The moon would rise in twenty-seven minutes. Prince Edric knew this because Tomas had told him before he left the castle, and Tomas was never wrong about the moon.
“Twenty-seven minutes from the eastern ridge,” his friend had said, standing beside Edric’s horse in the castle courtyard. “Perhaps thirty before the light reaches the valley.”
Edric had almost laughed. As though three minutes mattered.
He rode hard through the dying light, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the villages surrounding Castle Valen. His black stallion, Ash, knew this journey almost as well as he did. Every month they followed some variation of the same path, abandoning the road for the wooded hills where farmers rarely ventured and hunters knew better than to linger after sunset. Especially on this night.
Throughout the kingdom, doors were already being barred. Fires were being extinguished. Parents were calling children indoors. Everyone in Valenia knew what came with the full moon. They called it the Night Dragon. Edric called it himself.
He reached the old stone bridge as the first pain struck. It began beneath his ribs. He gasped and pulled hard on Ash’s reins.
“No.”
The horse whinnied. Edric turned toward the eastern horizon. The ridge was still dark, but the sky above it had begun to pale. Tomas had been wrong. Or Edric had ridden too slowly.
“Go!”
He slapped Ash’s flank. The stallion hesitated.
“Go!”
Ash bolted into the trees. Edric doubled over as another spasm tore through him. His hands clutched his stomach, but he knew the pain there was only the beginning. Soon came the bones. Then the skin. Then the fire.
He stumbled away from the road.
“Your Highness?”
Edric froze.
A woman stood beneath an oak tree perhaps twenty paces away. She carried a small leather pack over one shoulder and held a walking staff in one hand. Her cloak was dusty. Dark hair had escaped the braid behind her head. She was staring at him. More importantly, she had recognized him.
“You need to leave,” Edric said.
She took a cautious step forward. “Are you hurt?”
The moon appeared above the ridge. Edric screamed. He fell to his knees. The woman ran toward him.
“No!”
She stopped.
“Run!”
His back arched. Something cracked inside him. The woman stared as Edric’s shoulders widened beneath his tunic. Cloth ripped. His fingers dug into the earth as his nails darkened and thickened into curved claws. Another crack echoed through the trees. Then another. His spine lengthened. His jaw pushed outward. The woman stumbled backward.
Edric tried to scream again, but what emerged was already becoming something else. A roar shook leaves from the trees. The prince disappeared. And the monster opened its eyes.
Edric was still there. That was the cruelest part of the curse.
He had often wondered whether his ancestors had suffered the same torment. The histories never said. They described disappearances, destroyed villages, unexplained fires. They described kings who became reclusive as they aged and princes who died suspiciously young. They never described what happened inside the beast.
Edric knew. He existed somewhere behind its eyes, buried beneath hunger and fury. He could see. He could hear. He could feel. But he could control nothing.
The beast stretched upward, its massive body rising higher than the low branches. Dark scales covered its flesh. Two horns curled backward from its skull. Its enormous wings unfolded and struck the surrounding trees, snapping branches as easily as a child broke twigs.
The woman stood below. Run, Edric begged her. The creature lowered its head. Please. The woman’s terror was plain now. Her staff trembled in both hands. Then instinct finally conquered shock. She ran. The beast lunged after her.
No!
Its jaws snapped shut inches behind her cloak. She threw herself sideways, rolling beneath the trunk of a fallen tree. The beast crashed after her, but its bulk struck the trunk and shattered it in an explosion of rotting wood. The woman scrambled upright. The creature turned. Edric screamed from inside it. She could not hear him. Nobody ever could.
The beast opened its mouth. Heat gathered in its throat. The woman saw the glow. She dove behind a boulder. Fire erupted. The forest became orange. Flames climbed the trees. Leaves vanished instantly into sparks. Edric watched everything. He smelled burning pine through the creature’s nostrils. He felt satisfaction that wasn’t his. Then came another sound. A horn.
