The air in Navaleon grew thick—not with smoke, but with silence. A silence bred from prosperity too sudden, peace too fragile, and envy too loud beyond its borders.
Sharath Virayan Darsha, once hailed as the "Architect of a New Dawn," sensed it. His innovations — the cities pulsing with arc-light, the mana-fueled cycles on cobbled roads, the schools rising beside aqueducts — had become beacons not just of hope, but of hubris, in the eyes of foreign kings.
In Dregaria, Caranor, Velgrad, and the crumbling remnants of the old coastal leagues, pride bruised harder than poverty. They watched Navaleon eclipse them — in sanitation, governance, and even spirit. And with bruises came bandages — alliances forged not in trust but in spite.
A shadow council formed, composed of bitter monarchs and dethroned chancellors. They called it The Silent Ember, and their first edict was clear:
"Burn the Light. Burn Navaleon."
What followed was not a war.
It was a betrayal.