Before the Oathbinding (B.O.) - the age of the free ember, fire-songs, and Emberborn.
After the Oathbinding (A.O.) - the age of the Sanctum, enforced silence, and chained fire.
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Prologue: The Last Emberborn
Year 0, Oathfall Eve - Final Night of the Ember Era (73 B.O.)
The sky burned like a wound.
Ash fell like snow over the ruined valley, spiraling through the air in slow, choking drifts. Once, this place had been sacred, a convergence of fire-veins where the ember ran thick through stone and root. Now, it was broken. A hollowed crater of blackened earth and collapsed trees, their branches twisted toward the heavens in agony.
And in the center of it stood the last of them.
She was barefoot. Her skin shimmered faintly, lit from within by the last ember's flame, gold and red, bright and fading all at once. Around her shoulders, a tattered cloak of woven fire hung in ruins. Behind her, Fyrveth, the First Flame Tree, shuddered, its roots bleeding fire, its core cracked to its heartwood.
She had no name now. Not one the world would remember.
Only titles: Emberborn. Oathbreaker. Flamebearer.
She turned slowly to face the man approaching across the blackened field.
He wore Sanctum armor. Silver, scorched, and splintering. Blood soaked the leather under his robes. A symbol glimmered on his chestplate: the Sevenfold Ring, unbroken. The sigil of the order that would rise from the ashes of this very night.
"Please," he said hoarsely. "You don't have to do this."
Her gaze didn't soften. "You came here to kill me. Why beg now?"
"I came to stop this," he snapped. "The ember is unraveling everything. The Veins are collapsing. The sky.. look at it!"
She did. Crimson clouds churned above them. Lightning stitched through smoke. And far overhead, firebirds wheeled, riders clinging to them like shadows with wings.
"You tried to bottle a star," she said. "And now you fear it burns too bright."
"You and your kin let it burn too long."
"We were its voice," she whispered. "And you silenced it."
The wind howled. Fire bled through the roots of the First Tree. A branch cracked and fell, smashing into the earth with a sound like thunder. The ember's heart was breaking.
"You're going to destroy everything," he breathed.
"No," she said softly. "I'm going to bury it. Until the world is ready to remember."
She turned, raised her hand, and whispered in the ember's tongue.
The world shuddered.
The ember pulsed and vanished. All light collapsed inward. The flames folded themselves into stone and root, sealed into the bones of the earth. The firebirds shrieked once and turned to ash. Fyrveth crumbled.
The last light of the old world died.
The man fell to his knees.
The woman, no longer aglow, pressed her palm to the scorched ground.
"You'll rebuild," she said. "Call it peace. Call it Sanctum. You'll make Oaths to keep the fire silent."
He looked up, hollow-eyed. "How will we stop it from rising again?"
She met his gaze with a quiet that felt like prophecy.
"You won't."
And the ember slept.
Seventy-three years later,
Year 73 A.O. - The Year of Emberwake
In a grove long abandoned, where roots still remembered the shape of flame, a girl lit a spark.
And the fire opened its eyes.