The night of black scales

The next day dawned under a copper-red sky that bled across the horizon like a half-remembered wound. The light seeped over the rooftops of the village, catching on the weathered shingles of Bill’s Tavern and glinting off the iron brackets that held its warped sign.

Inside, the air was heavy with the scents of stale whiskey, woodsmoke, and the faint tang of metal polish. Cid sat at the far end of the bar, hood thrown back, elbows resting on scarred oak. His wounds had closed—miraculously fast—but the ache of goodbye still lay beneath the skin, a slow, dull throb that had nothing to do with flesh.

Bill was behind the bar, wiping down a tankard with a rag that had long since given up on the idea of being clean. His voice was rough, but there was a weight under it that hadn’t been there the night before.

“Morning, kid. You’re a hunter now. That means it’s time you learned what that really means. Come with me.”

Cid rose without a word. The boards under his boots creaked as they moved past the back hallway and down a narrow staircase into the guts of the tavern. At the bottom, Bill unlocked a heavy door with a key that looked older than the building itself.

The room they entered was lit by a handful of lanterns, their light flickering over racks and racks of steel. The air was cooler here, smelling faintly of oil and old leather. Blades, spears, crossbows, and stranger tools—some Cid recognized, others he didn’t—lined the walls like trophies taken from a hundred different wars.

Bill stepped into the center of the room.

“There are three kinds of weapons you need to understand,” he said, gesturing at the racks with a hand as broad as a spade.

He pointed first to a line of plain, functional steel swords. “Regular weapons. Cheap, common, easy to make. No magic, no soul. They’ll cut, they’ll stab, but they won’t do more than what your arm puts into them. You’ll find these in every barracks and on every corpse of a poor fool who thought bravery was enough.”

He moved to another section, where the metal shimmered faintly with unnatural hues—blades that caught the light in blues, reds, or greens. “Then you have magic weapons. Most hunters favor these. Forged with infused elemental cores—fire, frost, lightning, poison, whatever the smith can bind into steel. Usually, they’re single-element, but the rare and expensive ones can hold more. A weapon’s no use if you can’t control the element, though. You’ll burn your own arm off before you hurt the enemy.”

Then Bill stepped to a covered stand at the far wall. A black cloth draped over it, hiding what lay beneath.

“And then there’s the third kind. Soul weapons. Rare enough that most hunters die without ever seeing one, let alone touching it.”

He pulled the cloth away.

Clain.

The black-steel blade seemed to drink the lantern light. The wolf-etching near the hilt glimmered faintly, like the ghost of a howl caught in the steel.

“These are forged with a bound spirit,” Bill said. “Something old, powerful, dangerous. The spirit chooses its wielder—not the other way around. Build a strong enough bond, and you can manifest its true form. Lose that bond, and you’ll be lucky if all it does is refuse to work.”

Cid’s eyes stayed locked on the sword. His voice was quiet. “Since I first picked it up… I’ve been seeing a man in my dreams. I don’t know him. He never speaks. Just… watches me.”

Bill’s brows drew together. “That’s him. The spirit. You’ve got no magic, so he probably found another way to reach you—your dreams. Next time, try talking back.”

Cid nodded once.

Bill turned away from the rack and pulled a thin black card from his pocket. Veins of silver ran through it like lightning frozen in glass.

“This is your hunter’s card. Tracks your rank, your earnings, your completed contracts. Right now you’re A-rank, thanks to that black wyvern you took down. It’s also your bank—you’ll get paid through it, and you’ll pay through it.”

When Cid touched the card, a faint glow pulsed through the silver veins, and a small holographic sigil rose above it: A RANK.

“That was fast,” Cid said.

“You did the work of ten men,” Bill replied. “That wyvern wasn’t some back-alley lizard.”

They headed back upstairs, the tavern’s warmth feeling almost oppressive after the cool quiet of the armory. Bill slid two mission slips across the bar toward him. One was stamped with an official seal; the other had charred edges, as if it had survived a fire.

“The clean one’s from the guild—a village nearby’s getting attacked by a Mersomufs. Standard hunt. The other’s off the books. A private client wants twenty full horns from adult Mersomufs. They’re rare, heavy, and dangerous to get. You’ll be up to your knees in sand and blood before you hit ten, let alone twenty.”

“I’ll take both.”

Bill eyed him. “Didn’t even think about it, huh? Fine. Take this.” He handed over a black leather satchel stitched with faintly glowing blue runes. “Magic bag. Will hold up to thirty full horns without weighing you down. Lose it, and you’d better run before I find you.”

“I’ll be back in a few days,” Cid said, slinging it over his shoulder.

