Before the skies turned cruel, they blessed this land.
Sunlight once spilled over Ephyra like gold poured from a god's hand.Rain fell in perfect rhythm with the seasons, soft and plentiful.The fields rippled green as silk; the orchards swelled with fruit; the rivers sang through valleys bright as glass.
The people of Ephyra lived beneath a sky that loved them.And we, foolishly, believed it always would.
The Reign of Acastus
Long ago, when the world was still half-wild, there ruled a man named Acastus, the first King of Ephyra.
He was a man shaped from ambition and sunlight — tall as an obelisk, eyes like molten gold, a voice that could hush crowds or stir armies.He claimed that Aureon, King of the Gods, had blessed his bloodline — that his crown gleamed by divine right.
But Acastus was not content to rule under heaven. He wished to rule beside it.
He built his palace high upon the cliffs, where the clouds brushed the marble towers and lightning danced across his battlements. He raised monuments that reached toward the firmament, daring the gods to look down and see his glory.
Before his court, he declared:
"The skies bend to my will.The sun rises because I permit it.The world does not move by prayer — it moves by my command."
The priests trembled. His queen, gentle Lysandra, begged him to show humility. But pride had already carved its mark upon his soul.
And still, the people cheered.For in his reign, Ephyra prospered.
Rain fell when the king commanded it. The granaries overflowed. The rivers gleamed like silver roads.It was said that even the storms avoided his palace — that Aureon Himself had smiled upon Acastus's reign.
But pride, once born, hungers for eternity.
The Temptation — The Gods' Warning
The first omen came from the heavens themselves.
The rains faltered. The sky dimmed.The constellations over Ephyra began to fade, one by one, as if the gods were turning their faces away. Crops shriveled in the fields. Wells sank to dust. Children were born with fevered skin.
The High Seer came before the throne and fell to his knees.
"My king," he said, "you reach too high. Aureon, Lord of Light, watches your arrogance. The balance trembles. Beg his mercy before he withdraws his breath from the world."
Acastus's laughter filled the hall like thunder.
"If Aureon is light," he said, "then I will master it. The sky will burn in my name. I am no subject to the heavens."
"You speak treason before eternity," whispered the Seer. "No mortal may touch the divine without shattering it."
But Acastus was deaf to warning.He desired proof that he had surpassed even the gods.
The Theft
One night, under a veiled moon, Acastus entered Aureon's temple alone.
At its center burned the Celestial Flame — a white fire said to be Aureon's breath made manifest, the light that first kindled the sun.No mortal hand had ever touched it.
But Acastus reached out — and the fire did not burn him.It bowed.
For one heartbeat, he felt the heavens in his veins. He saw the world beneath him — winds, stars, storms — all bending to his command.He smiled and whispered, "Even gods can kneel."
Then came a voice that broke the sky.
"You dare steal what gives the world its breath?"
Aureon descended, wreathed in radiance too bright for mortal eyes. His fury was not loud — it was still, vast, and endless.
"You would wield what was never yours. Then know the weight of divinity denied."
The Wrath
The Celestial Flame shattered.The light fled the heavens.
Rain turned to ash. The sun dimmed until the world shivered in endless dusk.Crops blackened before harvest. The rivers choked with silt.The wind carried fever through the cities — a sickness that burned like fire and left only silence in its wake.
Aureon's voice rolled across the dying land.
"For your sin, your blood shall never rest.For your defiance, your line shall inherit desolation.The skies that blessed you shall curse your name,until the debt of Acastus is paid in royal blood."
Then he vanished — and the heavens closed.
The Curse
The rains no longer came.Storms gathered only to destroy.Famine spread like rot beneath the soil. Children were born weak; mothers buried them in salted earth.Even the priests lost their prayers, for none dared speak the name of Aureon again.
And yet, through the ruin, the same words echoed in every corner of the kingdom:
"The debt of a king must be paid in royal blood."
Shrines rose from rubble — not of gold, but of stone and bone.People lit lamps in the wind and begged forgiveness from a god who no longer listened.
But the sky stayed silent. The sun did not rise as before.
And though centuries passed, Ephyra never forgot.Every drought, every plague, every unseasonal storm was the sky remembering its anger.
The heavens had turned away.And they would not forgive — not yet.