In the wake of the Ridge's fall, Lyothara did not mourn with tears—but with silence.
No songs rose from the spires. No children played in the courtyards. Even the Great Tree's light seemed to dim, as if grieving the blood spilled beyond its reach.
King Aerion ordered all libraries, temples, and ancestral vaults opened to scholars of the Five Cities. "Find anything," he commanded. "Any record of orcs united. Of black shards. Of powers that drain elven magic."
And so they searched.
In Elmara, Lira Valtharis had not slept in three days.
Her fingers were stained with ink and dust, her eyes red-rimmed from squinting at crumbling parchments older than the kingdom itself. She'd read every known chronicle of the Age of Breaking, every treaty with the old orc clans, every fragment of lore recovered from the Ashen Wastes.
Nothing matched what they now faced.
Until she found it.
Tucked inside a broken binding of The Annals of the First Dawn, hidden beneath a false bottom in a chest marked "Do Not Open – House Valtharis, Seal of the Founder," was a single sheet of vellum.
Not written in elven script.
Not in any known tongue.
But drawn upon it was a symbol: two trees.
One radiant, roots deep in golden soil.
The other twisted, roots sunk in black stone—its branches reaching not for sky, but for the first tree's light.
Beneath it, three words in a jagged hand:
"Balance demands sacrifice."
Lira's breath caught. She showed it to Master Thalrian, keeper of Elmara's archives.
He paled. "This… this is not elven work. The paper is human. Or older."
"But the symbol?" she pressed.
He hesitated. "It resembles the 'Twin Roots' myth—the belief that light cannot exist without shadow, and that true power lies not in purity… but in holding both."
Lira stared at the drawing. "Then maybe… the orcs aren't wielding anti-light. Maybe they've found the other root."
In Frosthaven, Thorin Cyreth drilled his warriors twice a day.
"No more light-weaving," he barked. "Steel. Shield. Stamina. If magic fails, flesh must hold."
But even he could not hide the doubt in his eyes. That morning, he'd watched a young recruit—a boy who could once weave frost-lances with a whisper—fail to summon even a wisp of mist.
The light was fading. Not just in the sky.
In them.
In Silvira, Elyar Morindel walked the sacred groves, placing his palms on ancient trunks.
"The earth is afraid," he told his healers. "The roots feel the orcs' approach. They recoil."
One elder asked, "Can the land fight back?"
Elyar shook his head. "The land defends life. But what marches east… is not alive in the way we understand."
Back in Lyothara, Darien stood before the King once more.
"We cannot win a war of attrition," he said. "They have numbers. We do not. Every battle costs us lives we cannot replace."
Aerion's voice was heavy. "Then what do you propose?"
Darien looked toward the west—toward Elmara. "We find another way. Not stronger light. But something… outside it."
The King's eyes narrowed. "You speak of forbidden paths."
"I speak of survival," Darien replied. "Would you rather your people live tainted… or die pure?"
The question hung in the air like smoke.
That night, the King sent a sealed order to Elmara:
"Grant Lira Valtharis full access to the Vault of Whispers. Let her seek answers—even in places we have long feared to tread."
In the deepest chamber of Elmara's library, behind seven locked doors and three wards of silence, lay the Vault of Whispers—a room said to contain knowledge so dangerous, it had not been opened in eight hundred years.
As Lira lit the first lamp, shadows danced on the walls.
And for the first time, she wondered:
What if the enemy didn't steal our light…
but simply remembered a truth we forgot?