Before the shadows claimed her name, she was Isolde of the Silver Flame. High Priestess of the Light. Keeper of the sacred runes.
Beloved of the stars. Her name was whispered in reverence across the lands, her power as vast as the very forces that shaped the heavens.
She stood in the Temple of Aethryn, the light pouring through stained crystal arches, casting a radiant glow on the marble floor below. The air was alive with golden threads of energy, swirling in the atmosphere, warm and invigorating. Her arms were raised in silent prayer, her face serene, bathed in the glow of a thousand blessings. Her hair shimmered like woven sunlight, her eyes clear and unclouded, as if reflecting the purity of the sacred pools of Vaelmir. She was more than a priestess—she was a beacon, a living embodiment of divine grace. The people adored her. The gods themselves blessed her. And Thalon—Thalon had once loved her.
Or so she believed.
They had been young, eternal in spirit and duty. Thalon, a warrior of the Bound Flame, bound by honor and duty. She, the voice of the ancients, the keeper of forgotten truths. Together, they had made vows beneath the twin moons, words spoken in the old tongue, binding them in a promise that transcended time. He had promised to return to her, to walk with her into a future woven with starlight, a future none could unravel. Then, without warning, he stepped into the veil between realms, chasing a rift of power—the kind the ancients themselves had dared not touch.
He was gone for what felt like an eternity.
When he returned, something inside him had changed.
He returned not alone, but with her. A woman not of this realm. Her skin shimmered like liquid silver, her eyes the color of the deep ocean, her presence both beautiful and terrifying. She was not mortal. She hailed from the water realm, a place where few had ventured and even fewer had returned. The law of the realms was clear—inter-marriages between realms were forbidden. Such unions were said to create beings of unimaginable power, beings who could tip the balance between the realms, rendering the laws of gods and mortals meaningless.
But Thalon—he claimed her.
He told Isolde the truth beneath the Guardian Tree, where their love had first bloomed, where the roots of their bond had sunk deep into the earth.
"I never truly loved you, Isolde. Not the way I love her."
The words shattered her soul, like fragile glass falling into a sea of oblivion. Her hands trembled, the warmth of the world she had once known suddenly cold. Her voice, the one that had once called the winds and whispered to the stars, now faltered, lost in the empty space between them.
Thalon turned away from her, his hand intertwined with the woman from the water realm's. They walked away together, leaving Isolde standing beneath the Guardian Tree, the very place where their love had first bloomed. The world, which had once adored her, fell silent. She became an echo, a ghost in the halls of the temple she had once called home.
No one could comfort her. Not the temple sisters, not the gods she had served with unwavering devotion, not even the sacred chants and prayers that had once filled her heart with warmth. The light, which had always been her guiding force, now felt like a heavy weight upon her shoulders. She drifted through the temple like a shadow, unnoticed, unheard. Until, one day, the whisper came.
At first, it was only in dreams. A voice, soft and velvety, yet laced with a coldness that gripped her very soul. It promised peace. It promised vengeance. It promised power.
"You gave everything," the voice would say. "And he gave you nothing. Let me give you something."
Each night, she woke with black tears staining her cheeks, her heart heavy with the weight of her grief and rage.
And then, one evening, in the hollow garden where no light dared bloom, he appeared. The Dark Lord.
Clad in shadows, his eyes burning like molten obsidian. His presence was not one of comfort, but of choice—a choice she had never thought possible. He did not touch her, but she could feel his presence, a caress as cold and unyielding as death itself. He knew her name. He knew her pain. He offered her not pity—but a way out.
"Light failed you," he whispered. "Let the dark raise you."
Isolde's heart, once so full of light and devotion, now burned with something else—something darker, something potent. She took the offer.
She fell from the temple, casting her name into the flames, and rose again from the ashes. But now, she was not Isolde of the Silver Flame. She was something new. Something born of shadow and power. Her strength grew tenfold. She could bend flame to her will, call storms, twist the very fabric of nature to serve her. But there was one thing, one power she still lacked.
The power to cross between realms.
The mirror was her answer—an obsidian gate, forged before memory itself. And the sun, the celestial trigger. Every hundred years, it rose, casting its light upon the Gate of Vaelmir, a moment between time and eternity.
She had waited. She had watched. Sixteen times the sun had risen since Thalon's betrayal.
And now, it had risen once again.
Isolde stood at the edge of the world, her cloak swirling around her like smoke, her eyes focused on the horizon. In her hand, the mirror pulsed with life, its surface alive with the flicker of energy. Her moths—her eyes in the shadows—had found him. Thalon's son. The boy of the prophecy.
She did not know why the Dark Lord sought him.
But she knew this: no child of her enemy would be allowed to live free.
If she could not bind Thalon in the light, then she would bind his legacy in darkness.
Her gaze turned to the sky, the sixteenth sun already beginning to fade. The time had come.
"Your time is over, Thalon," she whispered to the fading light. "And the boy… the boy will kneel."