Luniara, The Shadow of the Forgotten

The world had never been kind to Luniara.

She was born beneath a dying moon, in a village where the cold wind bit sharper than the fangs of the desperate. Hunger was a constant companion, and cruelty was the only language the world seemed to understand. Among her kin, she was shunned—not for the darkness of her coat, nor for the fire that blazed in her amber eyes, but for something far worse.

Power.

It started as whispers in the village. They had seen the way the shadows curled toward her paws, how the air trembled when she was enraged, how her presence alone made the elders uneasy. “Cursed,” they had called her. “Unnatural.” Even those who might have pitied her dared not stand beside her. To be close to Luniara was to invite ruin, to paint a target on one’s own back. In a world ruled by a tyrant who hunted those of unnatural strength, no one wished to share in her fate.

And so she was left to rot in the gutters of her own home, abandoned by all but the gnawing hunger in her belly and the relentless, burning anger in her soul.

She should have died there, another forgotten shadow in a world that had no place for her. But Luniara refused to be forgotten.

When the king’s soldiers came, sweeping through the land in search of strong warriors to fuel his unending conquest, she did not resist. She was not taken—she offered herself willingly. For if she was to be a monster, then she would carve a place for herself in a world that had already forsaken her. She would become something feared. Something untouchable.

And the king welcomed her with open arms.

He saw in her what others feared: power, untamed and raw, an ember waiting to be stoked into an inferno. He did not cast her aside. He shaped her, honed her into a weapon. Under his rule, she became his shadow, his executioner, the blade that struck down those who dared to defy him.

The girl once spat upon in the streets became a legend of terror.

She told herself it did not matter. That it was better to be feared than to be weak. That the blood on her paws was justified. But then came the prince.

He was nothing like his father. Where the king was cold, his son was warmth incarnate. Where the king ruled with fear, his son inspired with hope. He was everything Luniara had convinced herself did not exist—a light in the darkness, unyielding and bright.

She hated him for it.

And yet, she was drawn to him.

He saw something in her that no one else had. Not just the blade, not just the shadow that trailed the king’s footsteps. He spoke to the part of her she had buried long ago—the child who once longed for kindness, for belonging. Slowly, against all reason, she let herself believe that perhaps, in his light, she could be something more than the monster she had become.

Their love was foolish. Forbidden.

When the time came to confess their truth to the king, they stood together, unflinching. They would fight for a future free of fear, free of chains. But fate had never been kind to Luniara, and war is never so simple.

The battle was a storm of steel, fire, and fury. The king fell, his reign crumbling beneath the weight of their rebellion. But in the chaos, something inside Luniara shattered.

She had spent years suppressing the power within her, keeping it on a leash so it would not consume her entirely. But the moment her rage overtook her, the moment she let go—there was no stopping it.

Darkness exploded from her like a dying star, a force so immense it swallowed everything in its path. She had thought herself in control. She had believed she could wield her power without consequence.

She was wrong.

When the dust settled, the battlefield lay silent. The kingdom, freed from its tyrant, rejoiced. But Luniara did not hear the cries of victory. She did not see the banners of liberation raised high.

Because there, amid the ruins of what she had wrought, lay the prince.

The one who had seen her, who had loved her, who had believed in the good within her.

And she had killed him.

The grief that followed was unlike anything she had ever known. It was not the cold, distant pain she had become accustomed to, nor the dull ache of old wounds. It was a fire that hollowed her out from the inside, that left her screaming beneath a sky that would never hear her cries.

She ran.

Luniara vanished into the depths of the Shadowed Forest, a place untouched by time, where even the bravest of souls dared not tread. There, she wandered aimlessly, consumed by guilt, by sorrow, by the ever-growing darkness within her. Her power, once a tool she had wielded with ruthless efficiency, now festered unchecked, feeding off her torment, growing stronger with each passing day.

She does not know what she is becoming.

A monster, perhaps. A demon lurking in the dark, cursed to walk the earth alone. Or perhaps something else. Something not yet written in the stars.

For even in the deepest shadow, a single ember can still burn.

And maybe—just maybe—Luniara’s story is not yet over.