Before our world was filled with magic, all that existed were what many call Muggles or Humans. Yet many years ago, during the great age of Greece, a young girl was born with the gift of the gods.
Her name, like so many truths, has been lost to time. Not erased. Not forgotten. Buried beneath layers of reverence, fear, and deliberate silence. Later generations would call her the First Witch, the Mother of Magic, Hecatine, Emyr-Primus, or a thousand other titles shaped by culture and language. None of them was her actual name. None of them mattered.
What mattered was that she was human.
She was born beneath a sky split by stormlight, thunder rolling like the laughter of quarrelling gods. The midwives whispered prayers, not for the child's safety, but for their own. Animals fled the village that night. Fires burned blue. The sea withdrew from the shore as though recoiling from something unseen.
She grew as human children do. Slowly. Clumsily. She scraped her knees on stone paths and learned the taste of figs stolen from her neighbor's tree. She laughed easily and watched the horizon with an intensity that unsettled adults. Her eyes, dark as wet obsidian, reflected more than they should. Sometimes, when she stared too long into fire or water, the elements answered her gaze.
At first, these were dismissed as omens or tricks of light. Greece was a land of miracles. One more oddity meant little.
But the girl listened.
She heard things others did not. Not voices, not precisely. Patterns. The rhythm beneath reality. The way waves broke was not at random but in obedience to something more profound. The way sparks leapt from flint with anticipation, as if eager to be born. She felt the tension in the air before storms and the slow ache of the earth before earthquakes.
To her, the world was not a silent matter.
It was waiting.
She did not pray to the gods as others did. Not because she disbelieved in them, but because she sensed they were not the source of what she felt. The gods commanded. They ruled. They consumed worship and returned favor as it pleased them.
What she felt was older.
Quieter.
At seven years old, she stopped a boy from drowning.
He had slipped from the rocks and vanished beneath the surf. Adults shouted. Fishermen ran. Nets were thrown too late. The sea had claimed him.
The girl stepped forward, bare feet sinking into wet sand. She did not raise her hands or call out. She asked.
The water surged backward, not violently, but obediently, parting around the boy's body and lifting him gently onto the shore. He coughed. Lived.
The sea resumed its rhythm as if nothing had happened.
No god answered the villagers' prayers that day.
The girl did.
Fear followed reverence as it always does.
Her parents tried to protect her. They told her to hide her gifts, to never again do such a thing in public. They offered sacrifices to the gods, hoping to avert divine jealousy. But fear is louder than reason, and word spread beyond the village.
By twelve, she was watched.
By fourteen, she had studied.
By sixteen, she was hunted.
It was the priests who came first, draped in white and gold, carrying authority like a blade wrapped in silk. They demanded she be brought to the temples, that her power be tested, cataloged, sanctified. When she refused, they called her impious. When the earth trembled beneath her feet in response to her fear, they called her a threat.
When the priests tried to bind her in ritual chains, forged to restrain monsters and demigods, they failed. The chains unraveled into dust, not broken, but unmade. The concept of bondage no longer applies.
The girl fled that night, leaving behind smoke, shattered marble, and the first unintentional spell of destruction.
She wandered.
Years passed. She crossed borders and kingdoms, mountains and deserts. Wherever she walked, the world bent subtly around her. Crops grew stronger. Plagues faltered. Fires behaved themselves. She learned first through instinct, then through intention.
Magic was not something external.
It was not a gift bestowed.
It was a language.
And she was fluent.
She discovered that intent shaped reality. Those symbols focused thought. Those words, spoken with understanding, carved grooves into the fabric of the world. She traced shapes in the dirt, whispered syllables that felt right, and watched the impossible become inevitable.
Fire danced at her fingertips without burning. Wounds closed when she sang. She could see threads connecting all living things, shimmering lines of cause and consequence.
She was not stealing power from the gods.
She was bypassing them entirely.
Others began to follow her.
At first, they were outcasts. Runaways. Those who had seen her miracles and dared to hope. She taught them cautiously, testing limits. Most could not hear the deeper rhythm as she did. But some could feel it. A spark. A resonance.
Magic answered them, too.
Not equally.
Never equally.
From the beginning, magic favored blood.
Not lineage in the simple sense, but inheritance. The echo of her soul passed down, diluted but persistent. Those she taught who later bore children found that their offspring learned faster. Felt more. Shaped spells with ease.
Thus were born the first witches and wizards.
They called her Mother, though she never asked them to. They built sanctuaries, not temples. Libraries instead of altars. Magic flourished not as dominion, but as collaboration between will and world.
The gods grew uneasy.
This was not a rebellion.
It was obsolescence.
When mortals no longer needed divine favor to heal, to protect, to understand the universe, worship waned. Offerings dwindled. Prayers grew quieter.
When wars broke out across the land, she ended it by the next night.
When plagues and madness consumed many lives, she took her time to study and learn how to cure them.
She wove her magic into bloodlines, deep and enduring. Most received faint traces. Enough to shape spells. Enough to call themselves witches and wizards. Many families rose, learning the path of their Mother as they, too, wished to have such control over magic.
But one line received more.
A great deal more.
They were born not merely with magic, but with authority over it. Magic did not resist them. It recognized them. Obeyed instinctively. These children would later be known as the Emyrs.
The Imperial Line.
They were not kings by conquest.
They were sovereigns by resonance.
From them would rise figures whose names would echo through legend and distortion alike. Merlin, who bent time around a single king. Morgana, whose wrath could drown nations. Scholars, generals, architects of reality itself.
The Emyrs built an empire not of land, but of principle.
They believed magic was a responsibility, not a privilege. That secrecy bred rot. That progress was sacred. Under their rule, the magical society flourished. Cities powered by runic engines. Healing that bordered on resurrection. Education is open to all with talent, regardless of birth.
They negotiated with gods as equals.
Sometimes, as superiors.
For a time, peace reigned.
But nothing built by mortals, however powerful, escapes entropy.
Fear returned, wearing a different face.
Those without magic resented those with it. Lesser magical families envied the Emyrs. The gods whispered into receptive ears, sowing doubt. Power was centralized, and with it came temptation.
The Emyrs debated. Argued. Fractured.
And then they vanished.
Not destroyed.
Not defeated.
… gone.
Records burned. Bloodlines shattered. Survivors scattered, hiding their nature even from themselves. In the vacuum left behind, something far smaller rose, draped in the language of order.
The Ministry of Magic sought control over all others.
They claimed stewardship while practicing control. They preached safety while enforcing stagnation. They outlawed innovations the Emyrs had championed, seized artifacts that did not belong to them, and rewrote history until the Imperial Age became myth, then rumor, then heresy.
Magic was no longer a birthright.
It was a license.
Centuries passed. Wizards grew complacent. Wands replaced understanding. Ritual replaced mastery. Magic dulled, predictable, and obedient, as the Ministry preferred.
But how long did they believe they could keep doing as they pleased? How long would it be before the Imperial Line of Emyrs, thought long dead, would return and force changes that none would be able to stand against?