The beast lifted its head. Three short blasts sounded from somewhere beyond the trees. Edric recognized them. Hunters. Of course. Every full moon brought another fool who believed himself capable of killing Valenia’s legendary monster. The woman heard the horn too. She stared into the forest. “Don’t,” she whispered.
The beast charged toward the sound.
Garran Voss had hunted the Night Dragon for eleven years. The creature had killed his brother. That was the story told in every tavern from Greyhaven to the southern border. Garran told it often, usually while displaying the broken sword his brother had carried the night he died. What Garran rarely mentioned was that his brother had gone looking for the beast.
Edric remembered him. He remembered all of them. Some memories visited him in dreams. Others required only closing his eyes. A farmer with a spear. Three soldiers carrying crossbows. A knight wearing red armor who shouted his family name before charging. Every death lived inside Edric.
Tonight Garran had brought six men. They waited in a clearing surrounded by iron-tipped stakes. A dead sheep had been chained in the center as bait. Edric saw the trap through the monster’s eyes. The monster did not care. It entered the clearing.
“Now!” Garran shouted.
Crossbows fired. Four bolts struck the beast’s chest. One pierced its neck. Pain exploded through Edric. The creature roared. For one beautiful second, Edric thought perhaps they had done it. Perhaps the curse could finally die with him. Then the wounds began to close. The hunters saw it. Their confidence vanished.
The beast ripped the first man apart with one sweep of its claws. Edric felt the impact. He heard bones break.
Stop.
A second hunter ran. The monster caught him.
STOP!
Flames poured across the clearing. Two men disappeared inside them. Garran stood his ground. He raised a heavy crossbow and aimed for the creature’s eye.
“Come on, devil.”
He fired. The bolt struck. The beast screamed and reared backward. Edric felt darkness swallow half his vision. Garran drew his sword. The beast tore the bolt from its eye. Blood spilled down its scales. Then the eye opened again. Perfectly healed.
Garran’s sword lowered. For the first time, Edric saw the hunter understand. This was not an animal. It could not be killed like one. The monster advanced. Garran backed away. A figure ran into the clearing.
“Stop!”
The woman. Edric wanted to weep. The creature turned toward her.
Garran stared. “Are you mad?”
“Run!” she shouted.
Garran looked from her to the beast. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand you’re about to die.”
The monster snarled. The woman moved closer. Edric could feel its hunger shift. Not toward Garran. Toward her.
No.
She slowly lowered her staff. Then, unbelievably, she knelt.
“What are you doing?” Garran yelled.
The woman ignored him. She looked directly into the creature’s eyes. Edric looked back.
“I saw you,” she said.
The beast growled.
“I saw what you were before.”
Something inside Edric broke. Not the monster. Not the curse. Something smaller. Something he had spent years protecting.
Hope.
The woman reached slowly into her pack. The creature crouched. Edric begged her not to move. She pulled out a silver pendant. The beast recoiled. For one terrible instant Edric thought the metal itself frightened it. Then he saw the shape. A sunburst surrounding a black stone. The creature knew it. And somehow Edric knew it too.
A memory surfaced that did not belong to him. A stone chamber. A man kneeling. A woman’s voice saying words Edric could not understand. Blood running across a floor. Then nothing.
The monster screamed. It charged. The woman stood. Garran stepped between them. His sword struck the creature’s snout and shattered. The beast swatted him aside. He flew across the clearing and struck a tree.
The woman ran. But not away. She ran toward the ravine. Edric understood before the creature did. She wanted it to follow. She was drawing it away from Garran. Away from the surviving hunters.
The beast chased her. She disappeared through the trees. Branches shattered around Edric’s monstrous body. The woman knew where she was going. At the last possible instant she turned sharply. The beast did not.
Earth vanished beneath its feet. The creature plunged into the ravine.
Dawn arrived quietly. It always seemed obscene to Edric that morning could be so beautiful after the night he had endured. He woke naked among broken stones at the bottom of the ravine. For several minutes, he couldn’t move. Every transformation healed the beast. It did not heal him.
