The Nameless Light

Chapter 2: The Nameless Light

The night stretched endlessly.

Lucian walked in silence, his footsteps muffled by the damp earth, the cold air biting through his torn clothes. Every breath he took felt too loud, too fragile against the weight of the darkness around them.

The woman who had saved him—the Silverborn warrior—walked ahead without a word. Her silver hair, almost luminescent under the moonlight, swayed slightly with each step. The long spear she had formed vanished into mist, dissolving as if it had never been there at all.

Lucian had never seen silver energy behave like that.

His own Awakening had felt wild, untamed, like a force that didn't want to be controlled. But hers was precise, honed, an extension of her will.

Ronan walked beside him, his eyes watchful, alert. He had barely spoken since they left, as if listening for something only he could hear.

Lucian finally broke the silence.

"You never told me her name."

The old man sighed. "That's because she never gave it."

Lucian frowned. "What?"

The woman glanced back at them, her golden eyes sharp. "Names don't matter," she said flatly.

Lucian raised an eyebrow. "They do if I'm supposed to trust you."

She didn't stop walking, but something flickered in her expression—an irritation, perhaps, or something deeper.

"Eris," she said after a moment. "That's what they call me."

Lucian caught the wording. They call her that, but it's not her real name.

Eris.

The name felt empty, like something given to a person who had no identity of their own.

He studied her more closely now. She moved like someone who had been fighting her entire life—shoulders tense, every step precise, as if she expected an attack at any moment. But her face... it was too blank. Controlled.

She wasn't just a warrior.

She was someone who had been trained to be one.

The Silver Order.

That name had surfaced in his inherited memories, but it was fragmented, like a story he had only half-read.

Lucian exhaled, watching the mist curl from his lips. "What exactly is the Silver Order?"

Ronan and Eris exchanged a glance.

It wasn't much—barely even a hesitation—but Lucian caught it.

They didn't fully trust him.

Eris finally answered. "The last defense against the night."

Lucian scoffed. "Dramatic."

She didn't smile. "Accurate."

They continued walking, the air growing heavier. The ruins around them were eerily quiet, the stone walls scarred with old battle marks. Deep claw gouges were carved into the buildings, blackened with something not quite blood.

Lucian's unease deepened.

"How many of you are there?" he asked.

"Too few," Ronan muttered.

Lucian turned toward him, but before he could ask more, Eris abruptly raised a hand.

They stopped moving.

Lucian felt it before he saw it—a shift in the air.

Something was watching them.

Eris didn't speak. She slowly reached for her spear, and in an instant, it reformed in her hand—silent, smooth, unnatural.

Lucian's pulse quickened.

"That's not normal silver. That's something else."

The silence stretched.

Then—

A whisper.

Lucian's breath caught. It wasn't coming from around them.

It was coming from inside his own head.

"You are not supposed to be here."

He froze.

The voice was not his own.

It was the same one from before. The one in the void.

"Something is wrong with you."

Lucian's skin crawled. He felt his silver energy pulse beneath his skin, reacting to something unseen.

Eris turned her head sharply. "You hear it too."

Lucian stiffened. "You mean—"

Then the darkness moved.

A shape emerged from the ruins.

Lucian had expected another Blood Hunter. But this was something different.

It was tall, its form twisted in unnatural angles, a figure wrapped in black, shifting tendrils. Its face was obscured by something that wasn't quite a mask, wasn't quite bone.

It did not breathe.

It did not move like something alive.

Eris gripped her spear. "A Shade."

Lucian didn't know what that meant.

But his body reacted. His silver energy flared, cold and sharp, his veins thrumming with something beyond fear.

The creature tilted its head, and then it spoke.

Not in words.

In thoughts.

"The dead **** left a piece of himself in you."

Lucian's chest tightened.

"You do not belong."

And then—it moved.

Eris struck first.

Her spear whistled through the air, the silver edge cutting toward the Shade's chest. But the moment it should have hit—

It passed through.

Lucian barely had time to react before the Shade's arm stretched toward him, the tendrils elongating unnaturally.

It wasn't moving like something that lived.

It was shifting through reality itself.

Lucian tried to step back, but suddenly—

His vision blurred.

For a fraction of a second, he wasn't in the ruins.

He was somewhere else.

A place of black skies, twisting silver light, and a vast, dead expanse.

Then—it was gone.

And he was back in the ruins.

The Shade was already in front of him.

Lucian's instincts screamed. His silver energy **burst outward—**not controlled, not shaped, just raw power reacting to the unknown.

The Shade reeled back.

It didn't shriek.

It simply stopped moving.

Lucian could feel something changing. The way it looked at him—not like prey, not like an enemy.

Like it had recognized him.

"You are not one of them."

The voice echoed in his head, and for the first time—

Lucian saw something flicker beneath its mask.

Not a monster.

Not a beast.

But something that knew him.

Something that feared what he might become.

The Shade vanished.

Not ran. Not faded.

It was simply gone.

