Prologue

The Three Sisters stood like sentinels, their conical peaks raking the sky.

Two smoldered, as they had for countless generations, thin trails of smoke unraveling into the cold blue above. Red fissures bled down their flanks—lava, slow and sullen, carving fresh wounds into old scars.

That was expected. It was the third, the Silent Sister, who had kept her peace through all the long centuries.

Until today.

Without warning, the mountain tore herself open.

The sound scoured the wastelands like a scream, a raw cry that shattered the brittle quiet. Ash and fire spewed heavenward, an obsidian plume devouring the sun. Lightning danced in her throat. Boulders—some the size of cottages—hurtled skyward, then rained down across the scorched land like cast dice.

There were few left in this part of Drakerath to bear witness.

The northern wilds beyond the Landrise had long since burned away their welcome, leaving only broken ridges, crumbling stone, and a stubborn few outcasts clinging to the margins. But even the desperate knew better than to dwell too near the Sisters’ feet.

Yet far from the blast, balanced precariously on the crumbling lip of the Landrise, a tower shook.

Stone groaned. Books toppled. Ink ran black across the cracked floors. Dust rose in lazy spirals as the tremor passed.

At its heart, an old wizard stood very still.

Sorendir did not move at first. His hand braced him against the desk, the other lifted in a half-finished gesture, as if the eruption had plucked him clean from one thought and left him standing in the bones of another.

The calculations he had been working on—a delicate lace of chalk on the slate beside him—were forgotten.

He turned at last, drawn to the balcony.

Beyond the open doors, the sky was thick with ash. All three peaks burned.

The moment engendered in him not surprise, but recognition, as if some long-dormant note had sounded at last, deep and resonant, stirring marrow and memory alike.

A soft breath escaped him.

“Finally,” Sorendir said, and there was no fear in his voice.

He moved with a swiftness that belied his years, crossing the battered tower to a plain desk tucked deep in shadow. A scroll lay there, weighed down by a golden medallion whose surface shimmered faintly in the dimming light.

The medallion was no simple ornament. Its delicate lattice etchings of interwoven arcs and angles caught what little sun remained, reflecting twisted geometry against the scroll’s brittle surface.

Sorendir lifted it carefully. Reverently. An eyebrow rose. Did it feel… warmer somehow?

The parchment unfurled beneath his fingers with a softness that defied its age. The script upon it was crisp, untouched by time, as if it had waited, patient and immutable, for this very day.

And the words, once mere prophecy, now rang with the echo of inevitability:

When Sisters three weep tears of flame,

Outlanders four shall stake their claim.

Powers long dormant shall waken anew—

The mind, the craft, the strength all rue.

The fourth shall tread where shadows dwell,

Through fire and strife, the bonds to quell.

What once was riven must be whole,

By heart unbroken and steadfast soul.

Sorendir nodded—a small, decisive motion, the tip of his beard brushing against his chest.

“Gharn!” he called.

But even before the name left his lips, slippered feet could be heard hammering up the spiral stair—quick, panicked, familiar. Sorendir chuckled under his breath, the sound as dry as old parchment.

“Not yet,” he murmured, half to himself. “Oh, no. Not just yet.”

The door burst inward on a gust of dusty air, and Gharn skidded into the chamber, half-bracing himself on the jamb. His sharp eyes darted from Sorendir’s face to the scroll—and froze.

“You didn’t,” he snapped, the words quick and strident. Fear sharpened his voice, but the loyalty beneath it was older, deeper. “If they think this was you…” Gharn paused, his expression growing taut. “…they’ll tear the tower down stone by stone. They’ll bury us under it.”

He stared past Sorendir, past the crumbling balcony rail, to where the Three Sisters crowned the world with smoke and flame. Understanding dawned.

“By the Three…”

“Not blind yet, I see,” Sorendir said mildly, teasing but not unkind.

There was affection there—weathered by years, unshaken by fear.

Gharn scrubbed a trembling hand across the thinning wreath of hair circling his head. His gaze returned to the scroll, to the medallion cradled in Sorendir’s palm. His face tightened.

“You’re serious.”

“It is time,” Sorendir said, his eyes returning to the horizon, to the burning peaks.

Gharn scowled. “You’ve said that before.”

Sorendir offered no argument—only truth, wrapped in the quiet certainty of a man who had studied the balance of things longer than most civilizations had stood.

“I have had ample time to study,” he said, and in his voice was the finality of the stars themselves.

He rolled the scroll with tender care and set the medallion atop it once more, the two artifacts twining purpose and prophecy.

“Go to the embassy,” Sorendir said. “Leave word. If they have not arrived yet…” He smiled—small, secret, inevitable. “…they soon will.”

Gharn opened his mouth to object but closed it again. Muttering darkly, he turned and vanished down the stairs.

The tower settled into silence.

Sorendir remained where he stood, scroll tucked beneath his arm, medallion glinting faintly in the half-light.

Outside, the sky darkened with ash.

The Sisters burned.

The world shifted.

And somewhere, far beyond the reach of any spell or prophecy—

Time began, once again, to turn.