Before there were kingdoms, there was only the Void. It was a time of violent, beautiful chaos, where the wind did not just blow, it screamed with the voices of unmade spirits, and the oceans were mountains of salt and fury that crashed against a sky made of liquid fire.
In the center of this primordial storm sat Verenia.
She did not look like the Verona who had shivered in a Northern carriage or bled in a manor basement. This Verenia was a being of architectural light. Her hair was a river of starlight that flowed upward, defying the very gravity she had not yet invented. Her skin held the translucent glow of a polished moonstone, and her eyes, vast, emerald, and terrifying, contained the blueprints of every leaf, every snowflake, and every heartbeat that would ever exist.
