The world came back to her in fragments — a rush of bitter cold against her skin, the sharp scent of scorched stone, and a weightless feeling that ended with a brutal impact against unyielding ground.
Alera gasped, her body aching as she opened her eyes to a sky shrouded in heavy clouds. The dim light of a pale sun filtered through, casting the land in a gray haze. She lay upon cracked earth just beyond a massive gate of black iron, its arch etched with runes that pulsed faintly with a bluish glow. The gate loomed like a silent sentinel, ancient and impenetrable, separating the outside world from the shadowed realm beyond.
The air vibrated with magic. She could feel it — a low hum beneath her fingertips as they brushed the ground.
Around her, voices rose in alarm.
"Did you see that?"
"She fell — from the sky itself!"
"The dead take her! She's no ordinary traveler!"
Boots thundered toward her, accompanied by the sound of weapons being drawn. The shapes of armored figures closed in, dark against the pale horizon.
Alera tried to rise, but her limbs betrayed her — weak, trembling. Pain shot through her side where she'd landed hardest. The coarse fabric of her robe hung torn and dirt-streaked.
A spear-tip glinted inches from her throat.
"Who are you?" The voice was hard, demanding. The man who spoke stood tall, his armor blackened with age, the crest of Eldoria carved into the metal of his chestplate. His face was marked by a long scar that ran from temple to jaw. His eyes, gray as stone, bore into hers.
Alera opened her mouth, but no words came. Her mind was an empty chasm. She searched the void for something — a name, a memory, a single piece of herself. Nothing answered.
"I… I don't know," she whispered at last.
The guards exchanged uneasy glances.
"She wears no mark of any house. No traveler's pass. No sigil."
"Check her!"
Rough hands patted down her robe, careful yet thorough. Their search turned up nothing but a single chain around her neck — silver, tarnished in places, bearing a small disc engraved with one word: Lyly.
The scarred guard eyed the pendant. "That's all she carries. Lyly — is that your name?"
Alera stared at the disc, willing it to awaken something inside her. But it was only metal, cold and silent.
"I don't know."
The guard's frown deepened. "Bring her in. We'll get answers, one way or another."
They led her through the gate, past walls as dark as night. The guard general's station was a stone building crouched against the outer fortifications of Eldoria, its narrow windows watching over the barren land beyond. Inside, the air was heavy with smoke from a fire burning low in the hearth. Weapons lined the walls — blades dulled by time, spears whose shafts bore the scars of battle.
They sat her at a rough-hewn table. Alera's gaze flickered from one face to another as the questioning began.
Where did you come from?What business do you have at Eldoria's gate?What power do you serve?
Her answers were always the same: a shake of the head, a quiet, "I don't know."
Frustration crept into the voices of her captors. Their suspicion grew heavier with each passing moment.
"Perhaps she's a spy for one of the outer realms."
"Or a rogue summoner — sent to test our defenses."
"She fell from the sky, for the gods' sake. Who does that?"
"She could be a failed summoning. Or worse."
A healer was summoned — an older woman whose eyes missed nothing. She examined the gash along Alera's ribs, the bruises darkening her arms, the tremor in her hands. With gentle precision, she cleaned the wound and bound it with fresh linen.
"She's hurt, but stable," the healer said. "And she carries no trace of binding magic."
The scarred guard drummed his fingers on the table. "Then we'll test her mind. If she's to enter Eldoria, she must prove she has the strength to survive it."
They brought her to the Testing Circle, carved into the stone courtyard beyond the station.
The circle's edges were marked by ancient glyphs, glowing faintly beneath the silver light of the twin moons now rising in the east. At the center stood a pedestal, upon which rested a crystal sphere — clear as ice, but with a depth that seemed to pull the eye inward.
"Place your hand upon the orb," ordered the mage overseeing the test. His robe bore the insignia of the High Lord's court. His face was gaunt, his mouth a thin, grim line.
Alera obeyed, her fingers brushing the smooth surface. The orb was cold at first, then began to warm beneath her touch.
Light stirred within its heart — a flicker, then a blaze. The circle's glyphs flared brighter, their glow racing along the stone as if alive. The air thickened, charged with unseen force.
The mage's eyes widened.
"Impossible…"
The light in the orb surged, filling it with silver fire. The ground beneath the pedestal trembled faintly. The glyphs burned so brightly they hurt to look at.
The guards stepped back, murmurs of alarm rippling through their ranks.
"No one records numbers like this. No one."
"What is she?"
The mage swallowed hard. "Her mental strength… it exceeds our scale. She's beyond measure."
The scarred guard's expression darkened. "We take her to the palace. The High Lord must decide what's to be done."
Bound by magic cuffs that hummed faintly with suppression wards, Alera was escorted through the outer city. The buildings of Eldoria loomed taller here — narrow spires, arches carved with necromantic seals, balconies draped with banners that shifted as if caught by unseen winds.
The streets were emptying for the night. Lamps burned low, casting long shadows across stone paths. From distant towers, the sound of bells marked the changing of the watch.
The palace rose at the city's heart — a fortress of black stone, its towers piercing the clouds, its walls lined with wards of shimmering light. A place of power, and of secrets.
They led her below, into the depths where prisoners were kept. The cell was bare stone, damp with age, its door sealed with both lock and spell.
Alera sat in the gloom, her mind as clouded as the world beyond the bars.
