In the beginning of no beginning, there was only the weight of what had been broken.
The land of Verden's Reach remembered every scar, every betrayal, every oath left unkept. The plains carried whispers of houses that had risen and fallen, of pride crushed beneath missteps, of blood spilled in the name of survival. Here, life was neither kind nor fair. There were no prophecies, no destinies carved into the stars - only choices, and the echoes they left behind.
Luna, the pale watcher, traced her silver light across the dust-stained plains, revealing the sorrow of those who could not endure. Sol, the fire of endurance, blazed in the sky, reminding every living thing that survival demanded toil, sacrifice, and the courage to bear pain. Midnight, the shadow that swallowed all pretense, revealed the secrets we dared not speak even to ourselves. And Eclipse, the betrayer of light, taught that even faith could wound, that every promise carried a price.
It was these four - Luna, Sol, Midnight, and Eclipse - that shaped the hearts of the people. Not as gods granting fate, but as forces of trial, as mirrors of brokenness. They were the rhythm of existence, the measure by which a person's strength and sorrow were weighed.
From the first age of surviving Houses came the DOMAs - power born not of skill or strength, but of the deepest wounds a person could bear. Each DOMA was a witness, a living echo of trauma, a testament that brokenness could yield power. To earn it, one had to walk through memory as through fire, to relive the pain that had carved them, to swear an oath they must never break. Fail, and the memory would strike back, leaving scars that could not be healed.
The Houses arose from this struggle. Lions roared through grief, Hawks watched futures littered with ruin, Turtles bore the weight of generations, Serpents shed their skins and rose from betrayal. Each House survived not by wealth, not by force, but by the endurance of their pain, by the stubbornness of legacy.
And in the shadows moved the Gentleman's Covenant, a guild of men who had learned to harness the refinement of broken vows. Its leader, an old man in a suit with a cane, bore Nocturne - the most feared DOMA of all. Silence, regret, and unkept promises formed a presence so heavy it could crush even the strongest heart.
This was the world Isaiah Saul would inherit, though he knew nothing yet. A world where life was measured in echoes, in memories, in the weight one could bear. Where a single choice could unmake centuries of pride. Where brokenness was not weakness - it was power.
And somewhere, in the whispering plains of House Lion, a boy awaited the moment his roar would meet the silence.