Whisper of Will
The moon hung low, veiled by drifting sheets of silver cloud, its pale radiance spilling across the valley like the blessing of an unseen god. At the heart of the valley lay an ancient ruin, its stones cracked yet defiant, etched with symbols long abandoned by mortal tongues. Here, Serenya stood—robes drawn close against the chill, violet eyes alight with purpose.
Her staff, wrought from dreamwood and etched with runes of starfire, pulsed faintly as if answering a greater call. Around her, fifty chosen disciples knelt, torches in hand. They were not warriors, nor kings, but mortals—fragile, trembling, uncertain—yet within them flickered the faint glow of destiny.
Serenya raised her staff.
"Tonight,"
she declared, her voice steady, each syllable ringing like a spell,
"we carve truth into the bones of the world. Tonight, we awaken what has slept since the First Dawn."
The disciples lifted their torches high, firelight chasing away the ruin's shadows. Their breaths misted in the cold night, hearts bound by awe.
And in the silence that followed, the ruin itself seemed to stir.
Deep beneath the stone, hidden from mortal senses, a current of energy pulsed. It was not magic as men knew it, nor the power of gods. It was older, purer—an echo of the First Will.
The Will of Primovast.
It lingered like a forgotten heartbeat, neither slumbering nor awake, whispering through cracks in reality. To most, it was nothing more than a dream, but to Serenya, attuned as she was to the cadence of creation itself, it was a voice.
Do you seek to bind knowledge, child of dust?
The whisper coiled around her mind, neither male nor female, vast as eternity yet intimate as her own breath.
Serenya tightened her grip upon her staff. She did not tremble, though her spirit quaked before the immensity of the presence.
"I do not bind,"
she whispered, knowing the voice would hear though no disciple could.
"I liberate. I give to mortals what has long been hoarded by gods."
Knowledge is a blade, the voice intoned. Sharp enough to cut chains. Sharp enough to wound the hand that wields it. Do you accept both truths?
"Yes,"
Serenya answered without hesitation.
The silence deepened. Then, as if in approval, the ground shuddered, dust raining from broken arches. Several disciples gasped, falling to their knees in reverence.
"It is a sign!"
one cried.
"No,"
Serenya corrected softly, her gaze never leaving the heavens.
"It is a covenant."
---
She raised her staff once more, drawing upon the latent energies of the ruin. Words ancient and terrible fell from her lips, not learned but remembered—as though etched into her soul by the world itself.
"By the breath of void, by the flame of star,
I summon the Codex, eternal and far.
Truth unbroken, wisdom vast,
From the First Will to the mortal cast."
The staff blazed.
Light cascaded upward in a pillar, piercing the clouds. The torches guttered and died, swallowed by brilliance. Within the column of radiance, glyphs spun into being, vast and uncountable—letters of no mortal script, symbols that shifted faster than the eye could follow.
The disciples fell prostrate, shielding their faces.
From the light descended a tome, bound in scales of shimmering black, its pages endless, each inscribed with shifting text. It floated before Serenya, heavy with the weight of eternity.
The Arcane Codex.
The first and last book.
As Serenya reached forth, the voice stirred again.
You take what even gods fear to hold. You bear what was mine before I shed omniscience. Will you not falter?
Her hand brushed the tome's surface. It was warm, pulsing with a rhythm that matched her heart.
"I am Serenya."
she said, her voice a vow.
"Disciple of the First Will, servant of no throne. I will falter, but I will rise. I will fall, but I will endure. If knowledge is fire, let me burn. If wisdom is abyss, let me drown."
The tome opened with a sound like a thousand doors unlocking.
The disciples lifted their heads in awe, beholding Serenya crowned in starfire, the Codex hovering at her side. In that instant, she was no longer merely a mage. She was Oracle, Keeper, and Teacher—her mortal fragility transfigured into legend.
But even as her triumph unfolded, the whisper coiled deeper, more subtle now, threading itself through the night.
Well spoken, child. Yet know this—every act you weave through the Codex is mine still. Every law you inscribe echoes my Will. You think you break chains, but chains unseen are the strongest.
The presence faded, leaving only silence, and Serenya drew a trembling breath.
She did not tell her disciples of the whisper. Some truths, she knew, would shatter them. Instead, she turned, lifting the Codex high for all to see.
"This,"
she declared, her voice carrying across the valley,
"is the covenant of wisdom. From this night forth, the Arcane Codex shall guide mortals, so that none are slaves to ignorance!"
The disciples roared their assent, tears streaming, hearts alight with reverence.
But in the shadow of their exultation, the ancient stars flickered as though in silent laughter.
Far above, in a realm beyond time, the form of a dragon stirred. Scales black as galaxies shimmered with faint starlight, eyes vast and endless closed in repose.
The dragon did not wake, not fully.
Yet its Will—Primovast's Will—flowed ever downward, shaping, testing, guiding. For though the First Will had sought imperfection, it had not abandoned its game.
And mortals, unaware, danced ever closer to its design.
The Codex's pages turned on their own, a single line gleaming in living fire.
Thus begins the Age of Unveiling.