The night the Ashen Moons first stirred, Eldoria did not scream or shatter—it listened. The sky darkened into a strange, luminous silver, veined with slow-moving clouds that glowed as though lit from within. Above the realm, the twin moons drifted closer than they had in centuries, their pale light brushing rooftops, forests, and forgotten ruins with equal indifference.
The wind arrived first.
It rose from the eastern plains where old battles had once stained the soil, carrying with it the scent of ash and rain. Trees bent as though bowing to an unseen presence, their leaves whispering in a language no living ear could fully understand. In the cracked courtyards of abandoned temples, symbols etched into stone pulsed faintly, answering a call that had not been spoken aloud.
Deep beneath the capital, in vaults sealed by iron and fear, ancient wards trembled. Dust fell from ceilings no one had entered for generations. Chains once forged to restrain power long outlawed rattled softly, uncertain whether they were still needed. Magic silent, patient magic had begun to remember itself.
Across Eldoria, sleep became restless. Farmers dreamed of rivers flowing backward, of fields blooming with silver fire. Scholars awoke with ink-stained hands, their minds crowded with symbols they had never studied yet somehow understood. Children spoke names in their sleep,names that belonged to no one alive.
The Ashen Moons continued their slow convergence, heavy with memory. Legends claimed they were forged from the remains of a fallen god, bound to the world as both warning and witness. When they moved, history shifted with them. And now, they moved again.
In the northern reaches, where ruins sank into the marshland, a tower long swallowed by fog stirred. Stones ground against one another as if stretching after centuries of stillness. A single window flickered with light, then faded, leaving behind the unsettling certainty that something had awakened and taken notice of the world above.
By dawn, the changes were subtle enough to dismiss. The sky returned to its familiar hue, and the moons drifted apart, their closeness already fading into rumor. Yet the land felt different, tighter, like a breath held too long. Those most sensitive to the shift felt it in their bones, an unease they could neither name nor escape.
Eldoria had crossed a threshold without realizing it. The age of silence was ending. Magic, once buried by fear and betrayal, had stirred beneath the Ashen Moons and it would not be content to sleep again.