The world had changed overnight. Where once there had been a shimmering peace beneath the sentient shadow of Mt. Hayp, there was now only the bitter tang of smoke and the hollow echo of ruin. The fortress, which had stood for centuries as a sanctuary of light and ancient currents, had become a jagged skeleton scarred by fire. Broken stone, once harmonized by the songs of the immortal maidens, littered the courtyards like unburied bones. The currents of Aerthalis, which had hummed beneath my feet in reassuring, invisible waves, now throbbed with chaos, a wounded heartbeat I could feel in my chest.
The war had not just begun. It had arrived with a hunger that consumed everything in its path. And at the epicenter of the devastation, I sat, bound, trapped, and aching, trying to make sense of
