Court Of Tethers and Ruin *A dark fae fantasy- romance*

Prologue: The rider

The night the moon cracked, the sky burned a silver fire. It was so blinding that Ayla had to blink the black dots that now clouded her line of vision free.

Ayla stood at the edge of the village, staring up at the jagged line that now split down the moon, small dust scattered through the blazed sky like newly formed stars. She could feel the tremors beneath her feet, a ripple of energy that thrummed through the air like a living pulse. It radiated through her, making her gasp for air and small beads of sweat form on the edges of her scalp. Her breath hitched as the first shard fell, trailing a tail of shimmering light. It was beautiful, she thought absently, like a star plummeting to earth. So small that it neatly fit in the palm of her hand. It was surprisingly cool, the edges sharp capturing and emitting light in a way that seemed almost impossible.

A spectacular piece of beauty.

But beauty in this world always came with a cost.

The golden threads of fate tangled around her vision, the way they always did when something momentous was about to happen. They shimmered, flashing; pulsing like veins of light, connecting the people in her village to their futures. But this time the threads erupted into an erratic rhythm, drumming together in synchronised waves.

A thunderous cracking echoed through the air. Louder than the first. And the sky was a blaze of silver and grey glittering smoke, illuminated by an iridescent wave that danced along the horizon rippling with shadows.

And in that moment, every thread, every bright, shining future was severed.

The threads snapped violently, bouncing, the golden light winking out into nothingness. She gasped, stumbling back, her vision overwhelmed by the loss of connection, her head throbbed. Where there had once been paths to follow, futures to navigate, there was now only darkness. The fate of every soul in her village had gone black, their destinies unmoored.

The sky crackled again, and this time, the moon began to bleed. A dark silver, almost black that creeped from the crack. Bubbling with life.

Ayla watched as more fragments rained down, each one burning brighter than the last. They weren't simple stones; they were pieces of the moon itself, infused with a power she had never felt before, a magic that thrummed in her bones and shook the very foundations of the earth. She had never felt anything like it. A power so ancient her very body reacted to the tremors on instinct, drawing her forward towards the glaring light. Ayla's feet glazed over the soft damp grass. Her hand reached towards the sky, glittering with dust that speckled her fingertips - a buzz of energy rushed through her.

Warm.
Alive.
Familiar and foreign all at once.

A sound reverberated through the forest. Like the rumble of thunder or the steady beat of drums.

Or a thousand hooves hammering the ground, drawing closer.

Through the forest, the shadows grew larger. The trees, their twisted branches unspooled pointing towards the bright moon, drinking up the moon's silver glow, their trunks moved to the side, parting into a devoted arch, an inky path. Shadows darkened and moved in the darkness.

Her mother pulled her arm, her golden eyes pleaded with her, desperate to drag her to safety, but Ayla couldn't move. Her commanding voice carried through the air. "Aylara! We have to go!"

She could feel it
something else was coming.
Something worse.

The crack in the moon had sent a ripple through the world, and in its wake, the veil between realms had thinned. The power unleashed from the shards was not just a warning, it was a summons.

A summons for something else.

"Run!" someone screamed behind her. The voice broke the trance, pulling her back to the moment. She turned, eyes wide with fear, and saw her village descending into panic. People around her darted about grabbing their children, screaming.