N I G H T S C A R S

p r o l o g u e

They didn't know her name. No one ever has.

She'd existed longer than man could remember. When the earth was created, when Adam and Eve first sinned in the Garden of Eden, cursing all of humanity, she was created.

Her curse was born.

Cursed to walk by day and fly by night. Cursed to live forever not as man but as monster.

She was many things as she lived on through the eras. Before the first died, its claws felt the blood of another, scarring the skin of another, feeling the sensation of tearing into the beating of one's heart.

And the curse was passed on.

And so she lived forever.

She was a mother. She was a daughter. She was a warrior. She was a queen. She was a prisoner. She was a peasant. She was a philosopher. She was a gladiator. She was an explorer. She was an outcast.

Her most famous legends lie with the Vikings. When she became another, this time there was a mistake. Even by day, she could not fully be man.

She had no name.

So they called her Night.

She was scratched, sacrificing herself for the life of her brother and father. She never saw them again, but they lived on. And she hid herself in a village far far away, knowing that she must do so to protect them from herself. When she was leviathan, she had no control.

By day she was a young girl cursed with the Scars. She wore a cloak to disguise her wings that she was forced to bear always, even by day. She did not speak, hiding the fangs she was forced to keep. Her eyes, always, were the same color. The blue of the storms she controlled.

She was a thief. Whirling through the village, she was gone before she was even there. Clever, stealthy, sly. She was never found, never caught. She hid herself beneath them, in the caves filled with creatures she had befriended.

By night and by storm she came. She had no control. As leviathan, she was not herself. The power of storm was hers. God's wrath struck the earth as she roared. Her scales were blacker than the night, weaving her through the clouds. A drop of her venom was paralyzing and a drop of her blood was poisonous, enough to kill ten men. Her only weakness was the five scars across her heart.

She slaughtered them all.

Leaving one survivor's heart scratched.

So when she became mortal again, she slaughtered herself.

But the curse passed on.