Prologue: The Star that Fell
In the time before time, when the stars still sang and the heavens had not yet shattered, there stood a forge at the heart of creation.
They called it the Sunforge—an anvil of cosmic flame suspended within the living soul of the first star, Seryon the Radiant. It was not built, but born, beating with light older than gods. From it came the breath of fire that seeded the skies. With it, the Forgebinders shaped the Realms—carving islands from nebulae, casting chains of light to bind drifting moons, etching runes into the veins of mountains to give magic form and purpose.
The Forgebinders were not mortals, nor were they deities. They were the first Starmarked—creatures of will and flame who bore the voice of Seryon in their blood. They walked like giants across the ether, and wherever they placed their sigils, worlds bloomed.
But where there is creation, destruction follows.
From beyond the light came the Nulkin—beings born not of matter or magic, but of Anti creation. They devoured memory. Swallowed light. They were not evil, for evil implies desire. The Nulkin hungered, and hunger knows no morality.
They came as a silence that drowned the stars.
The war that followed—the Great Sundering—broke the firmament itself. The Sunforge, the heart of all that was, shattered in the final blow. Seryon screamed as it died, and its shards rained across the Realms. The sky cracked open. Whole continents were torn from their roots and flung upward into the atmosphere, suspended only by the flickering embers left behind.
The Forgebinders vanished. Some say they sacrificed themselves to contain the Nulkin beyond the Veil. Others whisper that one betrayed the rest and stole a fragment of the Sunforge for themselves, seeking to become a god.
From the ashes, the Astral Order rose—knights and scholars who gathered what lore remained and vowed to protect the shards of Seryon. They rebuilt what little they could, forming skybridges between the floating isles, teaching the new generations how to light the forges, how to read the stars.
But over the centuries, the embers dimmed. Magic thinned. The Order fell into legend. The last priests of flame were hunted or died in obscurity. The Realms drifted apart. Light became a resource instead of a gift.
And now, after a thousand years of flickering survival, the embers near their end.
But the old prophecies remain.
“When the sun falters and the sky forgets its fire, a child born of ash and starlight shall awaken the flame. The last ember will call to them. The scattered will gathers. And from the forge of death, light shall rise again.”
No one believes in those words anymore.
Except the ember. And the boy who carries its mark.