And yet — when the guards returned to question her again, they found nothing.
The cell was empty.
Eldoria was not one city, but a realm of seventeen great cities, each a bastion of necromantic and summoner power. Every city had its own governor, and together they bent their knee to the rulers who governed them all — High Lord Alistair Ravenshade and his wife, Lady Seraphina Ravenshade.
Their names were spoken with both reverence and fear, for theirs was a reign built on mastery of life's end and the forces beyond. The Ravenshades presided from the towering palace at the realm's heart, their banners — black cloth marked with silver sigils of bone and flame — flying over Eldoria's skyline. But Eldoria itself did not belong to them. The land was but a fragment of the greater world of Medavylin, a world whose true rulers lay hidden beyond sight.
Lyly — if that was truly her name — walked as though in a dream, her steps uneven on the cracked stones of Eldoria's streets. The city seemed endless, its alleys narrow and dark, its buildings pressed close like watchers with hollow eyes.
Her bandaged side throbbed with every breath. She had no clear destination, no purpose except to keep moving, hoping that somewhere amid the towers and archways, memory might stir.
After hours of wandering, fatigue bore down on her, heavy as a stormcloud. The wound on her ribs burned, blood dampening the cloth meant to protect it.
At last, she entered a market square. The space was cluttered with tents and wooden stalls, lanterns casting weak light across goods both mundane and strange: charms carved from horn, powders bottled in cracked glass, talismans of woven bone. The air smelled of ash, tallow, and the faintest trace of rot.
Lyly approached an older woman tending a stall of dried roots. The woman's hair was bound beneath a threadbare scarf, her hands darkened by the stains of her trade.
"Please…" Lyly's voice was hoarse. "A healer. Where?"
The woman studied her a long moment, then pointed with a gnarled finger. "Shady Night Path. East side. Look for the crooked shack. There's a man — Nahokia Tee. Mister Na Tee, folk call him. He'll patch you up — if you've coin."
Lyly nodded faintly, murmured thanks, and turned away.
The Shady Night Path was as grim as its name. It twisted between buildings that leaned inward as if to choke out what little moonlight reached the ground. The stones underfoot were slick with damp, the air close and foul. From somewhere deep in the alley came the muffled cough of a beggar, the scrape of rats hunting scraps.
At the end of the path, a shack hunched against a broken wall. Its roof sagged. The door hung askew. A faded sign dangled above it, the letters barely legible: Na Tee's Remedies.
Lyly stepped inside.
The interior smelled of herbs, smoke, and old blood. Shelves crowded with jars lined the walls — some held powders, others coiled roots or unidentifiable shapes floating in cloudy liquid.
Behind a scarred wooden counter stood Nahokia Tee — a man of slight frame and sharp features, his robe patched in many places, his hair wild and shot through with gray.
"You look as though you've fought a shadow beast bare-handed," he said with a grin, though his eyes were sharp with assessment.
Lyly gritted her teeth. "I need this seen to."
He beckoned her forward, examining the wound, his fingers surprisingly steady despite his disheveled appearance.
"You're lucky it didn't go deeper. Still — a night more without care, and you'd have fevered."
His voice was light, teasing even, but his hands worked quickly. He cleaned the gash with a bitter-smelling solution that made her hiss, bound it tight with clean cloth, and tied it with a precise knot.
When it came time to settle payment, his manner shifted. The humor vanished, replaced by keen focus as he haggled over the few coins she produced.
Lyly left with her patience worn thin but her wound properly tended.
She did not know that three shadows slipped from the deeper dark of the alley after her — forms of smoke and malice, summoned things without faces, following in silence as she moved once more into Eldoria's streets.
At the palace, alarm had become frustration. The prison was searched. The palace grounds scoured.
"She cannot have vanished!" the captain roared, his voice echoing in the cold stone corridors.
They summoned a Wizard Finder, a gaunt figure whose fingers glowed faintly as he traced runes in the air, seeking her magical trace. His spells flared and faded, finding nothing.
"She is not here," the wizard said at last. "Nor has she left through the gates."
The captain cursed beneath his breath. "Then where in the name of the dead has she gone?"
Lyly's path brought her to a street less traveled, where the city seemed to recoil from itself. The buildings here were empty shells, windows gaping like broken mouths. The stones beneath her feet were cracked and scorched in places, as though from some ancient fire.
Ahead loomed an archway — tall, crumbling, marked with runes dulled by time. Beyond it lay darkness deeper than night, the Blind Dark Path.
She had heard the whispers as she passed through the city: this place was sealed by decree, forbidden to all but the High Lord's own. A place of danger, of old magic that even necromancers left undisturbed.
And yet something in her — instinct, or perhaps the emptiness where memory should be — drew her forward.
Without pause, Lyly crossed the threshold. The runes flared dimly as she passed, as if acknowledging her, then faded to cold stone.
Far beyond Eldoria, in a world she no longer remembered, the Statesmen scrambled to contain disaster. Their machines and spells failed to trace Kandra's soul. Accusations flew. Alliances frayed.
And then, fury found form. One of Kandra's closest — a friend whose name alone could silence rooms — struck. In a single night, half the Statesmen's headquarters burned or crumbled, brought low by wrath and grief.
In both worlds, the hunt had begun — for answers, for vengeance, for the soul that had slipped beyond all grasp.