Novels by Lucy

The light tore through the chamber like a living thing, spilling upward in great coils that twisted into the shape of the Eye. Eli’s skin burned where the fragments of the cubes still clung to him, glowing faintly as if they refused to let go. The air was no longer air—it was heat and vibration, a storm of sound and pressure that made his bones feel hollow. Lena clutched him tighter, her arms anchoring him even as the ground beneath them split wider, stones shearing off into the abyss below.The Watchers writhed where they knelt, their masks cracking and shattering. From beneath the porcelain shards came not faces but shadow, their forms unraveling into streams of black smoke that the Eye drank hungrily. Their chanting devolved into screams that echoed into the fissure. The broken mask, the last one standing, staggered toward Eli with movements that were almost human and yet all wrong—his limbs jerking too fast, his spine arched unnaturally. His voice came distorted, layered with a hu

The hall groaned under the weight of centuries, every stone shuddering as if the very foundation of Crest was remembering its own buried sins. Dust fell like ash from the vaulted ceiling. Eli stood in the center, the two cubes heavy in his hands, their carved spirals twisting in ways his eyes couldn’t quite follow. Every breath he took came ragged, uneven, like he was pulling not air but something darker, heavier, into his lungs. The whispers were relentless now, no longer murmurs at the edge of hearing but a tide of voices clamoring inside his skull, pressing against his thoughts until his own mind felt like it might splinter.“Eli,” Lena hissed. Her face was pale, her eyes bright with fear, her hands trembling though she fought to keep them steady on his arm. “Don’t listen to it. Put them down. We’ll find another way.”Her voice cut through, thin but real, a thread in the storm. Eli wanted to answer her, wanted to ground himself in her presence the way he always had, but the cubes p

The Crest had gone quiet after the Watcher’s defeat, but it was not a silence of peace. It was the kind of hush that settles before a storm breaks, when the air grows heavy and every breath feels borrowed. Eli could not shake the weight of what had happened in the refectory. The look on the students’ faces haunted him, their awe cut through with fear. They hadn’t just seen him resist a monster—they had seen him command it, even if only for a moment. That truth was spreading faster than fire through dry grass.He tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter, that the whispers were just noise, but he could feel the shift everywhere he went. Doors stayed open for him a second longer. Conversations cut off as he walked by. Students who had once mocked him with sneers and behind-the-back laughter now stepped aside, eyes lowered, as though unsure if he was a savior or the next curse. And somewhere inside, that attention stirred something dangerous, something old and cold, like a crown lo

The Crest no longer pretended to be a school. By the next evening, the façade of classrooms and lecture halls was a hollow mask over something older and rawer. Eli felt it in the air as soon as he stepped from his dormitory—every breath was heavy, tinged with smoke though no fire burned. The corridors stretched further than they should have, ceilings groaned, and portraits whispered behind their gilt frames. Students huddled in corners with wide, restless eyes, whispering rumors about the tolling bell and the ground that had shifted beneath their feet. Professors, once so composed, moved like hollow men, clutching books to their chests, their voices cracking when they tried to enforce order. The Crest was unraveling, and everyone inside could feel it.Eli walked with Lena and Callum, the three of them moving like a unit though every step was shadowed with unspoken tension. The cube weighed in his pocket like a stone, inert since the Eye’s hall collapsed, but it wasn’t dead. He felt it

The Crest had always loomed like a monument—timeless, impervious, a citadel that stood outside the rules of ordinary decay. But on that night, as the bell’s unnatural tolling faded into silence, Eli felt it breathe. The stone itself shifted, walls groaning as if the foundations were no longer sure of themselves. The corridors no longer obeyed their maps. Arches sagged, staircases bent where they had once stood straight, and new shadows moved where there should have been none. The Crest was alive, and its pulse matched the rhythm hammering in Eli’s chest. He ran down the corridor, Lena at his side, Callum a step behind. Their footsteps echoed too loudly, as though the stone was eager to swallow their sounds. Every hallway they turned down bent into shapes Eli swore hadn’t existed yesterday. Murals bled onto the walls—figures painted centuries ago now moving as if freed from their confinement. Eyes followed them, whole frescoes leaning forward as if hungry for the trespassers running be

The night stretched on like it would never end. Eli didn’t know how long they had been walking through the shifting halls of the Crest, but time had slipped away from him in the way it did inside dreams, measured not by minutes but by how heavy the silence grew, by how tightly his chest clenched. Every corridor looked the same now, and yet different—walls bending in angles that defied logic, arches that curved downward like jaws ready to snap shut.They had left the library behind, but the weight of that great Eye on the wall still lingered. Eli could feel its stare in the back of his skull, like a nail pressed into bone. Each time he blinked, he half expected to see the spiral when he opened his eyes again.“We can’t keep wandering like this,” Lena whispered, breaking the silence. Her voice echoed in strange ways, bouncing down the hall ahead of them before coming back warped, like someone else was speaking with her mouth. “The Crest isn’t letting us go. It’s folding us back inside i