The moment stretched, the air still charged with tension.

Lucian staggered back, his breathing heavy. He didn't understand what had just happened.

Neither did Eris.

She lowered her spear, her golden eyes dark with suspicion.

"What the hell are you?" she whispered.

Lucian didn't answer.

Because he didn't know.

But the Shade had known something.

Something no one else did.

The dead 'something ' had left a piece of himself inside him.

And it wasn't meant to exist.

------------

---

The night pressed in around them, thick with silence.

Lucian sat close to the dying embers of their fire, feeling the heat flicker against his cold skin. His body still ached from his near-death experience, and though his wounds had closed, an uncomfortable tightness remained in his chest.

Across from him, Eris leaned against a crumbling wall, her spear gone, but her posture rigid as ever. She had been watching him for the past few minutes, her golden eyes sharp with thought.

Lucian shifted under her gaze. "You're staring."

Eris didn't blink. "You should be dead."

Ronan sighed, rubbing his temples. "You have a way with words."

She ignored him. "Shades don't hesitate. They don't stop. Whatever that thing saw in you—" she tilted her head slightly, "—it wasn't human."

Lucian tensed. "I am human."

Eris raised an eyebrow. "Are you?"

He wanted to snap back, but the truth was, he wasn't sure. He had been reborn into a body that wasn't his, with memories that weren't fully his own. He could feel something inside him—a power that didn't belong, a whisper of something ancient.

And that Shade had recognized it.

Lucian exhaled, forcing himself to focus. "You said the Silver Order is the last defense against the night," he said. "That means something's worse than vampires."

Eris exchanged a glance with Ronan, then spoke.

"Vampires rule this world. Their three clans control blood, flesh, and bone. But they are not the greatest threat."

Lucian leaned forward. "Then what is?"

"The Deanageours," she said, voice quieter now, as if speaking the name could summon them. "The creatures of darkness that came after the god's death. No one knows where they came from. Even the vampires fear them."

Lucian thought back to the Shade, to the way it had spoken inside his mind.

"You think that thing back there was one of them?" he asked.

"No," Eris said. "A Shade is a fragment of something worse. A whisper of the true horrors that roam the deeper parts of this world."

Lucian frowned. "And the Silver Order fights them?"

Eris nodded. "We were created to do so. The strongest of us wield Silver Hearts, replacing our own with pure silver energy."

Lucian blinked. He had inherited pieces of this world's knowledge, but he hadn't known that. "So you—"

"No," Eris cut him off. "I am not one of them."

Lucian didn't miss the tension in her voice.

Ronan chuckled softly. "Not yet, anyway."

Eris shot him a glare, but Ronan ignored it. He looked at Lucian instead. "The Silver Order has existed since the fall of the god. We don't just fight vampires—we keep what remains of humanity from being wiped out entirely."

Lucian let that sink in.

"So where are we going?"

Eris finally looked away from the fire. "To a safehouse. You need rest before we reach Sanctorum—the Order's headquarters."

Lucian exhaled, rubbing his arms. "And how far is it?"

Ronan stretched, his joints cracking. "A week's journey, maybe more if we avoid vampire patrols."

Lucian tensed. "And if we don't?"

Eris's expression darkened. "Then you'll see what war looks like."

A cold breeze swept through the ruins, and Lucian instinctively pulled his cloak tighter around him.

It was only then that he realized—

No birds. No insects. No sound at all.

The world around them was unnaturally silent.

Lucian glanced at the others, but neither of them looked concerned. This was normal for them.

This is a dead world.

He shifted uncomfortably. He wanted to ask more. About the vampires. About the Deanageours. About why his silver wasn't like theirs.

But he was exhausted.

And tomorrow, the real answers would come.

---

They moved before dawn.

Lucian expected them to stay on the roads, but Eris led them through the ruins instead, keeping to the shadows.

"This place used to be a city," Ronan muttered as they passed through a broken archway covered in claw marks. "A long time ago."

Lucian frowned. "What happened?"

Eris didn't look back. "The vampires."

Ronan sighed. "It was one of the last human strongholds. When the war started, the clans didn't just kill the people. They… absorbed them."

Lucian stiffened. "Absorbed?"

Eris's voice was cold. "The Clan of Flesh doesn't just consume blood. They take bodies. They shape them into something else. The people here didn't die. They became part of the war."

Lucian's stomach twisted.

He didn't ask any more questions.

After another hour of walking, they reached a hidden structure, half-buried under debris. It was small, a ruined temple, its stone walls cracked and covered in faded silver runes.

Ronan pushed open a rusted metal door, revealing a dark stairway leading underground.

Eris entered first, torch in hand. Ronan gestured for Lucian to follow. "Come on. You'll be safe here."

Lucian hesitated for just a moment before stepping inside.

The door creaked shut behind them.

For the first time since awakening in this world, Lucian allowed himself to breathe.

For now, he was safe.

But Sanctorum was waiting.

And something told him the Silver Order would have more questions than answers.

---

End of Chapter 2