Before you begin this story, I must warn you first. This is not a tale of dashing knights and lovely damsels awaiting rescue. It is not the tale of happy endings, with birdsong and rides into the sunset. It is a tale of light magic and dark, of drag...
The summer I turned seven, Janis began teaching us how to read. Our parents had never bothered with our education; they both knew how to read, and probably thought we would simply pick it up in time. But Janis had been a scholar once, at a small university outside of Val Estus, and she confessed to me one night that she found ignorance and illiteracy repulsive, even in children.
And so it was at her knee that we first learned of our world, and of the forces that had created it. We gathered around her to listen in rapt silence, our eyes and minds open and curious.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"'Once, there was only Destiny and the Darkness.'" Janis' face was softer in the light from the fireplace, and she stroked Lanya's hair as she read from a heavy, dusty book. Book of the Sun Children was etched in peeling gold lettering upon the spine. "'The Darkness wanted to leave the void silent, but Destiny created lights to banish it.'" She glanced up. "Brannyn, what are the names of the lights that Destiny created?"
"The sun, the moon, and the stars," he recited dutifully.
"Very good." She held up the book so we could gaze at the illustration of those lights, drawn as if set in stained glass. My fingers itched to trace them. She set the book back in her lap, and started to read again. "'The Darkness took the Stars and the Moon, and bound them to Night, to punish Destiny for trying to banish it. Destiny wept, and five tears fell and became Worlds, locked in a Circle.'" She looked at me. "Kryssa, what are the names of the five worlds?"
"Ca'erdylla!" Lanya piped up before I could answer.
Janis smiled at her, and I felt strangely jealous of her obvious favoritism. "Yes, my dear, Ca'erdylla, which is our world." She glanced back at me. "What are the others?"
"Well, there's Ca'erlyssa, where Mama went when she died." I counted them off on my fingers. "And the Realm of the Gods, and the place where bad people go when they die, and... and..." I struggled to remember, flushing with shame when I couldn't. "I'm sorry, Janis."
"Ca'erolne," Janis reminded me. "The world below ours."
"Ca'erolne," I repeated.
"And what sets our world apart from the others?"
"Magic!" Brannyn said quickly. "And dragons!"
She raised a brow. "Half-right. Ca'erolne also supposedly has dragons, but it is our magic that sets us apart from the other worlds. Destiny gave us magic by utilizing the six sacred Elements. Do you know what they are?"
"Fire," he answered immediately.
"And water," I added, not willing to be outdone.
"And the others?" Janis asked patiently.
"Uh..." Brannyn and I looked at each other blankly.
"Fire and water, earth and air, light and dark." She showed us another picture in the book. "Six Elements in perfect balance with each other. Everything in our world was created from them, and all magic stems from them, in one way or another."
