Hero of the Dark Places

A hero who moved through darkness itself.

That was how I thought of Nightveil when I was nine years old and still believed heroes were exactly what they looked like. To me, darkness wasn’t just the absence of light. It was the unlit alleyways behind the sundry shops, where stray dogs barked, and old cans clattered in the wind. It was the flooded monsoon drain tunnels that snaked under the city, where the air smelled of damp earth and rot. It was the back rooms of burning buildings, the spaces too tight, too quiet, too hidden for Blaze’s roaring fire or Frost’s bright ice to reach. Those were the places no one else wanted to go. Those were the places Nightveil belonged.

I learned that firsthand on a rainy afternoon when I wandered too far from my school and got lost in the old drain tunnels near the railway tracks. The rain had started pouring halfway through my exploration, and the water rose fast, swallowing my shoes and then my ankles, the dark closing in around me until I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face. I screamed until my throat was raw, but the only sound that came back was the gurgle of rushing water and the distant rumble of thunder. I thought I was going to die there, cold and alone in the dark.

Then I saw it: a tiny, soft blue glow, bobbing toward me through the blackness. It wasn’t bright, not like Blaze’s fire. It was gentle, like a firefly, and it didn’t hurt my eyes. When it got close, I saw Nightveil. His hood was pulled low, his face half-hidden, but he didn’t look scary. He knelt down, the glow coming from a small rune on the palm of his glove, and held out a hand. His voice was low, rough around the edges, but kind. “I’ve got you,” he said.

He led me out of the tunnels, the glow lighting the path just enough for us to step over the rocks and rising water. He didn’t lecture me about wandering off. He didn’t pose for the police officers who were waiting at the tunnel mouth when we emerged. He just squeezed my shoulder once, turned, and vanished back into the shadows before anyone could even ask his name.

That day, I decided Nightveil wasn’t just a hero. He was the hero of the dark places. The one who went where the light couldn’t reach, to pull out the people everyone else had forgotten. I told all my friends at school about it, but they just rolled their eyes and said Nightveil was creepy. I didn’t care. I knew the truth. The darkness wasn’t scary when Nightveil was in it. The darkness was safe.

I stopped believing that on the day of the gang raid in the old part of the city. I was hiding behind a stack of rusted crates, pressed into the shadow of a brick wall, when Blaze gave the order. The surrendered gang members were huddled in the darkest part of the alley, their backs to the wall, their hands up, their faces pale with fear. They were in the kind of dark, hidden space that Nightveil had always made feel safe.

I looked at him, standing at the edge of the light, and I thought: He’ll step in. He’ll protect them. That’s what he does.

For a second, he met my eyes across the alley. I don’t know if he saw me, huddled there in the dark. But then he turned toward the huddled men and stepped into the shadow.

This time, there was no soft blue glow. No gentle hand to pull people to safety. The darkness stayed thick and absolute, and I heard the first sharp cry cut off, then another, then nothing. The darkness that had once felt like a shield now felt like a curtain, pulled shut to hide something terrible. Nightveil wasn’t moving through the dark to rescue anyone that day. He was using it to make sure no one saw what he was doing.

I walked home that night with my head down, avoiding the patches of shadow between the streetlights. Once, I’d thought darkness was a place to be saved from. Now I knew it could be a place to hurt people, too if the hero who moved through it decided to stop protecting, and start obeying.

A hero who moved through darkness itself. That was what Nightveil had been. But somewhere along the way, he’d stopped being the hero and become just another part of the dark.