Chapter Four – The Night Breaks

In Branthollow, the first to wake was Mira the potter. She had always been a light sleeper, but it
wasn’t noise that roused her—it was the sudden absence of something. A silence so sharp it felt
like her ears had popped.

For as long as she could remember, there had been a subtle hum in the air, so faint most folk never
noticed it. An old, protective magic woven into the stones of every wall and the beams of every
roof. Tonight, that hum was gone.

She sat up in bed, heart beating hard, and saw her ward-stone. It lay on the sill, cracked clean in
two, the faint blue rune etched across its surface guttering out like the last glow of dying embers.

All down the narrow lanes, other ward-stones were breaking. The sound was small—tiny pops, the
delicate crumbling of old clay and crystal—but in the still night it was loud enough to wake the
dogs. They began to bark, first in scattered bursts, then in a ragged, terrified chorus.

Torches flared as doors opened. Neighbors called to one another in hushed, urgent voices.

Then the barking stopped.

One by one, as though snuffed by an unseen hand.

In the square, old Bren the blacksmith stepped out with a hammer in his hand, his nightshirt
flapping around his knees. “Something’s wrong,” he muttered, more to himself than to the
gathering crowd. “The wards don’t all fail at once. Not unless—”

A scream cut him off.

It came from the northern edge of the village, near the wheat fields. A high, ragged sound that was
human at first—until it broke into something else, something that didn’t belong in a human throat.

Shapes began to move in the shadows beyond the lamplight. Tall shapes, impossibly thin, gliding
rather than walking.

The crowd stumbled back, some clutching charms that no longer worked, others simply frozen. The
tallest of the shapes leaned into the torchlight for a heartbeat, revealing skin like wet thread
stretched over nothing, eyes that were not eyes at all but holes into the deeper dark.

No one spoke.

Then, from the ridge above, the old watchtower flared with cold light—so bright it washed the
color from everything.

The shapes turned toward it as one.

And in that moment, Branthollow realized the tower was not their protection.

It was their invitation.