("Flowers Beneath A Starless Sky" is a prologue story for the game, written in the same style as the lore you'll be discovering in-game.)
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III. The Howling Dark
“Serenna.”
The voice is gruff and filled with familiar disdain. Waiting at the village gate is a figure backed by the glow of a crackling brazier, a bulky crimson cloak draped around her shoulders in a way that conceals her scowl. She leans ever so slightly against a staff clenched in her hand.
“Tell me: What do you see in the sky?”
“Nothing at all. Same as always, I’m afraid,” I reply. I offer a smile and carry on my way. “But you can count on me to keep looking, Delphine, don’t you worry.”
She grabs my arm; I flinch.
“You will address me as sage,” she hisses. I can feel her glare “You have earned no other right. And since it seems you have not gone blind, perhaps you could explain what you were doing beyond the walls past moonfall.”
“Paying my respects.” I keep my tone flat and pry my arm free. She moves to block my path before I can take more than a step.
“To that old fool? Still?” she scoffs, menace rising in her voice. “You would risk our safety to honor a feckless waste of a man? He’s long gone, and lucky to even have the decency of a grave. Let go already.”
“I would think a sage would know better than to speak ill of the dead,” I say. “But then, you’ve never been as wise in the ways of the spirits as he was.”
She laughs, bitter and hateful.
“Insolent little brat. You speak of spirits but you don’t even hear the howling all around us!” she says. She sweeps her staff out toward the darkness beyond the gate. “The world is dead and rotting, Serenna, and the wolves are closing in. Any spirits out there have either long forsaken us, or would tear us apart the moment we held their gaze. We are fighting for survival, there is no room for childish fantasy, for this desperate hope that a corpse can heal!”
She slams her staff into the dirt.
“We have rules for a reason. You cannot travel in the dark without drawing attention to yourself—and in doing so, bring that attention back here. The fact that you cannot grasp this, that you continue to risk all of our safety for your useless errands, leaves little wonder why you were found amongst smoldering ruins. Time only continues to prove that bringing you here was my predecessor's greatest mistake.”
I take a breath. My gaze remains level.
“Is that all?”
Her eyes narrow further, and she leans in close.
“You will not return to that grave. You will not leave these walls without permission. And you will show me respect,” she says. “It is only by the grace of the one you call mother that you have not already been cast out into the dark, but even her sway has limits. Understood?”
“Of course, my sage,” I answer.
I can feel her eyes watching me all the way back to my home.
