The council hall is illumined by the light of countless lanterns and torches struggling to fight back the pervading darkness as the counselors and their interlocutors gather together, the messenger who has just arrived standing in their midst. After being received at the main city gates, he was offered a change of clothes and a […]

Despite their desire to depart with haste, another week passes for them in the city of Onylándun, occupied with the recovery of their bodies which sustain abiding trauma from the events of the siege and the absorption of the dark, and with aiding however they can in salvaging some sense of life for the people […]

Eldárien awakes to the sound of voices. Without opening his eyes, he allows consciousness to gradually return to him, and the events that led to his collapse surge before his mind’s eye. He sees again the hordes of creatures laying siege to the city with merciless intent, and he sees the flames devouring the houses […]

“Your suggestion was more right than you knew,” Eldárien says to Hínding, making no effort to hide the tone of gratitude in his voice. Their eyes lock for a moment, only to be torn apart by the distraction caused by another echoing jolt of energy and sound reverberating from the gate as it is battered […]

As the men emerge from the crater, exhausted from the confrontation, their bodies shaking and weak, they look around. To their dismay, they see destruction in the perimeter surrounding the explosion of dark energy that emanated from the Lord of Death. Whatever buildings had once stood on the surface of the ground directly above the […]

Eldárien and Elmáriyë both feel it: the attack is coming in a matter of days. The sense of impending danger, the darkness that flows in as if on the fringes of their consciousness and grows hour by hour—all of this and more awakens in them the conviction that they have very little time to prepare […]

Vast caverns of stone spread in all directions far beneath the earth, their only illumination the veins of precious ore that weave through the darker rock like blood vessels through the body, bringing not life but light. And yet here light is life, and darkness is death. For ever since the Empire began to exile […]

After Eldárien has finished speaking, Tilliána replies, “Your words are very kind and full of love. And I know from whence they arise, for I feel the same in my heart. You speak of desire, but also of call. The desire I understand. But… But the call I doubt and I fear. No, no…it is […]

How is it that solitude can be both attractive and frightening, and that the experience of aloneness can be filled with both the deep pang of one’s loneliness and with the joy of a deeper presence? But so it is. This Eldárien knows and feels now, realizing that for weeks his heart has been yearning […]

The responses of the council of the rulers of Onylándun remain mixed, confused, and conflicted, after Rórlain and Eldárien have finished speaking. At first there are but a few courteous remarks exchanged between diverse members of the council, but then a tense thread emerges between them, and soon one of the men to the hæras’ […]