He stepped outside into the sun, the White Desert stretching away in all directions like an endless, shimmering grave. The heat pressed down on him, but he barely noticed.

“I’ll come back, Emily,” he murmured. “I swear it. Just hold on.”

The village was little more than a scatter of sun-baked huts huddled together against the teeth of the desert wind. The Mersomufs that prowled its outskirts was not small—not like the one in the White Desert that had first taught Cid the weight of survival. This one was massive, its tusks curved like twin scimitars, its eyes the pale, hungry color of bone.

By the time Cid reached the edge of the village, screams had already begun to rise. Sand was churned into clouds by the creature’s charge, the heavy, rhythmic thud of its legs shaking the ground.

“There you are,” Cid muttered, stepping into the open.

The Mersomufs’ head jerked toward him. Steam curled from its nostrils, the stench of hot blood and half-digested meat wafting on the air.

“Hey!” he barked, voice carrying clear over the chaos. “Leave them alone. I’m more interesting.”

It bellowed and came for him, the sand quaking under its weight.

Cid didn’t back away. He met its charge, Clain flashing once—twice—three times in rapid arcs. One foreleg hit the ground with a wet crack, and the beast staggered, howling, before a clean slash took the second. It crashed into the sand, thrashing.

“Stop screaming already,” Cid muttered, and with one smooth motion, drove the blade through the thick muscle of its neck. The howls cut short.

The villagers crept from behind their crumbling walls.

“T-thank you!” a man called, voice shaking.

“It’s no problem. It’s my job,” Cid said without looking up from the carcass. He was already cutting the horns free, his hands steady, efficient.

By the time he left, the sun was beginning to dip. Two days later, he’d felled seven more. Then another four. By the end of the third day, he had the twenty horns his second contract required, each one cleanly cut and sealed in the runed satchel.

But the work had left him quieter. His strikes grew faster, but his eyes colder. Each hunt was over before the beasts had even begun to understand they were prey.

“That’s the last,” he murmured after severing the neck of a particularly large male. The hot spray of blood steamed against the cooler air of early evening. “Now I want to know why someone needs these.”

Back at the tavern, Bill met him at the door.

“Back already? Let’s see them.”

Cid placed the satchel on the counter. Bill opened it, his eyes scanning the contents. “Perfect. Well done.”

The black card at Cid’s hip chimed once—then again, the glow shifting from silver to a deep crimson-gold. New letters formed above it: S RANK.

“You’re S-rank now,” Bill said, studying him. “Took a team of four A-rank hunters to bring down a single Mersomufs last month, and you just brought me twenty horns without a scratch worth mentioning. You’re not a kid anymore, Cid.”

The payout figure glimmered briefly in the air above the card. Cid’s jaw tightened. “This is too much. I—”

“You earned it,” Bill cut in. “That black wyvern and these hunts prove it. Don’t know what the hell’s in your blood… but if you keep this up, the entire kingdom will know your name.”

“I don’t want to be famous,” Cid said softly. “I just want to be strong enough.”

Bill studied him for a long moment, then poured two glasses. “This world doesn’t care why you’re strong—it only cares what you do with it.”

That night, Cid dreamt of Moonlight Village.

The sky was aflame. Buildings collapsed under waves of heat and ash. Voices called out from the fire—voices he knew, twisted by hate and fear.

Why didn’t you save us, you cursed brat?

You brought this on us!

We should have killed you for the Lunar gods!

He stumbled through the burning streets, clutching Clain, looking for Emily, for anyone—

—and then the flames turned to shadow. The voices vanished. A single man stood before him.

Tall. Broad shoulders. Long blond hair tied back, a beard neatly trimmed. Piercing blue eyes burned with an unnatural light.

“So,” the man said, his voice deep and sharp as a winter wind, “you finally decided to talk, brat.”

Cid swallowed. “Clain?”

“Who else?”

They faced each other on the strange, soundless street.

“Why now?” Cid asked.

“Because now you’re worth my time,” Clain said. “You’ve been carrying me around, but you don’t know a damn thing about what you’re holding. So here’s the deal: you find me a new wielder—someone worthy—and I’ll teach you everything I know about this world… and about you.”

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“Why would I do that?”

“Because you want answers. And I’ve got them.”

Cid hesitated, then nodded. “Deal.”

When he woke, the tavern was dark and quiet except for the patter of rain against the shutters. He went downstairs to find Bill already awake, polishing glasses.

“Nightmare again?” Bill asked without looking up.

“Not exactly. Clain spoke to me.”

Bill’s brow rose. “And?”

“We made a deal.”

Bill grunted. “Better hope you’re not the one getting the short end.”

