The Order of Elysia

Solendris, also called the Empire that withstands centuries, was an empire that spanned the easternmost reaches of the continent of Caldrith. It was divided into five distinct kingdoms: Ilvarra to its west, with its endless plains and magical mastery, as most mages descended from that region. Eiradorn to the chilly north, surrounded by huge mountain chains, Tyr in the east, known for its prosperous trade and their practically undefeatable armada. Orrenwaith in the Realm’s center, stretching up to the shore between Eiradorn and Tyr and Drosven in the south, where the capital city, Volgard, was located- the seat of the Emperor-King, who ruled not only Solendris itself, but also the kingdom of Drosven. Beneath the Imperial King stood the kings of Eiradorn, Ilvarra, Tyr and Orrenwaith, who served as his vassals, under which subsequently ranked the dukes, then the counts and finally the barons, who governed the lesser provinces. At the southeastern edge of Drosven, where the roaring sea began, a tongue of land stretched outward, pressing towards the mainland and forming a deep, natural bay. Just a few kilometers from the tip of this land pit lay the Temple Isle, the sacred stronghold of the Order of Elysia. Prologue - Ashes This story begins with an ending, because when stories are over, new stories begin. Snow fell in lazy spirals through the morning air, cloaking the stone streets of Volgard in a quiet white. The capital city, so radiant on any other day, lay silently that morning, beneath the bite of late winter’s frost. Though the crowd stood pressed together, shoulder to shoulder, straining for a better view of the happening, it was no ordinary bustle. As fate would have it, it was the first snowfall the city had seen in over three decades, but that was not the spectacle that had drawn the audience on this day. No, this was about something entirely different. Somehow, in their breathless anticipation, the spectators managed to remain eerily quiet- as if they were holding their collective breath, interrupted only by the chilling howls of the wind. The silence settled over Baron Lucar Ayrelle like an iron cloak, cold and suffocating, threatening to steal the very air from his lungs as he stepped onto the square. Slowly the spectators started noticing him, turning their heads one by one, whispering to each other, staring piercingly, accusingly. His gaze swept across the square and he couldn’t help but notice the hatred and disgust etched into the faces of the many present. Eyes narrowed with suspicion, as if their verdict had long been passed. A sudden, wet sting splattered across Lucar’s cheek. He flinched as a lump of spit landed only a centimeter away from the corner of his mouth, but he did not lose his composure despite the warm humiliation lingering on his face. Instead, he wiped the wetness off by rolling his shoulder up to his jaw, but never ceased to hold his head up high. He continued his steps and approached the center of the square calmly and could not help, but to let his gaze sweep across the audience. She was not there, thank God. However, the Baron didn't have much time to pause. With a jolt, he was pushed onto the platform. After taking the first steps onto the pedestal, Lucar was forcefully pushed to the ground from behind, the hard wooden boards pressing into his damaged, already bleeding knees, but it didn’t bother him, the only thing his mind could focus on was the fact that he did not know if his fate would be shared by the ones important to him. "Anything you want to say?" someone asked. A wave of scornful boos washed over him, the crowd’s fury finally breaking free, their discontent echoing over the square. Lucar’s gaze whipped to the side, into the direction the voice had come from and stopped when he looked directly into the expressionless face of a tall, broad-shouldered man who glared at him with empty expectation. The Baron slowly shook his head, bent forward onto the block and his nostrils filled with the inevitable scent of iron. Only a few more moments... He took a deep breath of the cold winter air and closed his eyes, a silent tear finding its way down his cheek. And then, he sank into a dark, black emptiness. *** She was shivering on the straw mattress, the scratchy jute blanket almost not reaching down to her feet, although she wasn’t unusually tall. The flames of the fired torches that were attached to the harsh stone walls in front of her cell flickered, casting playful shadows across the cold and dirty floor beside her, but they did not radiate enough heat to spare a breath of warmth. She no longer knew how much time had passed, being fully deprived from natural light for what? Days? Weeks? Months? How many hours had she already spent on the unforgiving stone floor of this room? Her given name was Melody, but she had always found the name to be unbearably sentimental - a remnant of her parents’ youthful playfulness when they had brought her into the world at a very young age. She preferred to be called Lilly, as it stirred fewer memories of the mother she had lost and less painful fantasies about how the love her parents had shared might have looked like. A love that she hasn’t been able to remember, since her mother had passed away when she was still a small child with two years of age, leaving behind no memories of her at all. The one only thing that had remained of her mom, given the circumstances, was a tiny, picturesque portrait, sealed within a golden locket that Lilly wore around her neck and treasured like a sacred charm. She had inherited her eyes from her mother- dipped in a deep midnight blue