A thousand years ago, the world burned—not with the fire of forge or hearth, but with a flame ancient and vengeful, a fire born from a rift in the very soul of creation.
A fire that could not be extinguished.
Not by wind, nor water.
Not by time.
Not even by death.
Two forces—twin pillars upon which all life rested—once existed in a sacred balance:
The Light of Novaria, radiant, warm, ever-seeking to nurture and illuminate.
And the Darkness of Darkalim, deep, vast, and silent, cradling mysteries unspoken and truths too terrible for the day to bear.
For eons, they danced their eternal dance. One did not conquer the other, and so the world spun in harmony.
Until the day they collided.
No one knows who struck first. Some say it was pride in Novaria's high temples that dared to bind the flame of light to human command. Others whisper that it was envy, seeded deep within the heart of shadow, that reached out with blackened fingers to smother the sun.
But the truth, like the stars in a storm, was lost to the fires that followed.
The war came like a storm tearing through an orchard in full bloom. It did not ask permission. It did not heed the prayers of kings or cries of children. The skies were ripped asunder with bolts of blinding gold and bottomless black. The ground itself screamed, mountains cracking open like dry skin beneath a burning wind.
The screams of kings echoed across the firmament—men who had once thought themselves immortal, brought to their knees by forces older than time.
Sacred stones, altars that had stood since the birth of language, were shattered, their inscriptions soaked in the blood of sorcerers who dared stand against the coming tide.
The world was not defeated.
It was broken.
Split like a fruit too ripe for its branch.
From that fracture came two lands—twins no longer:
Novaria, reborn in searing brilliance, its cities paved with silver and its towers sculpted from sunlight. A land of harmony and rigid order, ruled by sages garbed in fire-silk, their eyes glowing with the eternal flame they swore to protect.
Darkalim, a realm of ruins and shadow, where the sun feared to tread. A place of ash-choked forests and silent spires, where whispers cling to the bones of forgotten gods, and power is bartered in secrets and silence.
From the smoldering divide came the Prophecy. Not written in ink, but carved in fire upon the stones of the shattered world:
"When the last flame of light is born,
the gates of darkness shall open once more.
If the fire chooses the light, the world will be saved.
But if it falls to shadow…
all will be lost to the void."
The sages of Novaria guarded this verse like a jewel carved from destiny. In Darkalim, the shadow lords sought to twist it, reshape it, or destroy it altogether—but even their most profane sorcery could not silence prophecy.
And so, the world waited.
Generations rose and crumbled like sandcastles against the tide of time.
Empires fell. Names faded.
But no child was ever born bearing the Mark of the Flame.
Until one day…
under a sky heavy with stormclouds, where lightning danced like spirits in mourning,
a child came into the world.
A girl.
Unremarkable in appearance. Small, silent, and unaware of the fire that slumbered in her veins.
She did not know her name carried weight.
She did not know that the stars had whispered of her birth long before her first breath.
She did not know the Light watched her, and the Darkness yearned for her.
She knew only the lullabies of a tired mother, the warmth of roughspun blankets, and the ache of a hunger that reached beyond bread and water.
But her fate…
was written before the world had words.
Before fire and shadow had names.
And now, that fate has begun to awaken.
Her birth was quiet in a way that disturbed even the wind.
No cry split the stillness of the room. No exclamation of joy, no groan of pain.
Only the soft murmur of wind through half-open shutters and the scent of wet earth in the air, as if the world itself paused, holding its breath, to witness.
In the corner of a humble cottage on the edge of a nameless village—one that did not appear on any map—the girl was born into the trembling hands of an old midwife whose eyes had long dimmed with age, but whose soul remembered ancient things.
She saw the mark.
A faint shimmer at the base of the child's neck, circular, slow-turning—neither light nor flame, yet older than both. It pulsed like a secret heartbeat, hidden from the world.
The midwife gasped and fell to her knees, her body shaking not from cold, but from reverence… and fear.
She said nothing. She told no one.
But the night knew.
Stars flared and then dimmed.
A southern wind—silent for a hundred years—whispered through distant mountains.
And deep in the forgotten forests, something ancient stirred.
Something that had waited.
Something that remembered.
In a palace of living crystal, nestled in the heart of Novaria, the High Warden of Flame stood before a sun-forged map of destiny.
He had been tracing the patterns of prophecy, his fingers trembling over shifting runes of fire, when suddenly a single flame extinguished itself—a sign unseen for a millennium.
He spoke not in wisdom, but in dread:
"The spark has returned… and choice approaches."
Far to the west, in the black towers of Darkalim, the Lord of Shadows watched through a mirror of blood-frozen time.
He smiled.
Not with joy, but with hunger.
The girl grew, unaware of what slumbered beneath her skin.
She lived a life that did not reflect the world's hopes or fears.
She was not told she was different.
She laughed sometimes, cried often.
Dreamt dreams too large for her small bed.
And sometimes, deep at night, asked herself in silence:
"Why do I feel like something is waiting for me?"
Even in her innocence, the world could not fully hide its truth from her.
The wind whispered her name, though she had never heard it spoken aloud.
Fire dimmed when she approached, or flared with sudden life as if greeting her.
Animals paused in her presence, lowering their heads, eyes wide with recognition.
And once, when she tripped in the woods, vines softened her fall.
She did not understand.
But something in her heart knew.
A spark, flickering in her chest, aching for answers she did not yet know how to ask.
She was not taught the legends.
She was not told of Novaria's flame or Darkalim's shadow.
But her blood remembered.
The mark on her skin, hidden beneath fabric and silence, throbbed on certain nights—especially when the moon rose full and red, casting its ancient gaze upon the world.
She did not know she was the last.
Did not know she was salvation… or doom.
But far from her, powers long dormant stirred to life.
Old alliances reknit their threads in secret halls.
Oaths broken in ancient blood were reforged in whispers.
The light braced itself for the final choice.
And the shadow smiled, patient as ever.
And she… she remained just a girl.
For now.
But the fire inside her was growing.
It had been waiting for a thousand years.
And it would not wait much longer.
Because the prophecy was not meant to be spoken only.
It was meant to be lived.
And she was the final flame.
And everything…
began with her.