Six months later, the tavern door creaked open on a night thick with the smell of rain. Jesika looked up from the counter as Cid stepped inside, pulling back his hood. His cloak was wet through, streaked with blood that wasn’t his.

“You’re early,” she said.

“Where’s Bill?”

“Gone until morning. Your usual?”

She poured whiskey into a chipped glass and slid it across.

From a corner table, a hunter called out, “What was it this time?”

“Three blue wyverns,” Cid said without looking over.

A low whistle. “Just you?”

“They wanted heads. I brought them.”

Before anyone could reply, the door slammed open.

A woman staggered in, her cloak soaked and clinging to her frame. Beneath it, Cid glimpsed the fine cut of a white shirt and black riding trousers—not the clothes of a peasant.

She took two steps, then collapsed. Her hood fell back.

Wolf ears—gray, not brown.

Jesika blinked. “A demi-human.”

“Not dressed like a slave,” Cid said.

“Fresh off the leash, though,” Jesika replied, kneeling. “Rope burns. Bruises. She ran.”

“Then we turn her in,” another hunter muttered.

“She’s under our roof,” Cid said coldly. “She stays.”

He picked her up and carried her upstairs.

He laid the girl down on his bed. She was too light. Her skin radiated heat like a fever that had gone too long without care. The bruises along her wrists were raw, the rope burns still dark against pale skin.

Her ears twitched faintly—gray fur, unlike any wolf-blooded he’d seen.

Cid set a wet cloth against her forehead and sat in the chair by the bed. For a long while, he didn’t move. His mind drifted between the hum of the rain on the shutters and the steady pulse of Clain against his leg.

The hours passed like that. The candle burned halfway down before she stirred.

Her eyelids fluttered open, revealing eyes like molten silver—stormlight caught in flesh. “Where… am I?” Her voice was low, cracked, but the tone was not meek.

“You collapsed in the tavern,” Cid said. “I brought you here. I’m Cidolfus Lynvern. Hunter.” He paused. “SSS rank.”

She gave a faint nod, then said, “I am Fenrona. Daughter of Cency.”

The name meant nothing to him, but her voice carried the weight of someone used to saying it in formal halls.

“I have a request,” she said.

Cid leaned forward. “Go on.”

“I want to see the world. Will you take me with you?”

Her eyes held no fear. It wasn’t a plea—it was a challenge.

Cid regarded her in silence. “I’m leaving soon anyway. You can come. But if you slow me down, you’ll get hurt.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. Rest first. If you’re well enough tomorrow, come downstairs.”

The next evening, the tavern’s glow spilled over the floorboards like liquid gold. Jesika was behind the bar, the fire crackling low in the hearth. Cid sat with his back to the wall, watching the room.

“She’s trouble,” muttered Sam, one of the regular hunters.

“She’s not a monster,” Cid replied without looking at him. “And she’s not going back to a cage.”

Jesika’s voice was a warning whisper. “Keep it down. She can probably hear you.”

Fenrona stepped into the light, silver hair damp from a wash, her wolf ears twitching subtly at the noise. She moved like she’d been trained to hide pain—shoulders steady, gaze unflinching despite the faint tremor in her legs.

She stopped in front of Bill, who was leaning against the counter, arms folded.

“State your name,” he said.

“Fenrona,” she answered, clear and sure. “Daughter of King Cency of Linter.”

Jesika nearly dropped the glass she was polishing.

Bill’s eyes narrowed. “Your age?”

“Fourteen.”

Sam let out a low breath. “Same as Cid.”

“Don’t remind me,” Cid muttered. “Soon the moon comes…” His tone changed—bitter, almost wary.

Bill caught it but didn’t press. Instead, he turned to Cid. “You said you’d take responsibility for her?”

“I did. And I will.”

“Good. Then leave tonight. Quiet. Take her somewhere safe—somewhere no one will come looking.”

The night air outside the tavern was cold and dry, the stars half-hidden behind desert cloud. Cid moved in silence, his hood drawn low. Fenrona followed close, matching his steps, her own cloak drawn tight.

She was quick. Light on her feet. Her breathing stayed steady even as the road sloped toward the white sands beyond the village.

“Can I call you Fen?” Cid asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“Fen, why are your ears gray? Most wolf-blooded have brown fur.”

Her answer came slow. “You could say… I’m cursed.”

“What kind of curse?”

“The Curse of Fenrir.”

He glanced at her. “The devouring wolf? From the old stories?”

“It’s more than a story.”

“Then we’re alike.”

Her silver eyes narrowed slightly. “How?”

“You’ve probably already felt it. I don’t have magic. Not a drop. Born without it. That’s my curse.”

