Book One

Prologue: The Sundering

The world was not always split. Once, the light of Aetheria flowed from the sun-kissed spires of the Elyrian Empire in the east to the mist-shrouded, rune-carved menhirs of the Drúathan Wilds in the west. It was an age of dialogue, not discord. The Aether-the luminous, life-giving energy that sang in the blood of all living things-was in balance, tended by the Order of the Dawnwardens. Their citadel, the Lumenara, was a beacon of learning and harmony, its crystalline heart pulsing in time with the world's own rhythm.

But balance is a fragile state, coveted by those who cannot create it for themselves.

Malagar, once a Dawnwarden of unparalleled potential, saw the Aether not as a gift to be nurtured, but as a weapon to be mastered. He delved into arts forbidden, into the silent spaces between the notes of creation, and there he found the Umbra. It was the antithesis of Aether: a cold, consuming entropy that fed on light, on hope, on life itself. He named his discovery the Void-Heart, and it promised power absolute.

The War of Echoes was not fought with armies alone. It was a war of essence. Malagar's Corruptors, once men and women of noble purpose, twisted by the Umbra's whisper, unleashed blights that turned fertile lands into the ashen wastes of the Scar. They spawned the Shade-born, creatures of living shadow and shattered nightmare, from the depths of the Void-Heart.

The Elyrian legions, with their sun-steel blades, and the Drúathan ward-weavers, with their ancient earth-magic, fought with desperate courage. But against a foe that fed on their very strength, they were slowly, surely being erased.

The final battle raged at the foot of the Lumenara itself. The Dawnwardens, led by the High Warden Eliana, made their last stand. They knew they could not destroy Malagar, for his being was now inextricably tied to the Void-Heart. So, they wrought a sacrifice. Not of their lives, but of their future.

Channeling the entirety of the Aetherial ley-lines into a single, cataclysmic spell, they did not attack Malagar. They attacked his connection to their world. They Sundered it. With a sound that was less a roar and more a great, grieving silence, the Aether was torn from its natural flow. The Lumenara, its light extinguished, became a tomb of crystal and dust. Malagar and his most powerful lieutenants were not destroyed, but imprisoned, bound in a slumber deep beneath the Scar, sealed by the very Aether he sought to dominate.

But the victory was a pyric one. The Sundering did not just imprison evil; it crippled good. The Aether, once a great river, became a scattering of faint, disconnected streams. Magic faded from the world. The great civilisations of Elyria and Drúatha retreated, broken and isolated, their knowledge becoming myth, their power legend.

An age of twilight descended. Now, a thousand years later, the world is a dimmer place. The common folk speak of the Dawnwardens in hushed tones, tales to frighten children or inspire drunkards in dusty inns. The scars of the war are still visible, both on the land and in the soul of every living thing.

But deep beneath the blighted earth of the Scar, a heart that is not a heart has begun to beat once more. A faint, dull rhythm that promises not life, but a terrible, final silence. The prison forged in sacrifice is weakening. And the light needed to reinforce it has all but gone out.

The Long Night is ending. And without a new dawn to greet it, the world will be consumed.