I am Akira. A Shardling. My power is small, they say. I can scatter glimmers into illusions, weave whispers into echoes, make the air shimmer like broken glass. Tricks. Flickers. Nothing worthy of legends. Yet Sakuragem trembles. The Emeraldites whisper of forests dimming. The Sapphirans tighten their silent barriers. Even the Prismatic Ascendants have begun watching the horizon more often than the throne. Because above our jeweled realm, within the cold walls of Yomiho Fortress, the Eclipthar are stirring. Reality itself has begun to crack like flawed crystal. And though I am only a Shardling, only light and sound, only fragments...I have begun to notice something strange about my powers. The light I bend no longer behaves like mere illusion. The echoes I cast sometimes answer back. Perchance the lowest shard can still cut. Perhaps even the smallest fracture can split a kingdom. My name is Akira. And this is where my story begins.