They walked in silence until the last fence fell away behind them and the pale sea of the White Desert opened up under the moon.

Cid stopped. “We camp here.”

He moved with practised efficiency, gathering dry brush from the sparse scrub, striking flint against steel until sparks caught.

Fenrona watched him for a moment. “You have no magic… yet you’re faster than soldiers I’ve seen. Stronger too. That doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s why I travel,” Cid said, feeding the flames. “To find out what I really am.”

A roar rolled across the sand like thunder through stone. Deep. Old.

The fire trembled in its pit. Fenrona’s ears flattened against her head. “That… sounded like—”

“A dragon,” Cid finished.

The second roar was closer.

“Hide,” he ordered.

“Cid—”

“Now.”

She stepped back into the shadows just as a voice, deep and jagged, echoed across the dunes.

Show yourself… the man who killed my children.

Fenrona’s breath caught. “It speaks…”

“A speaking dragon,” Cid muttered. “Rare. Dangerous. And he’s here for me.”

He stepped forward, pulling Clain from his back. The sword’s black steel caught the moonlight, the wolf engraving at its hilt glinting faintly.

“You’ll die!” she hissed.

“Maybe,” he said, “but I won’t let it reach the village.”

The wind hit first, hot and acrid, as the dragon’s wings swept down. It landed hard enough to shake the ground, claws carving furrows in the sand. Its scales were black and cracked, each one like a shard of obsidian edged with red firelight.

Its eyes—two burning pools of molten gold—fixed on him.

“You have no magic,” it rumbled. “No soul flame. Nothing.”

“Don’t underestimate me,” Cid said.

Then he moved.

A blur across the sand. Clain slashed at the dragon’s foreclaw, biting deep enough to draw a bellow of pain. The beast lashed its tail—Cid ducked under, rolling back to his feet in the same motion.

It breathed fire, a torrent of molten light. Cid ran toward it instead of away, sliding under the stream and striking along its belly in one long, precise arc.

The roar that followed was enough to make the dunes shift. The dragon’s wing swept down, catching him in the ribs and hurling him into a boulder. Pain exploded through his side.

“What… are you?” the dragon demanded.

“What I am doesn’t matter,” Cid spat blood. “Only that one of us dies tonight.”

He rushed again, blade flashing, fists striking where the sword could not reach. The dragon snapped its jaws, but he forced them shut with a brutal kick, leaping to its back.

It tried to shake him free. Too late.

He jammed Clain between its jaw joints, forcing the flames back into its throat. The heat lit the beast from within, its scream echoing across the desert.

“You should have worried less about what I am,” Cid growled, “and more about what I can do.”

One clean stroke.

The dragon’s head hit the sand with a dull, final thud.

The dragon’s corpse lay half-buried in the sand, its severed head a few paces away, jaws frozen mid-snarl. Heat still radiated from the body, the smell of scorched scale and blood heavy in the cold night air. Black ichor hissed and smoked where it soaked into the dunes, tracing strange, molten patterns before vanishing into the earth.

Cid pulled Clain from between two cracked scales along its neck, the blade dragging free with a wet hiss. He wiped it down in the sand until the steel caught the moonlight again, then slid it back into its sheath. His breathing was slow but rough, every movement sending a dull ache through his ribs where the beast had struck him.

Fenrona approached from the edge of the firelight, her cloak pulled tight around her. Her steps were light, but he heard the faint crunch of sand before she stopped at his side.

“You fought it alone,” she said softly, almost as if speaking too loud might wake the dead.

He didn’t look at her. “It was coming for the village. I wasn’t about to wait for a committee.”

Her silver eyes followed the dead monster’s outline. “It spoke.”

“It did.” He crouched by his pack and pulled free a waterskin, swishing the warm liquid in his mouth before spitting it into the sand. “Doesn’t matter now.”

“It does,” she replied quietly. “Creatures like that don’t come out for nothing. They hunt for purpose.”

Cid’s gaze flicked toward her, searching for something in her expression. She met his eyes without flinching.

“Maybe,” he said at last. “But that’s tomorrow’s problem.”

He dropped his pack beside a boulder, setting it just far enough from the carcass that the stench was bearable, close enough to the fire he was about to build.

“We’ll camp here,” he said, voice final. “Nothing in its right mind will come near this spot tonight.”

They worked without much talk, gathering sparse brush and dry weeds. The fire took quickly under his practiced hands, the sparks throwing shadows over the dragon’s massive form.

“You’re hurt,” she observed after a while, her eyes on the dark stain spreading across his shirt.

Cid shrugged. “I’ve been worse.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I’m still breathing,” he said simply, poking at the fire. “That’s all that matters.”

