Erynd
The wind carried whispers that no prayer could silence.
From the temple balcony, I watched the dawn rise — pale, colorless, sickly — as though the sky itself had forgotten which god it belonged to.
Rumors had become hymns, and hymns had become threats.
Far beyond the hills, the Order of the Radiant Dawn gathered beneath their sun-emblazoned banners. They called us heretics — worshipers of a veiled deceiver, a serpent of light and shadow.
They spoke of Solas, the True Light.
But I had seen Kaelith.
And what I saw had no name.
The torches in the temple wavered — their flames shifting from gold to silver to white, and then dimming altogether.
Silence followed, heavy and absolute.
A sign? A warning? Or perhaps… indifference.
I fell to my knees before the altar — before the carved sigil of the Blood Veil, shimmering faintly in the morning haze. My fingers trembled as I pressed them to the marble.
"Kaelith… speak to me."
No reply.
Only the faint sound of distant drums.
War drums.
The temple doors opened behind me. One of the younger priests entered, breathless, his robe torn at the shoulder.
"They've reached the eastern borders," he said. "Their banners number in thousands. They march beneath the rising sun."
I rose slowly, feeling older than I was.
The people outside had begun to gather, their faces caught between terror and fury. Some carried weapons, others torches. And all of them — all of them — claimed to be doing this for me.
No. Not for me.
For Him.
"Let no hand draw blood in my name," I said softly, though no one listened.
"Let no heart twist faith into hunger."
But faith, once born, no longer belongs to the divine.
Vareth
From the Citadel of Vaelthara, I saw the light before I heard the sound.
The mortal plains burned.
Lines of flame danced across the horizon — not natural fire, but faith made visible.
The Kaerynox gathered on the terrace, their eyes glowing like dying stars.
They whispered of interference — that we should descend and end this foolish war before it reached our gates. But I silenced them.
"Mortals must burn their own altars," I said. "Even gods cannot unmake belief."
Still, in my chest, something stirred.
The Blood Veil pulsed — faintly, irregularly. The veins of light running across the stone walls flickered between crimson and silver.
A sign.
Kaelith's silence had begun to ache.
I turned to the Gate — the towering arch of blackened metal and molten sigils that reached toward the clouds.
The runes glowed faintly, whispering in a language no living thing remembered.
Soon, they said.
Soon, the divide will tremble.
I closed my eyes and reached through the silence — searching for Kaelith's presence, but all I felt was distance. A vast, eternal distance.
He was watching.
He was always watching.
But not even I could tell what he waited for.
Erynd
Three days passed.
Each one darker than the last.
The army of the Radiant Dawn stood across the river — their armor bright as polished suns, their war banners blazing with the sigil of Solas. They prayed before battle, as did we.
But our prayers did not sound the same.
Ours were whispers. Theirs were declarations.
When the first horn sounded, I felt it in my bones.
When the first arrow flew, I felt it in my soul.
The river ran red before noon.
I saw friends fall — priests, acolytes, the innocent.
And when I closed my eyes, I saw Kaelith's symbol flicker in my mind's eye — not steady, not calm, but fractured, trembling.
The Divine Gate began to hum.
A light appeared in the clouds — half gold, half silver, swirling together like two suns dying in the same sky. The armies stopped.
Even war hesitated.
Then a voice — no, not sound, not words — a pressure in the chest, a knowing in the marrow:
"Faith is the hand of creation. What you build, I become."
The words didn't enter my ears — they bloomed inside me.
I fell to my knees as the ground shook.
The enemy soldiers cried out, clutching their heads, bleeding from the nose and eyes.
Our people wept, thinking Kaelith had come to save us.
But it wasn't salvation.
It was reflection.
We had turned faith into a weapon.
And Kaelith had merely shown us what that weapon looked like.
Vareth
From the mountain, I saw the veil tear.
The Divine Gate shuddered, releasing tendrils of crimson and silver light into the heavens.
The air tasted of blood and lightning.
Every dragon knelt, their wings trembling, their eyes dimming.
And then — him.
Not Kaelith as I remembered.
Not the serene god of silence and balance.
A shadow of him, split between brilliance and void.
One half radiating like a dying star, the other devouring light itself.
A crown of burning halos drifted above his head, and his voice was not voice at all — it was the sound of everything knowing its maker.
"You wish for purity," it said, echoing through the realms.
"But balance is not purity. It is blood."
The world dimmed.
The rivers glowed red.
And every mortal — believer or blasphemer — looked upon their god and could not speak.
Then, just as suddenly, the light faded.
The Gate went silent.
Kaelith was gone.
But his message remained — not in the sky, not in the stone, but in the heart of every living thing that had seen him:
There is no true dawn.
Only what burns after the dark.
Erynd
When I awoke, the battle was over.
The armies were gone — scattered, slain, or fled.
Only silence remained.
I crawled through the ash and broken weapons, past corpses that still glowed faintly with divine residue. My hands shook as I reached the river. The water was black now — thick with memory.
I saw my reflection.
It smiled back at me.
"You still breathe," whispered a voice.
"Then faith still burns."
The whisper wasn't cruel.
It was… proud.
I rose, gripping the bloodstained earth in my fist.
For the first time, I understood what it meant to follow Kaelith.
Faith wasn't peace.
Faith was evolution.
Vareth
From the mountain peak, I looked down upon the stillness that followed.
The dragons gathered around me, waiting for command.
I gave none.
Instead, I bowed my head — not to Kaelith, but to the silence he left behind.
In that quiet, the Gate flickered once more.
Only faintly.
A line of light crossed its center — a promise yet to be fulfilled.
I realized then that this was not the end.
The war below was not blasphemy.
It was birth.
The first spark in a greater fire.
And in that fire, somewhere unseen, Kaelith smiled.
End of Chapter 13 — "The False Dawn."