AN: the chapters are going to be longer.
Prologue:
In the elder days, before the mountains drank the stars and the rivers wore their silver mantles, the world of Aenithar was a single, boundless realm: a living sphere of forest and ocean, stone and sky, known to all as Eshara. It was a land of wonder and mystery, of verdant isles that drifted like sleeping leviathans upon the world-sea, of sky-cities that gleamed like polished jewels, and of tunnels older than the memory of any living creature.
In those days, the Magia flowed through all things: the breath of the wind, the whisper of the waters, the quiet growth of the roots in darkness. Yet among the beasts of Eshara, only a chosen few could bend these ancient powers. They were the keepers of balance, the stewards of harmony: the Order of Peace, whose name was sung in every tongue, from the high cries of the hawks to the deep growls of the bears.
It was said that the Magia had no master but the world itself, and that those who sought to wield it for dominion alone would find only ruin. And so, in hidden groves and atop lonely peaks, the Order taught the ways of the elements: the shaping of flame and wave, of rock and wind, in service to the greater whole.
Yet even in those first songs of the world, there were notes of sorrow. For as light gives birth to shadow, so too did the Order's power call forth those who would twist the Magia to their own ends: the Shadowbinders, whose hearts burned with greed and whose voices spoke only in the tongues of ruin.
Thus the stage was set: a world of endless sky and endless sea, of beasts both noble and wicked, of ancient machines and the songs of nature's breath. And from this world, one soul would rise—drawn by fate, tested by doubt, and forged in the crucible of war.