color, streaked with an even darker shade. Her father, Lucar Ayrelle, had never remarried after her death. His heart, once broken, remained as such, as he had never quite gotten over the untimely death of his beloved wife. He had shared stories about her mother when Lilly was still a child, since she used to ask about her frequently. He had spoken of her as a woman of beauty and wit, gentle in spirit yet strong in will - independent and full of life, but as Lilly grew older, she could no longer bear the painful sorrow in her father’s eyes, whenever they talked about her, so her questions became fewer, until she eventually stopped asking and the memories of her mother faded into silence. Now, what does it matter anymore? Nothing could have prepared her for how drastically her fate had changed recently. There were no words to describe what she had experienced over the past few weeks, no words for the pain she had to endure. She, as his only descendant, had been thrown into a dungeon, where there was nothing to do but pray, sleep and try with all her might, not to die. They had beaten her severely for answers she did not have and they had nearly starved her to death, but worse than the physical pain, worse than the coldness in that cellar was the fact that her father, her rock in the storm, the only one she had, was no longer alive. They had called him a traitor, a spy and a deceiver. "They killed your bastard father.”, one of the guards, full of delight at her misfortune, had told her during one of the house calls, with a crooked smile on his face. "They chopped his head off and everyone watched.”, he giggled. The joy in the guard’s eyes haunted her for weeks during the rare sleep Lilly got and the words from his tongue kept ringing in her ears like wind caught in a bell tower, being overshadowed only by the questions that were burning circles into her mind: Was her father truly a traitor, was she going to be executed as well and was that what Solendris, the so-called Sunrealm, called justice? When they finally came to the dungeon weeks later and informed her that she was to be transferred, she asked where to, already convinced her final hour had come, but they told her, with chilling detachment, that she had been granted clemency. Yet mercy always came at a cost and it didn’t take long until Lilly found out the price, she ought to pay for her late father’s mishaps. She had been sentenced to life - not death - and ordered into service. She was to swear an oath, willingly or not and bind herself to the Order of Elysia, which vowed to protect Solendris under all circumstances. She did not know whether this was a gift… or merely a slower kind of death. She ought to be grateful not to die that day and yet it felt like exile, exile on the Temple Isle, just off the shore of Drosven. Though her father held the title of Baron, his nobility was minor and his influence limited. He ruled over a small barony in Eiradorn, the northernmost kingdom of the Realm, surrounded by a humble following of farmers and merchants, but the loss of her status and title meant little to Lilly, it was the loss of her father that truly tested her. As the only child of the Baron of Alenhold, she had lived in the Baronies fortress all her life, protected against danger, enjoying the comfort of a safe home, but her life had always felt somewhat isolated at the same time. Isolated together with her, as the peasants nonchalantly called him, eccentric and reclusive father, who was always fearful something horrible might happen and who barely ever left the fort. She knew she had to take care of him because he was fragile, not in a physical way, but his mind was. His decisions had been clouded by fear for a long time and his angst had only increased with the years passing by, which made him isolate them even more. Lilly loved him dearly and knew his actions had the best intentions in mind, but she also loathed it, hence she knew she could never bring herself to abandon her broken father in pursuit of her own happiness. Someone needed to take care of him and that’s what she had done for the last 20 years, from the day her mother had passed. The thought of Fortress Alenhold filled Lilly with a tiny shimmer of contempt. It was a stronghold of solid stone, carved as if from the very heart of the mountain itself and it was home. Within its walls, Lilly had known a childhood of peace and protection, but also one of loneliness, though it was nothing compared to the loneliness she experienced now. Her thoughts returned to the uncertain future immediately ahead of her, just within the reach of her hand. Leaving behind everything she knew, for a reason she wasn’t really told and being forced into serving those who had brought all this upon her, felt like mockery. She might not be beheaded, but she would be sentenced to life in a figurative prison under the service of the very people who had destroyed her world, who had killed her father, stripped her of her status and titles, took away her possessions and who made her question her faith. She had once revered the Empire and its structures; as a child, she had prayed faithfully to the Sun Goddess and she had always followed the rules and etiquette of the Empire, but now, she didn’t know what to believe anymore. The bitter taste of humiliation clung to her tongue at the thought of joining the Order. Her fate was deliberate, calculated and meant to teach her a single lesson: that no one who defied the will of the Empire would escape unscathed, that those who resisted would share her father’s fate. It was a warning, but perhaps... also a chance. A chance to live.