He pushed himself upright. His body ached. Someone had covered him with a cloak. Edric looked up. The woman sat several feet away beside a small fire.
“You’re alive,” he said.
“So are you.”
She handed him a waterskin. He drank.
“What happened?”
“You fell.”
“I gathered that.”
“You climbed back out about an hour later.”
Edric closed his eyes. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.”
“The hunters?”
Her silence gave him the answer.
“How many?”
“Four died.”
Edric lowered his head. Two had survived. He tried to tell himself that mattered. It didn’t.
“They chose to hunt you,” she said.
“They didn’t know what they were hunting.”
“They knew it could kill them.”
Edric looked at her. “You saw what I did.”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The woman removed the pendant from around her neck. The black stone caught the morning light. “Because when you transformed, you told me to run.”
Edric stared at her.
“So I knew the monster wasn’t all you were.”
He looked at the pendant. “What is that?”
She hesitated. “My mother gave it to me.”
“The creature recognized it.”
“So did you.”
Edric’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”
“Because for one moment, when you looked at it, the monster stopped looking like a monster.”
She handed him the pendant. The instant Edric touched the stone, he saw the chamber again. The kneeling man. Blood. The woman standing over him. This time he heard one word clearly. Valen. His family name.
Edric dropped the pendant. The stranger watched him.
“What is your name?”
“Mara.”
“Where did you get this?”
“I told you. My mother.”
“Where did she get it?”
“I don’t know.”
Edric picked up the pendant carefully. “Tomas will.”
“Tomas?”
“My oldest friend.” He looked toward the distant castle. “And the only man alive who may know how to end this.”
Tomas was waiting when they reached the castle. The scholar hurried down the steps as Edric approached wearing Mara’s cloak and very little dignity.
“You’re late.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“I heard about the fire.”
“Also good morning.”
Tomas stopped when he saw Mara. Then he saw the pendant. Every trace of irritation disappeared. “Where did you get that?”
Mara looked at Edric. Edric almost laughed. Apparently everyone except him knew something about the cursed piece of jewelry. Tomas took the pendant without waiting for permission. “I’ve seen this symbol.”
“Where?” Edric asked.
Tomas was already climbing the steps. “In the oldest records beneath the western archive.”
Edric followed him. “You told me those records were useless.”
“I told you I couldn’t read them.”
“That’s not particularly encouraging.”
Tomas stopped. For twenty years he had known Edric’s secret. For nearly half that time he had devoted himself to uncovering the truth behind the curse. Now his hands were trembling. “The sunburst appears on a sealed manuscript written during the reign of King Aldren.” Edric knew the name. Every child in Valenia did. The founder of their dynasty. The first King Valen. More than six hundred years ago.
“The curse began with Aldren,” Tomas said.
Mara looked between them. Edric felt suddenly cold despite the morning sun.
“What does the manuscript say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
Tomas looked at the pendant. “Because the seal bears this symbol.”
For a long moment, nobody spoke. Then somewhere high above them, the castle bells began to ring. Morning prayers. Servants crossed the courtyard. Stable boys led horses toward the gates. The kingdom was waking. The full moon was sinking beyond the western hills, and with it went the monster everyone feared. For another month.
Edric looked at Mara. “You could leave.”
“I could.”
“You nearly died because of me.”
“Several times.”
“You should probably hold that against me.”
“I’ll consider it.”
A smile almost reached his face. “Why did you save me?”
Mara considered the question. “Because monsters don’t warn people to run.”
Edric looked away. Beyond the castle walls lay villages where families would be counting their dead. Somewhere, Garran Voss would wake with broken bones and perhaps an even deeper hatred for the creature he had failed to kill. Twenty-nine days from now, Edric would ride into the countryside again. The moon would rise. His bones would break. And whatever lived inside his blood would return.
But Tomas was holding the pendant. Mara was still standing beside him. For the first time in years, the next full moon did not feel inevitable. Only unfinished.
Feature Photo by Saakshi Yadav
