The Equinox of Shadows

The village of Eryndor always feared the equinox. Twice a year, when day and night were equal, the veil between worlds thinned. Shadows lengthened in unnatural ways, and whispers drifted on the wind—voices that belonged to neither the living nor the dead.

Most villagers barred their doors and shuttered their windows on those nights, clutching charms of iron and salt. But not Aric.

He had always been drawn to the edge of twilight, to the place where dusk and dawn seemed to speak. His father used to warn him: “Shadows are not empty, boy. They are hungry.” But his father had vanished during the last equinox, leaving nothing but his lantern at the edge of the forest.

Now, a year later, Aric felt the pull again.


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That evening, the sun dipped below the horizon, bleeding red across the sky. The moon, pale and watchful, climbed opposite. Between them stretched a moment of balance—the hour when light and darkness bowed to each other.

Aric walked to the standing stones outside the village, a place the elders called the Threshold. The air grew colder with each step, though no wind stirred. His shadow, long and thin, seemed to move half a heartbeat out of sync with his body.

He whispered into the stillness.
“Father… are you there?”

The stones answered with silence. Then, slowly, a shape peeled itself from his shadow. It rose, twisting into something almost human but with eyes like hollow stars.

“Aric,” it said, in a voice that carried both comfort and dread. “You have come, as he did.”

His breath caught. “What do you mean? Did you take him?”

The shadow tilted its head. “We are not takers. We are keepers. The equinox binds us, for in balance lies the path between worlds. Your father chose to walk it.”

Aric clenched his fists. “Then bring him back.”

The figure’s form flickered, its edges spilling like ink in water. “Return? To walk backward through dawn and dusk is to unmake what is. He chose to guard the Threshold, as you may choose now.”

The boy’s chest ached. He remembered his father’s lantern, its flame never extinguished despite rain or storm. A guard?

The shadow extended a hand. “The veil thins tonight. Darkness does not hunger for destruction—it hungers for balance. Without a guardian, it will spill into your world unchecked.”

Aric felt torn between fear and duty. The villagers would call him a fool. Yet deep inside, he understood: his father had not been devoured. He had become part of the balance.

Still, he asked, “What happens if I refuse?”

The air grew heavier, pressing against him. All around the standing stones, other shadows stirred—faces half-formed, eyes watching from the gloom. The voice whispered like leaves in a storm.

“Then the dawn will falter. The night will consume. Your village, your kin, all swallowed in the silence of unbalanced worlds.”

The lantern at his belt flared suddenly, though he had not lit it. The flame glowed with a steady, golden light—warm, familiar. His father’s gift.

Aric looked from the flame to the waiting shadow. He understood now: the light was not the enemy of darkness, but its counterweight. The two could not exist without each other.

He stepped forward. “Then I will guard the Threshold.”

The shadow’s form shuddered, as though relieved. It touched his hand, and for a moment Aric felt himself stretch—like he was both body and shadow, rooted in two worlds at once. The stones around him hummed with power, glowing faintly with runes he had never noticed.

The whispers quieted. The air grew still.

And when he blinked, he was no longer alone.

Beside him stood his father, or rather, a shadow-echo of him—familiar in stance, eyes glowing with that same hollow light. He smiled gently.

“You’ve done well, my son. The Threshold endures.”

Tears blurred Aric’s vision, but his chest swelled with pride. He lifted the lantern high, its flame shining against the dark. The shadows bent away, respectful.

For the first time, he understood the truth: the equinox was not a curse, but a covenant. A promise that light and dark would forever meet in fragile balance—so long as there were guardians to keep the watch.

And on that night, as dusk gave way to dawn, Aric took his father’s place at the edge of the world, where shadows whispered and the flame of balance never died.