The moon had sunk low over Duskmoor, veiled by a mist that turned the city into a place of ghosts. The crooked streets were empty of carts, the taverns long since shuttered, and not even the drunkards dared to sing tonight. Somewhere far off, a stray dog barked once and then fell silent, as if it too had remembered the warning whispered across the city—Don’t be outside after midnight.Rian stood at the mouth of an old drainage tunnel in the western quarter, clutching a torch in one hand and the hilt of a dagger in the other. The thief had worked for smugglers, mercenaries, and even a few nobles in his time, but none of those jobs had chilled him like this one.Kael’s voice still rang in his head:> “Find what lies beneath the city before the Regent’s hounds do. If you fail…”He didn’t need Kael to finish. The memory of those glowing crimson chains slithering across the temple floor was warning enough.He muttered a curse under his breath and lit the torch, the sudden flare of light pu

The city of Duskmoor lay under a moon as pale as bone, wrapped in the uneasy stillness that comes before a storm. The streets were empty save for the wind, which carried with it the tang of scorched stone and the faint coppery scent of blood drifting still from the western quarter.No torches burned in the poorer districts. Even the thieves who prowled the alleys had hidden themselves away, as if the Devil’s shadow could reach into their dens.Kael did not sleep.He stood beneath the broken arch of the western temple’s gates, staring at the shattered statue that still towered in the gloom. The jagged stone idol, once the pride of the priests, now leaned against the moonlight like a wounded giant. Beneath it, the temple’s altar was blackened with soot, the air thick with the lingering weight of burnt prayers.Kael’s eyes glowed faintly crimson as the whispers swirled around him—low, slithering voices that came not from the living world. They told him of soldiers deserting, of nobles tr

The Regent’s hall was built to inspire awe. High ceilings arched above like the ribs of some great beast, banners of crimson and gold spilling down the stone walls. The lions stitched into their fabric glared with eternal defiance, their claws sharp, their jaws wide. Torches flared in iron sconces, filling the chamber with warmth and the smoke of pitch. But even here, in the heart of power, the air was thick with unease. The murmurs of fear that had spread through Duskmoor seeped into this hall like smoke through cracks in stone. The Regent sat upon his throne, a massive chair carved of black oak and gilded at its edges. The crown on his head was not large, but it weighed heavily. His hair, streaked with gray, clung damp to his temples. Shadows bruised the skin beneath his eyes. He had not slept since the bells had stopped ringing. At his feet, kneeling on the marble floor, was a courier. The boy’s uniform was torn and muddied, his boots caked in blood and filth from the night’s

The silence of the temple bells spread like poison through the veins of Duskmoor. One toll, cut short in the night, was all it took to unravel what little order remained. By dawn, every soul in the western quarter knew: the priests were dead, their temple ruined, their gods silent.Whispers carried the news faster than messengers ever could. In markets, women trading scraps of grain leaned close and muttered of crimson chains that tore stone apart. In taverns, drunkards claimed the gods themselves had abandoned the city. Children, too young to understand, pressed their ears to the walls of their homes and repeated the stories they heard outside until their mothers wept and hushed them.The city did not fall in a single night. It cracked. The fractures spread outward from the ruined temple, reaching into every hall, every alley, every heart.In the barracks, fear stank stronger than sweat. Rows of soldiers sat on their bunks, polishing swords with shaking hands. Some stared at the floo

Night settled over the western quarter like a funeral shroud. The streets grew empty, doors barred, windows shuttered tight. Even the wind carried no laughter, no songs, only the faint echo of bells tolling from the temple ahead. Each clang trembled as if the bronze itself feared the sound it was forced to make.Kael walked at the head of his chained. His steps were slow, deliberate, each one echoing in the silence. The boy marched just behind, his thin arms tight around the shaft of his spear, his lips moving in a whisper that repeated Kael’s name over and over. The soldier kept her blade bared, her jaw clenched, eyes sharp with purpose. The thief moved light-footed, scanning every shadow, though sweat shone on his brow. Lira strolled at the rear, her humming low and lilting, as though they were on their way to a feast rather than slaughter.The temple rose from the heart of the street like a wounded beast. Its once-white stone was blackened by soot, its roof patched with wood after

The ruined square still reeked of blood and smoke. Ash clung to the stones where Broken Men had died, their corpses dragged into the shadows to rot. Yet silence never truly returned. Whispers lingered like an infection, curling through the minds of the chained as if the dead themselves breathed into their ears.Kael sat on the crumbling fountain, unmoving, while his new followers twitched in restless sleep or sat in broken wakefulness. He studied them in turn, measuring how the System’s curse reshaped them.The soldier clenched her fists in her sleep, teeth grinding, shoulders jerking as though she fought invisible battles. Sweat rolled down her scarred brow, and sometimes she muttered, begging comrades long dead to hold the line. When she woke, her eyes were bloodshot, but she still saluted him without hesitation.The thief did not even try to rest. He perched against a broken wall, dagger gleaming in his lap, eyes hollow. Every time he blinked, his hand twitched toward the weapon, a