Noctis Caelum Novels & Stories

He rarely argued when she spoke like someone born with a throne under her feet. The WING dipped lower. The first glimpse of Noctis’s capital—Umbrenis—emerged from the fog. A city built in spirals, carved into the mountainside, with towers made of obsidian threaded with glowing blue veins. Walkways stretched like webbing between spires. Shadows moved between the rooftops—not monsters, not ghosts, but trained Noctis guards wearing cloaking cloaks that made them almost invisible. Sorrel gasped softly. “It sparkles…”

But every Aegis display had gone dark. Zenith stood in the nursery doorway. Caelan was awake in her arms. He wasn't crying. He was looking toward the window. Toward the mountains. I walked closer. “Zenith.” She looked at me. Then at Caelan. “He's been staring there for ten minutes.” I stepped beside her. “What does he see?” “I don't know.” Caelan's tiny hand opened. For an instant, a faint warmth touched the air. Not fire. Not light. Something softer. The Aegis core on the table flickered. One line appeared. Then another.

Her back was rigid as if she was walking into battle and not just a date. I let my arm drop, tossing my keys to the valet before falling into step beside her. Selene’s eyes lifted to the sign above the entrance, letters cut in gleaming brass, washed in a golden glow: Noctis. The building stretched upward—entirely glass, pulled taut over sleek black frames. It was a two-storey building built on the quieter edge of town. She stared up at it and I was sure I didn’t imagine the awe on her face.

For now. My body screamed. Every muscle ached. My head pounded. But I had done it. Summoned something that should not exist. Bent it to my purpose. I struggled to my feet. Looked at what I had called. It had taken shape now. Sort of. A mass of shadow and hunger. Eyes that glowed with malevolent intelligence. It watched me. Waited. Ready to obey. Ready to be unleashed. Noctis thought they were safe. Thought their barriers and their king and their Moonborn could protect them. They had no idea what was coming.

He heard her talking to her mother while he was hiding behind the window sill. “A rose and a viper.” Damon enunciated, narrowing his gaze to Walsh. “Who’s crest is it?” “Nemesis.” It wasn’t a name, and it annoyed him more. He has a lot of names on his list that fall into that category. It would take him forever to sift them one by one. “Burson.” Walsh suddenly added, finally in his conceding voice. The pain was becoming intolerable, and he was bleeding between his legs profusely. Only a thread of skin holding his entire balls.

But what I had witnessed had stripped me of reason and awakened the beast within me. "You aren't thinking clearly." Camela's voice slipped into the room as smooth as poison. She stood framed in the doorway, arms folded, and every line of her crimson dress designed to provoke. "I'm thinking clearer than ever," I said, but I could tell my voice lacked strength. "You are the Lycan King, but your partner has made you look foolish. Isabel cheated and had an affair with another man under your roof." Camela continued, reminding me of what had transpired. The pain of the truth made me clench my fist.

Behind him was a huge map showing Glaham and Moonglade was highlighted in blue. Moonglade was near the north surrounded by forest from all directions, which made it the safest among the other clans. Noah’s eyes wandered the map till he spotted the land labeled ‘Crescents’. When he thought about it, Moonglade is closest to the Crescent than the other clans. It was a straight path south from the Crescents to the Moonglade. It made more sense to him that Ophelia winded up here than anywhere else. Noah was thankful she did, only to feel shameful for liking something that was a result of a massacre.

The sky above the Zenith City was no longer a mystery, it was a fortress, the "Starlight Winter" had retreated, leaving behind a world that felt scrubbed raw and dangerously visible, high above the atmosphere, the thirteen new stars, the Sentinels, sat in a perfect, geometric ring, pulsing with a rhythmic, cold blue light that mocked our newfound peace.

Now its once-grand structures sagged like dying beasts, their stone facades crumbling, their foundations slowly sinking into the soft earth where drainage systems had long since failed. Above, suspended in arrogant glory, soared the true city of Noctis Lumen. Its crystalline towers captured moonlight and transformed it, casting prisms of cold brilliance across the night sky. Those towers defied natural law, their impossible geometries sustained by complex weaves of elemental magic. The nobility lived up there, among the stars, while she and the other dregs of society scrabbled for existence in the festering wound that stretched beneath their feet.

My suspension has been temporally lifted, allowing me to pass through. “Invoco elementum terrae. Invoco elemuntum aeris,” I chant another with Evander. “Invoco elemuntum aqua. Invoco elemuntum ignis.” The empty space in the large tree flickers blue. Still holding my hand, Evander and I walk through, emerging into the Covenstead. It’s obvious right away shit is going down tonight. “Our entire coven is pissed about this,” he whispers to me, taking his hand from mine and wrapping it protectively around my shoulders.