Five thousand years before Rhea took her first breath,
the world trembled.
The mountains split open like ribs,
the seas rose in towering waves,
and the very sky ignited with four pillars of blinding light.
From those lights descended the beings who were not merely kings,
nor myth,
nor gods—
but dragons.
Not the beasts of children's picture scrolls,
but towering, ancient forces of creation:
Aelion, the Sky.
Kaelith, the Fire.
Seryon, the Water.
Draeven, the Earth.
Four brothers born from the heart of the world,
four elements woven into a single purpose:
to guard the realm.
But even gods can bleed.
And on that final night, with the realm collapsing
and the humans turning against each other in fear,
the dragons realized their strength alone could not protect the world anymore.
Their powers were fracturing.
The elemental cores sealing their existence were fading.
Only one prophecy remained.
Only one hope.
A woman—
not yet born,
not yet dreamed—
would rise as the Heart Core,
the missing element that would bind them together.
She would become the bridge between gods and mortals,
between destruction and rebirth.
She would become
their bride.
The ritual was written in stars and sealed in blood:
> "When the empire bleeds,
and shadow devours sun,
the Heart shall awaken.
Four shall descend.
One shall bind them.
And through their union, the world shall rise again."
And so, on the final breath of the old world,
the four dragon gods turned their gaze to the future
and vanished into the fading sky—
their bodies dissolving into stars,
their souls sealed in sleep.
Waiting.
Watching.
Dreaming of the one who would call them awake.
---
5000 Years Later
Children laughed at the myth.
Scholars dismissed it as fantasy.
Kings ignored it as harmless folklore.
But sometimes, on certain nights,
when the wind whispered too softly,
when the earth thrummed beneath bare feet,
when the river shimmered without sunlight—
people swore they felt breath that was not human.
Eyes that were not mortal.
Heat that belonged to something ancient.
And far away, within the heart of the Arcalis Empire,
a princess was born with a faint golden shimmer beneath her skin.
A girl loved by sunlight.
A girl the forests bowed toward.
A girl whose laughter healed wounds
and whose tears made flowers bloom.
She had no idea who she was.
But the world remembered.
The prophecy remembered.
The sleeping dragon gods remembered.
And one quiet night,
as Rhea Ardenwel stood beneath the full moon,
a sudden breeze curled around her like a warm hand—
a breath of sky,
a flicker of flame,
a whisper of water,
a pulse of earth.
Four forgotten powers stirred.
Four ancient instincts awoke.
The dragons opened their eyes.
And the world exhaled the same word
that would change Rhea's life forever:
"Bride…"