They ate in silence, the night pressing in around them. The crackle of flames, the hiss of cooling dragon flesh, and the occasional sigh of the desert wind were the only sounds.

When the food was gone, he leaned back against his pack, staring into the fire. She sat cross-legged across from him, studying him openly now — not with distrust, but with a curiosity that made him uneasy.

“Why do you fight like that?” she asked suddenly.

He raised a brow. “Like what?”

“Like you have nothing to lose… and everything at the same time.”

Cid didn’t answer at first. His gaze dropped to the flames. “Maybe you’re right.”

Before she could press further, heat flared in his pocket. He pulled free his hunter’s card, the smooth surface glowing a deep red. Letters shimmered across it in sharp, deliberate strokes:

NT Rank Achieved.

First Recorded NT Rank — Alfrey Kingdom.

Cid stared at the words for a long moment. “Great,” he muttered under his breath. “Now the whole damned kingdom knows.”

Far away, in the capital

the King’s council chamber was heavy with candle smoke and murmured debate when the doors opened. A royal messenger hurried across the black-and-gold tiles, bowing low.

“Your Grace — a new NT rank has registered.”

The King looked up from the map before him, his dark eyes narrowing. “Name?”

“Unknown, Majesty. The record is… empty.”

A pause. The King’s fingers drummed once against the armrest of his throne. “Then find him,” he said coldly. “And find him before anyone else does.”

The fire in the desert burned low, its light barely reaching the edge of the dragon’s shadow. Fenrona pulled her cloak tighter, the tip of her tail curling in toward her legs.

“That rank,” she said quietly, her voice almost lost to the wind. “Is it a good thing… or the kind that makes enemies come looking?”

Cid lay back, one arm behind his head, the other resting lightly on Clain’s hilt. “Depends on who’s doing the looking.”

She gave a faint smile — not quite amused, not quite reassured. “Then I hope you’re as good as you think you are.”

His eyes closed, but his voice stayed even. “Better.”

They didn’t speak again. Above them, the stars wheeled slowly over the dunes, and the dead dragon lay between them and the rest of the desert — a silent, black monument to the night’s work.

The fire settled into low, steady embers. The heat was enough to keep the desert chill from creeping in, but the air still bit at any skin left uncovered.

Cid lay on his back, staring past the drifting smoke toward the jagged stars.

The dragon’s blood smell still clung to his clothes. He could feel the phantom weight of its strikes in his ribs, each bruise like a reminder that even without magic, he’d stood against something ancient and lived.

But it wasn’t victory that stayed with him.

It was the moment its eyes locked on his.

It knew him. Somehow.

Like the stories his father told — whispers of monsters that remembered faces they had no business knowing.

Beside the fire, Fenrona shifted, her profile outlined in the faint light. Her eyes were half-lidded, but she wasn’t asleep. Not yet.

She was watching him without trying to hide it.

Cid closed his own eyes. Why is she still here?

She’d seen enough to know he wasn’t normal — enough to make most people turn the other way.

But she stayed. Not because she trusted him, not yet.

Because something in her — the way she carried herself, the way her voice didn’t waver — told him she was the same. Cursed in a way that couldn’t be undone.

His thoughts drifted to the card in his pocket, the glow of its message burned into his mind.

First NT rank in Alfrey history.

It wasn’t an achievement — it was a beacon.

A flare over the desert saying Here I am. Come find me.

And they would come.

The King’s men. Hunters looking for a fight. Old enemies who’d thought him dead.

The NT title didn’t make him untouchable. It made him a challenge.

He reached over and gripped Clain’s hilt, the cold steel grounding him.

“You’re still awake,” Fenrona said quietly, her voice softer now, stripped of the guarded edge she usually wore.

“So are you,” he replied.

“I’ve never seen anyone fight like that,” she said. “Not with magic, not without it. Like you were… built for it.”

He let out a faint breath — almost a laugh, but without any humor. “Built for it, cursed for it. Doesn’t make a difference.”

A pause. Then, “Cid… if they come looking for you… will I be in their way?”

His eyes opened, meeting hers across the firelight. “No. But you might be in danger.”

Her gaze didn’t flinch. “I can live with that.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then turned his eyes back to the stars.

“You should sleep, Fen.”

“So should you.”

He didn’t answer. Sleep wouldn’t come easy tonight. Not with the weight of the dragon’s death behind him, and the weight of the kingdom’s eyes ahead.

The embers hissed softly in the silence.

The dragon’s shadow stretched long in the moonlight.

And Cid lay there, counting the heartbeats between now and the moment trouble finally arrived.