"History does not remember peace until it has been drowned in blood."
— High Chronicler Ilyas of Volgrad
28th Haneul, 4191 Second Age, Iskar-Nim, Velmaran Dominion.
Snow whispered as it fell on the silver flags of Iskar-Nim, the ceremonial heart of the Velmaran Dominion. Towering spires etched with fireglass caught the pale light of Haneul's winter sun, casting long golden shadows across the Plaza of Peace—a cruel name, in hindsight.
Crown Prince Altheon Rael Velmara stood at the head of a gilded procession, his crimson cloak trailing behind him like a banner of blood. At twenty-eight, he was the youngest heir Velmara had known in three generations. Yet he carried the weight of a fractured empire with the grace of a scholar and the spine of a soldier.
Around him marched the Ashguard, Velmara's elite ceremonial unit—twenty warriors clad in dusk-colored armor engraved with flame motifs. Their halberds gleamed, but they were not designed for war. Not today. Today was a day of diplomacy. Celebration.
Altheon had come to sign the Recreate Pact, an ambitious redrawing of borders and trade routes meant to finally end the long-brewing hostilities between Velmara and Ravkari, the southern jungle confederacy whose guerrilla tactics had long harassed Velmaran posts.
Across the plaza, banners fluttered from towers—some bearing the sigil of Velmara, others the emerald serpent of Ravkari. Not everyone was pleased by the display of unity.
Altheon saw it in their eyes.
The crowd was vast. Thousands had gathered to witness history. But many faces were still. Cold. Suspicious. They didn't want borders rewritten. They wanted old wrongs avenged.
He had just stepped up to the marble stage—raised in the center of the plaza beneath a statue of the first Velmaran Emperor—when he noticed a figure in the front line of the crowd who didn't clap. Didn't cheer. Didn't breathe, it seemed.
A woman. Draped in the ceremonial robes of a Ravkari Sky-Sister, her face painted with soot and bark ash. Her eyes—like twin obsidian coals—locked onto his.
Something was wrong.
Before the prince could speak, before the captain of the Ashguard could raise an alarm, she stepped forward, hands glowing with carved pyroglyphic sigils—banned in Velmara, outlawed by Edenian Accord, remnants of magic from the First Age.
Three runes.
Each seared red in the cold air: Ignite. Bind. Burn.
The first Ashguard lunged. He never made it. A column of flame erupted from beneath the cobbled square, swallowing him whole.
"For Thaar, son of blood and bark!" the assassin screamed, her voice splitting the frozen silence.
The second sigil tethered Altheon in place, binding his body in arcs of flame-twine. The prince struggled. Screamed. But the fire moved faster than reason.
And then came the third.
A sphere of white-hot combustion engulfed the prince—bright as a second sun. For a heartbeat, the world froze. And then, like glass under pressure, the light shattered—into smoke, sparks, and silence.
Where Altheon had stood, now only scorched marble and the charred outline of his form remained.
The assassin burned with him, her body collapsing in a swirl of ash as her soul gave in to the recoil of forbidden fire.
The Crown Prince was dead. His ashes had not yet cooled on the steps of the Plaza of Peace, yet the world had already begun to shift.
The Dominion of Velmara entered a six-day silence—a formal mourning rite dating back to the founding of the Empire. But it wasn't just a time of grief. It was a time of reckoning. For in that silence, war plans were drawn.
In secret halls beneath Flamecradle Fortress, Regent Calvian Draegor, Altheon's uncle, and now acting head of state, convened with military leaders and elder nobles. They reviewed charred reports, decoded magical transmissions, and studied the assassin's remains—what little was left of her.
Kora Marzen, born in Ravkari territory. Former initiate of the Sky-Sister Circle, exiled after the Tanglevine Massacre—an unsanctioned attack on a Velmaran trade convoy. Her name had appeared before—on a list of suspected radicals handed to Ravkari officials two years ago, with a diplomatic request for cooperation.
The Ravkari never responded. On the seventh day, Velmara broke its silence with a statement to the Tanasma Union: "This was not the work of a rogue mystic. It was the blade of an entire nation, plunged into the heart of peace. We will not allow grief to paralyze us. Action is our mourning."
—Regent Calvian Draegor
That same night, Velmara delivered an ultimatum to the Ravkari Confederacy: Turn over all individuals and factions associated with Kora Marzen within 72 hours, dismantle all Sky-Sister enclaves within their jungles, and permit Velmaran inquisitors to operate freely within their borders.
Ravkari's response came not in the form of a letter, but a wall of silence—and a symbolic funeral for Kora, declared a martyr. Velmara declared war the next morning.
Tzaria, Ravkari's long-time desert ally, saw Velmara's demands as a violation of national sovereignty. They began mobilizing Skyjack Caravans and Sun-Craft, elite cavalry units adapted for arid warfare. Velmara saw this as military posturing and declared Tzaria complicit in the assassination. War was extended.
Nirang, long a rival to Velmara due to their territorial dispute over the Stormrun Mountains, began recalling its merchant ships and invoking the ancient Rings of Defense, which bound them to support Tzaria in times of conflict.
Volgrad, an isolationist theocracy ruled by the Blood Doctrine, took a more radical step. They declared the Recreate Pact and all of its supporters heretical, arguing that border revisions violated the "natural law written by the Shattered Flame." With fiery sermons, Volgrad launched its Purification Marches into Nirang's southern frontier, under the pretense of "removing mutant rot and mercantile corruption."
Each nation had its alliances. Each had its fears. The Nirang-Tzaria Mutual Accord, the Velmaran Volgrad Compact, Ravkari's rebel allies, and the neutral hesitation of Edenia, whose leaders debated for weeks whether to intervene or preserve their superiority.
By 28th Suiseibi, Hwayeol, four weeks after the Recreate Event, all major landmasses of Tanasma were entangled in war declarations, skirmishes, magical sabotage, and retaliatory strikes.
The death of Prince Altheon expose the fragile balance of power in Tanasma. Treaties became traps. Pride became poison. Each nation marched to war convinced they would emerge victorious, certain the fight would be short.
They were wrong. The Sundering Fires had begun—and Tanasma would never be the same.