Chapter 2 The First Spark

Night came to Nocturnis like a secret exhaled.

Elowen walked alone, her boots tapping across the cobblestones as the last threads of sunlight bled from the sky. The wind coiled around her like a whisper, carrying the scent of wet stone, woodsmoke, and something older, something waking.

She pulled her cloak tighter and kept moving.

The sensation from earlier hadn't left. It was still there... curled beneath her ribs like a second heartbeat. Every step she took, it pulsed stronger. She wasn't just walking the city anymore. She was being pulled by it, called.

Lanterns floated to life around her, rising like fireflies from hidden hooks. Each flame flickered in place, waiting in stillness, as if summoned by the city's memory. Nocturnis always breathed magic... but tonight, it inhaled deeper.

And she felt it.

She turned onto a narrower street, nearly swallowed by shadow. Her fingertips brushed the wall as she passed, and beneath the stone, she swore, something stirred. Not alive. Not flesh. But aware.

Nocturnis was watching her.

And something in her was finally watching back.

⸻

She reached the market square as the final sliver of sun disappeared. Most of the stalls had closed. The scents of spices and burnt sugar still lingered, but the crowds were gone. Only the echoes remained.

Then, she saw it.

A small flame.

It hovered inches above the ground near the fountain, bright against the dark. No smoke. No flicker. Just steady, golden-orange fire, alive, somehow, and utterly still.

Her body froze. Her breath held.

And the world... silenced.

The square emptied of all sound, no breeze, no voices, no footsteps. Even the lamps dimmed.

The flame waited.

Elowen stepped forward, heart pounding. The fire didn't shrink. It shimmered slightly, like it had noticed her. Like it knew her.

It didn't feel dangerous.

It felt... familiar.

She dropped to one knee, hand trembling. Her fingers hovered over the flame's glow.

A whisper brushed her ear, no words, just presence. Her name, but not spoken. Remembered.

She touched the flame.

And the world shattered.

⸻

A rush of visions hit her, violent, electric, all-consuming.

A circle of robed figures surrounded by howling wind and crackling fire.

A woman kneeling before a broken altar, eyes glowing like galaxies.

A child screaming inside a tower of mirrors.

Symbols, carved into bone, inked in blood, drawn in starlight.

And a name.

Her name. Spoken in a voice that was not human.

Then-

Silence.

The visions vanished. The fire is gone. But its warmth remained, buried inside her chest, pulsing in her veins.

She gasped and stumbled back. Her knees hit the stone. Her fingers dug into the ground to anchor herself.

The fire hadn't been a spell.

It had been a summons.

⸻

She stood slowly, heart racing. Something inside her had changed, subtly, permanently. The world still looked the same, but it no longer felt the same.

The magic had touched her.

Chosen her.

And now it was testing her.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a faint shimmer move into a narrow alleyway.

Another flame.

No words. No signs. No questions.

Just a path.

She followed.

⸻

The alley narrowed with every step, the walls closing in like a corridor of secrets. Ivy curled down cracked brick, and the rooftops overhead leaned like they were listening.

Nocturnis here was ancient, forgotten even by its myths.

As she walked, murals appeared along the walls. Some were faded into near-oblivion. Others pulsed faintly with enchantment. One in particular stopped her breath, a mosaic of a woman with burning eyes and stars coiled in her hands. Her face... looked like Elowen's.

Beneath it, carved in gold leaf, the words:

"To those who remember, power returns."

Elowen stared, throat tightening.

It wasn't prophecy.

It was recognition.

⸻

The flame danced ahead, pausing when she slowed, drifting forward when she caught up. It was patient. As if the test wasn't just about her courage, it was about her willingness to surrender control.

Around her, whispers grew. Not loud. Not frightening. But persistent. They slipped from cracks in the walls, from beneath her feet, from the very air.

She heard pieces of sentences.

"...it's her..."

"...not ready..."

"...too soon..."

"...or just in time..."

She didn't run.

She wanted to know what they were afraid of.

⸻

At last, the flame guided her into a forgotten courtyard, hidden behind crumbling walls and iron gates rusted by time. The moon had risen high, casting its violet light through gaps in the rooftops above. Shadows bled along the stone floor like ink.

In the center of the courtyard stood a dry marble fountain, its basin cracked, its lion statues moss-covered and hollow-eyed. The flame settled on the edge of the fountain, casting golden light across the broken stone.

Elowen approached, steps slow, deliberate. She stopped at the fountain's base and looked into the flame once more.

But this time, she didn't reach out.

She understood.

The spark hadn't come to her randomly.

It had found her.

Because it reminded her.

Because it had been waiting.

Because her bloodline hadn't forgotten.

She sat on the fountain's edge, breathing deeply. The flame pulsed, once. Then again. Softer each time.

Then...

It folded in on itself and vanished.

Not in a flare.

Not in smoke.

But like it had never needed to be seen in the first place.

Elowen placed her hand over her chest. The warmth it left behind was still there, gentle, steady, alive.

⸻

She sat in silence for a long time.

The city made no move to disturb her.

It had given her its first test.

And she had answered.

When she stood again, she didn't feel like the same girl who'd stood on a rooftop hours ago.

She was no longer the girl who watched fate unfold.

She was the girl who'd been claimed by it.

The girl who touched fire and lived.

And somewhere in the shadows, something else had watched her pass.

It waited in the silence, invisible but very much awake.

⸻

As she turned to leave, a soft chime echoed behind her.

She froze.

The fountain, empty seconds ago, was now brimming with silver water.

And floating on its surface-

A single obsidian coin.

Carved with the same runes from the Moonstone Prophecy.

The same ones she'd seen in the sky.

She picked it up with shaking fingers.

It was warm.

It hummed.

And underneath that hum, a single thought burned in her mind:

You've been seen.

⸻

Elowen didn't smile.

She didn't flinch.

She only whispered, "Then watch me."

And walked back into the shadows of Nocturnis, fire curling in her blood.