Prologue-The Last Light of the Elves

Year 0 of the Silent Reckoning

The Night of Ashen Stars

The skies bled fire as the last citadel of the Star Elves burned.

Once, the ivory forest of Ithrael had shimmered like a dream—its trees tall as mountains, their leaves glimmering with the light of stars. Rivers sang with ancient songs, and starlight bathed the white stone towers that rose above the canopy like needles of grace. Magic was not a force there—it was a breath, a heartbeat, woven into every root and stone.

But on that night, the stars wept.

Ash fell like snow upon the alabaster ground, and the sacred groves were choked with smoke. The wind carried the cries of children, the clash of blades, the final chants of desperate sorcery. What once had been a haven of song and serenity was now a battlefield—one the elves had no hope of winning.

The curse had come without warning. A silence, deep and unnatural, swept across the land weeks before the fall. Birds ceased to sing. Rivers ran still. The trees stopped whispering. Then came the fire—unnatural and cold, devouring all that stood.

At the peak of the tallest tower—Vaeltharion, the Moonspire—a lone elven priestess stood beneath a canopy of dying stars. Her white robes were torn, her silver circlet cracked. Blood streaked her pale arms, yet her hands trembled not as she cradled a child against her breast.

Her name is lost to history, but her will etched itself into legend.

She looked into her daughter’s eyes—eyes like twin moons—and pressed a shard of crystal into the child’s hands. It shimmered faintly, pulsing with light as if it held a fragment of the world itself.

“You must hide,” she said, voice breaking with a weight far older than sorrow. “You carry the last spark. The final thread of who we were. If he finds you, all light ends.”

The child, barely old enough to speak, could only cling to her mother’s robes, unaware that the fate of an entire race now beat in her small chest.

And then he came.

From the ruin below, a shadow rose—tall, horned, cloaked in smoke and fire. The Demon King. He did not blaze with fury; he did not howl with wrath. He simply was—an inevitable ending in the shape of a man. His eyes glowed like coals untouched by flame, and as he ascended the tower, the wind itself stilled to listen.

“I do not destroy for hatred,” he said. His voice was like winter—beautiful, quiet, and merciless. “I end what must end. They feared change. You feared me.”

The priestess did not flinch. She drew her final weapon—a blade of moonlight forged in the twilight before the world was young. Its edge shimmered like hope.

“We feared your lies,” she said.

The tower shook. Power surged. Somewhere, the roots of the forest screamed. The two forces met—light against shadow, memory against oblivion.

And so the tower fell.

Stone and starlight shattered. The Moonspire collapsed into fire and ruin. With it, the last of the Star Elves were unmade, their songs silenced, their wisdom buried beneath ash.

But the child survived.

Carried by magic, by hope, by the dying wish of her people—she vanished into the wilderness, into the pages of forgotten myth. Her name, too, was lost, but her spark remained.

And in the roots of the world, something ancient stirred—waiting to rise when the stars aligned once more.

Waiting for the crown to burn again.

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