The Prophecy of the Kings

Prelude

There was, and there was not, a land that once bloomed with the light of five great kingdoms. The people lived in harmony with the thriving occult. Then, one day, the kingdom of Luminaria emerged from the shadows and struck without warning.

The young King Siegmar, known as The Miserable, had wed a wife from the kingdom of Ravenwood who wielded powerful magic—both light and dark, the yin and yang necessary to maintain the peace in the land of Magna Cattus. During Queen Isabella's pregnancies, she endured great difficulty. She suffered three miscarriages, and her final pregnancy, the one that would bring forth the heir, was particularly arduous, lasting days of labor. The royal doctors speculated that her magic drew energy from the unborn child, as the baby would be born as a "mongrel"—a term for those with one magical parent and one non-magical parent.

King Siegmar's advisors, however, were disturbed by this. They harbored a sinister plan to get rid the queen and main the heir's connection to magic. After the child's birth, they concocted a poison disguised as a tonic for the baby, intending for him to consume it while the queen slept and the king was away on diplomatic missions. When Queen Isabella awoke and saw a cloaked figure administering the poison, she used dark magic to drive the intruder away. The baby turned pale and cried, prompting her to use her magic to heal him.

The commotion alerted the king, who arrived to see the queen using dark magic. Misunderstanding the situation, he summoned the guards and had her imprisoned in the dungeons. Tormented by confusion, King Siegmar sought counsel from Oshar, his head advisor. Oshar convinced him that the queen's actions, coupled with the inherent danger of magic, meant that all magic users were untrustworthy, even those who wielded light magic. Thus, Siegmar issued a royal decree banning all magic: those caught practicing or aiding in magic would be expelled from Luminaria or imprisoned.

Sixty years later, King Siegmar was found dead, allegedly poisoned. His son, King Roderick, known as The Angry, vowed vengeance against his own mother. Following Oshar's advice, he waged war on all magic users.

The Luminarian knights stormed neighboring provinces, slaughtering men, defiling women, diluting the bloodline of magic, and enslaving children. Many were forced to flee, leaving the bodies of the fallen heaped on the outskirts of their villages.

By royal decree, the council of Luminaria forbade all sorcery. Those who practiced or assisted in magic faced death. For 203 years, the Luminarian Kingdom waged relentless war against the other kingdoms, spreading the belief that magic was the bane of all civilization.

A seer from the Kingdom of Alexandra, a member of the Navi, foretold two prophecies bestowed by the Goddess to safeguard her children. The first spoke of a child born with regnant blood who would rise to power and face a pivotal choice determining the fate of Magna Cattus. As this child grew, darkness would deepen over the land, where a centuries-old war raged. The Goddess had decreed a destiny for this child and delivered her message to the village councils, urging them to protect those blessed with magic and to prepare for an impending storm.

The kingdoms sought diplomacy to shield their people from Luminaria's bloodlust. Yet as the years passed, the lines between friend and foe blurred. The prophecies spread like wildfire, whispered in the halls of kings and the homes of peasants. Each kingdom's knights scoured for babies blessed by the Goddess, trusting neither regnant blood nor humble origins.

The war raged on, consuming each generation. The prophecy remained a beacon in the darkness—a promise of salvation or ruin, dependent on the actions of one destined child. As whispers of the seer's words spread, the winds of change began to stir, blowing ever closer to the quiet country of Ravenwood, where a wet nurse held a crying baby under the watchful eye of the moon.