There was a night, long ago, when the moon vanished.

Not behind clouds.
Not in an eclipse.
Not in shadow.

It was simply gone—for exactly one hour.

No one noticed. No one remembers.

Except me.

Because I was there when it happened.

And I know why the moon disappeared.

I also know why it came back… changed.

The Hour No One Remembers

If you were to ask the oldest scholars, the most learned sages, or even the fae themselves about the moon’s missing hour, they would all tell you the same thing.

“It never happened.”

And yet, traveler, I will tell you the truth.

Because I was there when the sky went wrong.

I watched as the stars shifted.

I felt the tides hesitate, as if the ocean itself did not know what to do without the moon’s pull.

I heard the whispers of those who should not have been awake.

And for exactly one hour, the moon was gone.

Not hidden.
Not moved.
Not destroyed.

Taken.

By whom?

By what?

That is the question, isn’t it?

The Watchers Who Do Not Blink

I was standing on the cliffs of Yr-Mordyn, an ancient place where the sea meets the stars, watching the full moon rise.

It was perfect—a silver coin against the velvet sky.

Then—

It flickered.

Like a flame caught in a sudden gust of wind.

And in the time it takes to blink… it was gone.

Not just unseen.

Absent.

I felt the absence more than I saw it.

A hole in the sky. A silence in the rhythm of the world.

And then—

They came.

From the spaces between stars.

From the angles of the sky that mortal minds cannot comprehend.

I do not know their names.

I only know them as the Watchers Who Do Not Blink.

And that night, they took the moon.

The Stolen Celestial Body

No prophecy had warned of this.

No ancient text spoke of what to do if the moon was stolen.

But I knew this much—

If they did not return it, the world itself would change.

The tides would rebel.
The balance of night and day would shift.
Creatures born of moonlight would fade into nothingness.

And so, with one deep breath, I did the only thing I could.

I followed.

The Passage to the Hollow Sky

Most sorcerers will tell you that you cannot walk into the sky.

They are wrong.

There are ways—hidden, forbidden, known only to those who have dared to seek the roads beyond the world.

I stepped forward—

And the stars parted.

I fell upward, into a place that should not exist.

And there, between the spaces where reality frays, I saw the moon’s captors.

I saw why they had taken it.

And I saw what they were doing to it.

The War for the Moon

The Watchers stood in perfect stillness, their forms shifting between light and shadow, neither solid nor illusion.

The moon, now caught between their grasp, was splintering—cracks running through its surface, pulsing with a light I did not recognize.

“It is broken,” one of them said, though its mouth never moved.

“It must be remade.”

“This form is flawed.”

“It must be corrected.”

I understood then.

They were not stealing the moon.

They were rewriting it.

Altering its shape.

Its purpose.

Its very nature.

And I could not let them.

Because if the moon returned different than before…

So would the world.

The Magic That Should Never Be Used

There is one spell I have never spoken of.

Not to Arthur.
Not to the fae.
Not even to the gods.

It is a spell of severance, a magic so old, so dangerous, that even I do not know who created it.

A spell that can cut one thing from another.

A spell that can undo what is being done.

I spoke it then.

The words burned in my mouth, the air itself splitting at the sound.

The Watchers turned.

For the first time, I saw something close to shock in their shifting forms.

“You should not know those words.”

“You should not say them.”

“You should not interfere.”

But it was too late.

The spell was cast.

The moon snapped free from their grasp.

The Watchers reeled back—not in pain, not in anger, but in something that felt like…

Disappointment.

“You do not understand what you have done, Merlin.”

“You have left the moon unfinished.”

“It will never be whole again.”

And with that, they vanished.

And the moon—cracked, altered, imperfect—fell back into the sky.

The Moon That Came Back Wrong

The missing hour passed.

The world resumed.

The tides returned.

The night became whole again.

But the moon…

Was not the same.

Look closely, traveler.

See the scars on its surface, the places where its skin is broken, where its light is different than it was before.

It is no longer what it was meant to be.

Because I stopped the Watchers before they could finish their work.

And to this day, I do not know if that was a victory… or a terrible mistake.

But one thing I do know.

On certain nights, when the sky is still and the world is silent…

I hear them.

The Watchers.

Still waiting.

Still watching.

And I know—

One day, they will return.

And this time…

They will not ask permission.