Captain Eva rode back to Aethelburg as if the hounds of a dark god were at her heels. The three-day journey was a blur of tireless riding, the idyllic image of the plains now tainted by the memory of Oakhaven's haunted eyes and Rhys's devastating question. The boy's words, Did the moths die too?, had become the marching rhythm of her horse's hooves, a constant reminder of the stakes. This was not a war for territory or resources. It was a war for the memory of dancing moths.
She arrived at the capital caked in dust and exhaustion, bypassing her own barracks and riding directly to the royal palace. She delivered her report to King Valerius in person, her words as stark and grim as the reality she had witnessed. The King listened in silence, his expression hardening with every detail of Oakhaven's spiritual decay, of their desperate, fearful Offerings. Her report was a confirmation of their worst fears: their strategy of controlled silence was failing. Humanity, left in a vacuum, was not finding strength; it was regressing into a state of primitive terror.
While the King and his council absorbed the grim news, life in the city below went on, suspended in the anxious amber of the Great Silence.
Orin, a stonemason with hands as rough and grey as the blocks he carved, was simply trying to get through the day. He stood on a high scaffold, repairing a section of the city's outer wall, the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of his hammer and chisel a small, defiant sound in the quiet city. Below him, Aethelburg was a study in subdued tension. The Royal Guard, ever-present, patrolled the streets, their silver-inlaid armor the only bright thing in a world that had lost its colour. The King's decree was obeyed, at least in public. But Orin knew that in the privacy of their homes, people still Whispered, their prayers now tinged with a fearful resentment.
He was a simple man. He didn't understand the cosmic theories of scholars or the political worries of kings. He just knew that a year ago, the world had felt warm and full, and now it felt cold and empty. He missed the easy comfort of a thankful Whisper after a good day's work. He missed the festivals. He missed the feeling that someone was watching over them.
It was exactly midday when the world changed.
The first sign was the light. The sun did not vanish, but its golden warmth was instantly stripped away, replaced by a harsh, sterile, grey illumination. Every colour in the city, the red of a rooftop, the green of a market stall's awning, the blue of the sky, was muted, as if seen through a pane of smoked glass.
The second sign was the sound. Or, the lack of it. One moment, the city was a tapestry of noise; the next, it was utterly silent. The tap of Orin's hammer stopped mid-swing. The shouts of the merchants, the cries of children, the very wind itself, all ceased. It was not a natural quiet, but a heavy, oppressive blanket of silence that smothered all sound.
Then came the voice.
It was not a sound heard with the ears. It bloomed, fully formed, inside the confines of Orin's skull. It was a voice of absolute calm, of infinite patience, and of a coldness so profound it felt like a shard of ice being pushed into his soul. It was a voice that every man, woman, and child in Aethelgard heard at the exact same moment.
"I have returned to you, my children."
The voice was familiar, carrying the same divine resonance as Qy'iel's, but it was a perfect imitation, lacking any trace of warmth.
"You have grown complacent in my grace. Your Whispers became the thoughtless murmurs of the comfortable. Your faith, a faded tapestry. I withdrew my warmth to remind you of its worth. I have reaped the stagnant and the hollow to purify my flock. Your time of quiet contemplation is over. The test has ended."
A collective, silent cry of relief and terror went through the city. Orin gripped the scaffolding, his knuckles white. The Reaping had been a test? Their God was back?
"Your devotion will now be proven," the voice continued, its tone unchanging. "A true faith requires a true sacrifice. Your relationship with me will no longer be a gift. It will be a bargain. From this day forward, I will hear all prayers. I will grant all miracles. But every gift must have a price. The price for my intervention… is your life."
A wave of pure, uncomprehending horror washed through the city. My life? Orin thought, the words a frantic scramble in his mind.
"Ask, and you shall receive," the voice promised. "Pray for wealth, and you shall have it. Pray for love, and it will be yours. Pray for the life of another, and they shall be healed. In the moment of your miracle's fulfillment, your own life, given in ultimate faith, will be my tribute. A perfect bargain. A life for a life. A life for a desire. This is the new, truer way. This is the covenant of sacrifice."
As the last word echoed and faded from the city's consciousness, the oppressive silence lifted. The normal sounds of the world rushed back in, but they were immediately drowned out by a new sound: a rising wave of screams.
Pandemonium erupted. In the market square below Orin, a merchant whose business had been ruined by the failing trade fell to his knees. "My God!" he screamed, his voice raw with desperation. "My fortune is gone! My family starves! I beg you, restore what I have lost! I will pay any price!"
For a horrifying second, nothing happened. Then, the air in front of the merchant shimmered, and a large, iron-bound chest, overflowing with gold coins and jewels, materialized and crashed onto the cobblestones with a deafening clang.
The merchant stared, his eyes wide with delirious joy. He reached a trembling hand towards his newfound wealth. He took one step.
And then he collapsed, his body hitting the stones as lifelessly as a sack of grain.
The crowd, which had been frozen in awe, erupted. People scrambled away from the corpse and the cursed treasure, their screams tearing at the fabric of the city. Orin watched from his scaffold, his body paralyzed with a terror so absolute it felt like his own soul was turning to ice.
In the King's council chamber, the world had ended. Eva, the King, Praxus, and the others had all stood frozen, prisoners in their own minds, forced to listen to the enemy's grand address.
The King's Declaration of Silence, their one desperate strategy, had been rendered utterly meaningless in a single, terrifying sermon. Their secret war was over. The enemy had just announced his terms of occupation to the entire world.
Eva rushed to the window, her face pale. She saw the chaos erupting in the market square, the body on the cobblestones, the people fleeing in mindless panic.
The Age of Fear had officially begun. It had been heralded not with a Whisper, but with a sermon of monstrous bargains, and punctuated by a public execution. Their careful plans were now ashes. They were no longer fighting a silent enemy in the shadows.
They were now the declared rebels against a new, terrifyingly present God.
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The Chronicle of the Fallen
Time Period Covered: Day 1 of the Age of Fear
• Victims of The Reaping: 0 (The cycle of the Great Silence was broken by Ghra'thul's sermon)
• Victims of the Covenant: 12 (The first wave of desperate bargains made across the world)
• Total Lives Lost: 12
Of Note Among the Fallen:
— A merchant of failing fortunes in the Aethelburg Market Forum.
— The Master Archivist of the Sunken Abbey of St. Olan.
— Torvin Stonehand, a master prospector in the mining deeps of Karak.