The Witch’s Lantern

Book 1: The Lantern Awakens

Episode 1: The Stranger at the Edge of the Wood

The summer fog hung low over the village of Ember Hollow, a sleepy place cradled between blackwood forests and silver misted hills. People here believed in old stories—but only in the way that farmers believe in rain, or merchants believe in luck. That is, when it suits them.

For thirteen-year-old Elira Windthorn, those stories were more than whispers of the past. She felt them. In the shimmer of moonlight on the river. In the strange glow that sometimes danced across the grass at night. And most of all, in the dreams. Dreams of a lantern—an ancient, glowing thing suspended in endless darkness, calling her name.

“Elira…”

She always woke up sweating.

The village square was alive with market noise that morning. Fishmongers shouted about fresh river bass. Children ran chasing a hoop between carts. And Elira? She sat perched on the mossy stone wall near the well, a half-eaten apple in her hand and a mind far from market noise.

“You’re dreaming again,” said a voice behind her.

Elira turned to see her best friend, Kael, juggling two turnips and grinning like a fox. He was all elbows and mischief, a boy who could talk his way out of anything—except chores.

“Maybe,” Elira said. “Just thinking about… last night.”

“Ah, another dream?”

She nodded slowly.

Kael rolled his eyes. “You really believe that lantern thing is real?”

“It’s not just a lantern,” she said, her voice low. “There’s… something behind it. Watching. Waiting.”

He gave a mock shiver. “Ooooh. Spooky.”

“Laugh all you want,” she muttered. “But the dreams are getting stronger.”

Kael stopped juggling. “You mean… different?”

Elira bit her lip. “Last night, it spoke. Clearer than ever before. It said: ‘Come before the moon turns black.’”

Kael frowned. “Isn’t that—like—a moonless night?”

She nodded again.

“That’s tomorrow.”

That evening, as the sun dipped into a haze of fire and mist, Elira packed a satchel. She didn’t tell her parents—her mother would have wept, and her father would’ve bolted the door.

Instead, she waited until the candle burned low and the snore of her father echoed through the thatched house. Then she slipped on her cloak, took the old compass she had found in the attic years ago, and stepped into the twilight.

The woods at the edge of Ember Hollow were said to be cursed. Generations ago, a witch lived in those woods, they said. A cruel sorceress who lit her lantern with stolen souls and cursed the land when the villagers tried to burn her alive. But Elira knew something different.

The dreams had shown her a path. A trail marked by glowing mushrooms and owlstone trees, their bark etched with runes older than the village itself.

As she entered the woods, a strange wind picked up. Cold. Almost whispering. The forest here didn’t feel right—didn’t look right either. The trees leaned in too close. The shadows moved like they were watching.

Still, Elira pressed forward.

Two hours later, deeper into the forest than she had ever dared go, Elira found the first lantern. Not the lantern from her dream, but a small one hanging from a twisted iron branch, glowing with a soft blue light.

It flickered as she approached. And then—

“Ah, you’re early,” came a voice from the trees.

Elira froze.

A man stepped out from between the shadows, tall and cloaked in a robe of swirling ash-gray. His eyes were mismatched—one violet, one silver—and his left hand was made of blackened crystal.

“Elira Windthorn,” he said, with the calm certainty of someone reading her name from a page. “You weren’t supposed to arrive until the moon turned black.”

“Who are you?” she asked, backing away.

The man gave a slow, eerie bow. “I am Veylan. Lantern Keeper of the Ninth Flame.”

Elira blinked. “What does that mean?”

He straightened. “It means I’ve been watching over the slumbering lantern for centuries. Waiting for the heir of light. The last daughter of the Windthorn bloodline.”

She stared at him, heart pounding. “My family are farmers.”

Veylan tilted his head. “So you believe. But your blood is old. It calls to the lantern. And now, the veil between worlds thins. The lantern awakens.”

The forest pulsed around them.

“You must choose, Elira,” he said. “Follow me—and unlock your legacy. Or turn back, and let the lantern fade forever.”

For a long moment, Elira hesitated. Everything in her life had been simple. Chores, school, Kael, sunsets over the wheat fields. But something deep in her bones whispered that none of it had ever been real. That this moment—this forest, this stranger—was the beginning.

“I’ll come,” she said.

Veylan smiled grimly. “Then let us begin.”

He reached into his cloak and pulled out a key. Not a normal key—but one shaped like a crescent moon, humming with violet energy. He inserted it into a crack in the stone beneath the lantern. The earth trembled.

A spiral staircase of light unfolded into the ground.

“Welcome,” he said, “to the Path of Waking Flame.”

They descended together, and the air grew colder, filled with the scent of old ashes and lavender. The passage was carved with murals—strange figures holding lanterns, battling shadows that looked like smoke and clawed wings. One showed a young girl—hair like fire, eyes like Elira’s—holding a lantern against a wall of darkness.

“Elaria the First,” Veylan whispered. “Your ancestor.”

The tunnel ended at a vast door, sealed with five runes. One glowed faintly.

“The first seal is broken,” he said. “When the fifth unlocks, the lantern will be fully awake—and the Shadow Court will rise to claim it.”

Elira swallowed. “Who are they?”

“Creatures of void. Long banished. But they hunger for the light. And only you can keep it from them.”

Suddenly, the earth shook. The runes flickered. And a chilling scream echoed up the spiral stair.

“They’ve found us,” Veylan said. “Run!”

Elira and Veylan dashed back up the path, the walls rumbling around them. Behind them, shadowy tendrils crept from the cracks—reaching, hungry. At the surface, the lantern that once glowed blue now burned violet.

Veylan turned and thrust his crystal hand toward the forest. “Lux sancta ignis!”

A blaze of golden fire erupted, pushing the shadows back.

“This was only the beginning,” he said grimly. “They know you’re awake now. The real fight begins.”

As dawn broke over Ember Hollow, Elira stood at the edge of the woods. Behind her, the trees seemed taller. Wilder. Alive.

In her palm, Veylan had placed a tiny shard of the lantern’s light—a crystal no bigger than a pebble, pulsing gently.

“You are the Lantern Heir,” he told her. “And your world is about to change.”

Elira closed her hand over the crystal.

She believed him.

And far away, in a place where no sun had ever shone, something ancient stirred.

And smiled.

End of Episode 1