The World Before the Fall
In Nightmire, power was not a gift. It was blood.
Every child was born with an element threaded into their veins. Air. Fire. Water. Earth. The four pillars. The basics.
Beyond them stood Light and Shadow—rarer, sharper, dangerous in the wrong hands.
And above all of them… Lightning.
Lightning was not inherited easily. It chose. It struck. It ruled.
Those blessed—or cursed—with it were said to carry the will of the storm itself.
Nightmire was divided, not by oceans or mountains, but by nature.
The Mire belonged to the Elementals—cities carved from crystal cliffs, floating citadels woven with wind, rivers that bent at a whisper. The world breathed with magic.
The Night belonged to the others.
Werewolves with silver fangs.Goblins lurking in hollow forests.Elves with ancient eyes.Vampires draped in velvet darkness.Creatures of claw, fang, and shadow.
Each realm had its own Rulers.
And the Rulers did not agree.
The Night Rulers despised the Elementals, called them arrogant, dangerous, unstable. The Elemental Rulers saw the creatures of Night as savage, power-hungry beasts.
Hatred grew like rot.
Then came the war.
Nightmire War I.
Storms split the skies. Fire swallowed forests. Rivers turned black. The earth cracked open beneath screaming cities.
Light clashed with shadow until even the sun refused to rise.
At the center of it all stood the Princess of Lightning.
The storm's heir.The Mire's strongest weapon.
And she lost.
No one knew how. No one knew why. Only that when the final thunder fell, she vanished—and with her, her memory.
Without the Lightning Princess, the Mire weakened.
Children began disappearing from elemental cities. Entire families were found lifeless, their powers drained. Borders fell. Fear spread faster than flame.
The kings blamed each other.
The Night smiled in the dark.
And the Mire… began to crumble.
The war had ended.
But Nightmire was far from finished.
Before the war, before the sky split open and memory turned to ash, her life had been simple.
She was the Princess of Lightning.Heir of the Mire.Daughter of storm and silver flame.
And she was not alone.
The rulers of the Night had once been allies.
The Night King was a vampire—ancient, cold, crowned in shadow.The Night Queen was a witch—clever, patient, her magic older than the roots of the earth.
They had three children.
The Youngest son, a witch like his mother, but sharper—his spells precise, controlled, terrifyingly refined.
The middle daughter, born of both bloodlines, vampire and witch intertwined—balanced, graceful, dangerous in her own quiet way.
The Oldest son, pure vampire, swift and brutal, his strength overwhelming.
They were powerful.
Stronger than her, the princes especially.
And yet, they had grown together.
She had walked the marble halls of the Night Palace without fear.
They had trained together beneath eclipsed skies.
She had played her flute in their moonlit gardens while lightning danced gently above them, controlled, harmless.
They laughed once.
They were not enemies then.
But power changes people.And parents shape kingdoms.
The Night King had always hated the Mire. He saw the Elementals as unstable forces that would one day threaten the Night's dominance. The Queen whispered the same poison—softer, more strategic.
End them before they end us.
At first, the eldest son resisted.
He debated. He argued.
Then he began to listen.
Slowly, he stopped meeting her eyes during council gatherings.
Stopped sparring for fun.
Stopped smiling when thunder cracked playfully above them.
He started following orders.
Watching the borders.
Studying elemental weaknesses.
Speaking of "balance" and "necessary action."
And one night, under a sky too quiet to be natural, he made his choice.
End the Elements.
Not a warning.
Not a negotiation.
A decision.
That was when friendship died.
And war began.