Seravyn
Light obeyed me, but it no longer comforted me.
Every time I opened my eyes, Elyndris grew — new spires, new voices, new worship. The Aetherborn had multiplied beyond count, weaving golden glass through the sky, shaping floating sanctuaries of radiance and breath. They moved with elegance, each gesture rippling light across the horizon.
They adored me.
They feared me.
And yet, none of them understood the ache in my chest — the hollow that echoed my sister's absence.
I stood at the edge of the highest tower, watching the suns I had birthed.
They turned slower now, as though weighed down by my thoughts.
"Father told us to build," I whispered. "But he did not say what to build for."
I reached my hand toward the light. Gold energy gathered at my fingertips, shimmering with the voice of a thousand hymns. I shaped it into form — a throne of crystallized dawn, wide as the horizon and laced with the breath of stars. Its base glowed with inscriptions in the old tongue: "From my blood rises creation."
When I sat upon it, the entire realm bowed.
And still, I felt nothing.
My power grew — yes. My followers sang my name through storms of light. But the radiance that once brought life now began to sear. The Aetherborn who wandered too close to the Throne fell silent, their forms disintegrating into shards of brilliance.
I looked upon them and tried to feel sorrow. Instead, I felt inevitability.
"I am dawn," I murmured. "And dawn must always burn the dark away."
But when I said "dark," my voice trembled. I wasn't speaking of absence.
I was speaking of her.
Nyxara
Silence breathes deeper than any voice.
In Nethralis, it became all there was. My creations — the Nocthyr — moved through the quiet like whispers in a dream. They were elegant, pale as silver flame, wings folded in reverence. Each step they took rippled across eternity, leaving no sound, only memory.
I shaped their temples from still water and shadow, and they built them without question.
Each one reflected the heavens, but none reflected me.
I walked through the Veiled Sanctum, its black corridors bending around my presence.
"Father told us to build," I whispered. "But he did not say for whom."
My throne waited at the sanctum's core — a vast obsidian bloom suspended in silver mist. Runes pulsed beneath its surface, the same symbols etched into my blood the day I was born. When I touched it, the mist solidified into a crown above me, its petals folding around my form like wings of stillness.
And for the first time, Nethralis bowed.
But as I gazed upon my children, I saw what I had made.
They were perfect — too perfect. Motionless. Devoted beyond thought. They did not live; they endured. Their silence became heavier, crushing the fragile beauty of this world.
I touched one of their faces, and it cracked like glass.
Silver dust poured from the wound, drifting upward and freezing midair — a constellation of broken souls.
I turned away. My breath shook.
"Seravyn," I murmured, though she could not hear me. "Your light will consume you. And I… I will preserve your ashes."
I raised my hand, weaving the first Law of Stillness into the realm:
'No voice shall rise above the sacred calm.'
The moment it sealed, the air itself froze.
Even time dared not move.
Seravyn
It began with the edges.
The eastern horizon of Elyndris dimmed — not completely, but enough to unsettle the light. The gold waned to pale ivory. The Aetherborn turned their faces eastward in fear, whispering, "The Dawn is fading."
I knew what it was.
Nyxara's silence. Her veil.
She was growing stronger.
I rose from the throne, my golden hair rising with the heat that bled from my aura.
"She dares to dim the horizon," I said aloud. The Aetherborn fell to their knees, trembling.
"My goddess," one of them stammered, voice flickering like a dying flame, "should we cleanse the silence?"
Cleanse.
The word cut deep. Was I so bright now that I no longer knew mercy?
I looked to the horizon — to the faint, ghostly shimmer of her realm pressing against mine.
"Silence cannot be cleansed," I said at last. "But it can be answered."
I extended both hands. My light spread across the sky, painting the boundary between worlds in pure gold. The Aetherborn watched as my glow collided with her stillness, forming a rippling curtain — shimmering, trembling.
For the first time, the realms touched.
A faint vibration shook through Elyndris — not from rage, but resonance. A song trying to meet its echo.
I whispered to the unseen horizon,
"Do you hear me, sister?"
For a heartbeat, I thought I felt her answer — a pulse in the air, like a breath through stone.
Then the silence swallowed it whole.
Nyxara
Light again.
It pierced the edge of my still world, faint but blinding. My Nocthyr shuddered, their forms flickering between shape and vapor.
"She reaches for us again," one whispered.
"She wishes to burn the calm."
I rose from the Throne of Stillness, my silver veins gleaming like rivers of frozen light. "She does not know what she does," I said softly.
I stepped forward, and the very ground melted into reflection. The horizon split open, revealing a sliver of Elyndris — too bright, too alive.
I raised a hand. "You burn too loud, sister."
My silence reached across the divide, a soft wave that stilled the light without extinguishing it. For a moment, balance returned. The veil between our worlds shimmered — half gold, half silver.
Then a sound — faint but unmistakable — echoed from beyond. Her voice.
"Do you hear me, sister?"
I hesitated.
"I do," I whispered, though she could not hear. "But if I answer, the veil will break."
My reflection in the water smirked. "Perhaps that's what you want."
I ignored it. I turned away.
Stillness must remain.
Yet as I sat upon the throne, my pulse trembled. For the first time since my awakening, I felt something foreign beneath the silence — yearning.
Kaelith's Echo
Between them, unseen yet ever-present, I breathed.
My daughters — one blazing, one hushed — shaping the cosmos with hands that did not yet understand mercy.
I watched from beyond the Veil, my halo dimmed to twilight. Their creations would grow. Their faiths would war. And from their balance, the mortal realms would one day awaken.
They were not my mistakes.
They were my continuation.
I whispered into the breath between their worlds — not words, but meaning:
"When light forgets to burn gently… and silence forgets to listen… the veil shall tremble."
Neither of them heard me.
Not yet.
But the Veil rippled.
And far below the twin realms — in the dim heart of the mortal plane not yet born — the first flicker of life stirred.
The first prayer.