The wind cut through the hollow streets like a blade, carrying with it the ash of a city long dead. Aethric Solvaen walked alone, his boots striking cracked stone pavements that had not felt a living foot in centuries. Once, these streets had sung with life, the laughter of children mingling with the clatter of merchants and the songs of minstrels. Now, they were silent but for the whispers of ghosts and the faint, lingering hum of magic.
Aethric's eyes traced the jagged outlines of crumbling towers. The upper spires, once gleaming in the sunlight, now hung like fractured teeth against a gray sky, their tips dissolving into mist. He reached out a hand, and as if responding to his very presence, a section of a leaning tower shivered and stilled, the last traces of its instability frozen mid-collapse.
Centuries of decay could not resist him entirely. Even here, in the ruins of Eldryth, the First Era's capital, magic answered to his will. But it was not vanity, nor thirst for power, that drew him through these streets. It was a memory, though he had none of it, not truly. The city spoke in riddles, and he, as the last archmage, could understand them.
A broken fountain at the heart of the city stood as a monument to a forgotten devotion. The carvings of winged figures and flowing rivers were chipped and moss-covered, yet they seemed to pulse faintly under his gaze. Aethric crouched, brushing the grime from the bas-relief. His fingers traced an intricate sigil, one that once bound rivers to the city's heart. A whisper of movement tickled the edges of his mind. Something stirred beneath the stones.
He had been wandering these ruins for days, though hours and days blurred differently when centuries lay between them. In that time, he had seen the remnants of the First Era's glory: libraries of crystalline glass, their shelves collapsed into heaps of dust; arenas where thousands once roared in celebration, now hollow shells echoing only the wind; and temples where the statues of Hollow Sovereigns, ancient magi of unparalleled power, gazed silently with chipped eyes.
Even the magic woven into these streets was faint and fractured, residue from a civilization that had burned too bright and too fast. Most would have found this desolation unnerving. Aethric felt only fascination and an extreme, simmering caution. The First Era had ended for a reason.
He continued, boots crunching on broken cobblestones, until he came upon the Council Hall of Eldryth. Its colossal doors had been torn from their hinges, and the interior was a cavern of shadowed stone. Sunlight fell through holes in the roof, illuminating dust motes that danced like tiny stars. Here, the air felt heavier, saturated with latent magic.
Aethric stepped inside, and the very room seemed to sigh with recognition. The hall had once been the meeting place of the Twelve Archmages whose power had shaped continents and bent reality itself. Now, it was nothing more than a hollow memory. And yet… the air pulsed with latent energy, responding to him as though it had been waiting.
He reached out, drawing a tendril of magic from the hall itself. The energy coiled around his hand like a living thing, warmth and weight pressing into his palm. He did not force it; he never forced it, but it bent to him, obediently, as centuries of residual power recognized the one who had outlived them all.
The silence was shattered suddenly by a tremor in the floor. Dust fell from the rafters as the magic in his hand flared violently, reacting to something buried deep beneath the hall. His eyes narrowed. He did not move quickly, for haste could be dangerous here. Instead, he let his senses expand, reaching into the echoes of time, feeling the pulse.
A forbidden rhythm throbbed faintly, a presence that had not walked in this world for eons. Aethric's breath drew short. He had read of this in the old tomes, though most had dismissed it as myth. The Hollow Sovereigns had sealed it away, and yet… here it stirred.
He raised a hand toward the source. The pulse coalesced, like a shadow emerging from shadow, and he felt it brush against his very essence. The hairs on his arms rose; his senses flared. For the first time in centuries, Aethric felt something that could challenge him. And that challenge was old. Older than Eldryth. Older than the First Era itself.
The energy swirled, dark and alluring, and coiled around his fingers with a weight that was more than physical. His lips pressed into a thin line, eyes narrowing as the magic spoke in a language older than men, older than gods. It whispered secrets of ruin, promises of power, and threats of oblivion.
Aethric inhaled slowly. He had faced shadows before, yes, but this… this was different. The pulse was alive. Calculating. Waiting.
And then, with a force that sent dust cascading from the rafters, the energy flared. A crack of light, a deep violet laced with gold, shot up his arm, and he barely kept his balance. He had not summoned it, and yet it responded to him, recognizing him, awakening only because he had come.
For a moment, Aethric was silent, feeling the weight of history pressing in from all sides. He thought of the First Era, of the mistakes that had doomed a civilization of godlike mages. He thought of power that could build worlds or annihilate them. And he thought of himself. Alone. The last witness. The last protector. The last Archmage.
The pulse stilled for a heartbeat, then surged again, sharper, faster, like a heartbeat not its own but borrowed. And in that instant, Aethric understood: whatever had been sealed away in the catacombs beneath Eldryth, whatever the Hollow Sovereigns had locked shadow, had awakened.
He stepped back from the hall's center, fingertips still tingling with residual energy. Outside, the wind carried the scent of ash and memory. And in the distance, from the ruins of the spires, a figure or a shadow moved.
It did not belong. And it had waited.
Aethric's eyes narrowed. A silence of centuries had ended.
Aethric's hand flared with forbidden magic of the First Era, something thought sealed forever. From the ruined skyline, a shadow stirs, watching, calculating. The long-forgotten threat has returned, and Aethric knows he may be the only one standing against it.