, stepping into the hallway, already rolling her shoulders and masking her restlessness with a practiced veneer of indifference.

The stairwell smells like old beer and mildew. She descends two flights, pausing at the landing to listen for the familiar clatter of kitchen prep. The tavern below is quiet for now, a lull before the deluge of the lunch crowd. She allows herself a single exhale—half relief, half resignation—before pushing through the fire door and slipping behind the bar, ready to immerse herself in the rituals of the mundane.

If the silver woods are coming for her, let them wait.

____________

The Broken Barrel thrives on chaos and cheap liquor, neither in short supply tonight. Already the bar is jammed to its battered beams, tables packed with laborers, city guards, and the sort of drifters whose presence is best left unquestioned. Smoke from a dozen ill-rolled cigarettes clings to the ceiling in a yellowing skein, barely troubled by the fitful ceiling fan. The scarred counter is sticky with generations of spilled ale and the secrets of men who mistake proximity for privacy.

Lyra owns the space behind the bar, sleeves rolled to the elbow, fingers stained with ink from the register and a faintbruise from this morning’s coffee filter incident. She pours, stirs, and wipes with the easy rhythm of someone who’s had their personal space invaded by rougher men than these. Her eyes flick, mothlike, from customer to customer—gauging threat, cataloging faces, reading intentions before the men themselves know what they want. When she smiles, it is calculated: enough warmth to ensure a good tip, but never so much as to encourage a follow-up outside working hours.

The regulars are easy. She knows how to handle the teamsters from the docks, the quiet men in city guard uniforms nursing cheap whiskey, the cluster of women from the seamstress collective who occupy the corner booth every third evening. They gossip more venomous than a den of viperlings, but they pay cash and tip well, and in their own way, they look out for her.

It is the newcomers she distrusts. Tonight, two mercenaries—parchment-skinned and smelling of salt and old blood—huddle over a bottle at the end of the bar. Their weapons are on full display: not bravado, but a message. The bigger of the two has a face tattooed with the runes of one of the Southern cults; the other sports a black eye that is days from healing. They argue in low voices, heads together like conspirators.

Lyra drifts closer, pretending to wipe down the counter. “You boys need anything? Or just practicing your inside voices for the singing contest later?”

The tattooed man looks up, slow and deliberate. “We’re negotiating,” he says, the syllables half-masticated. “You got a problem with that, darling?”

“Only if you start throwing chairs. Otherwise, I love a good story.” She tops off their glasses without waiting for a reply. The gesture is unthreatening, but it reminds them who controls the pour. “Just keep it down, yeah? The dams in the corner are three whiskeys from staging a coup.”

He grunts, but the edge softens. The second mercenary flashes a crooked smile. “Wouldn’t want to get on their bad side.” He raises his glass in Lyra’s direction. “To the queen behind the bar.”

She clinks her rag against his glass, smiling with her teeth but not her eyes.

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