Prologue

Many years ago, before the Diamond City returned to hover over the desert, before the Great War of Flame ravaged the Jeweled Cities and the Kishari civil war threw the Ruby City into chaos, a young sun elf scholar named Ëlinyr found herself at the Royal Academy, hoping to finally be free of her mother’s influence and schemes. She was excited to learn all she could about magic, and anything else that struck her fancy. 

During her time at the Royal Academy, Ëlinyr found herself in many classes with a thinblooded elf named Ithuryn. They ended up studying for their classes together, and during that time learned a lot about each other. They both grew up in Isildar, and both shared a love of learning and studying magic. Despite their differences in social standing, they found themselves growing very close to each other, and Ëlinyr developed strong feelings for Ithuryn – which was strange for a sun elf, as they experience emotions far less intensely than the shorter-lived races. Ëlinyr was unsure how to express these feelings, as she had never felt quite like this before. She gave him a small token of her affection, a red sash, in hopes that it would remind him of her whenever he wore it.

Not too long after Ëlinyr gave Ithuryn that token of her affection, he disappeared under strange circumstances. He had been talking about trying to find the Night Market, to see if he could somehow purchase the ability to be a fierce warrior like his mother. Ëlinyr tried to talk him out of it, as she had heard stories about the Night Market – “You may think you are purchasing something,” Ëlinyr said to him, “but will end up receiving it in the most unexpected of ways. I do not trust it.” Ithuryn set out to find the Night Market anyway, and Ëlinyr never saw him again after that. She searched all of Kishar for him, and even arranged for someone to look for him in Isildar in case he had returned there for some reason, but it was as if Ithuryn had disappeared into thin air. Ëlinyr was heartbroken. She didn’t know where he had gone, and to mask the pain of losing him, she fell more deeply into her studies, excluding others from her life to the point of near-total isolation for years.

However, the world works in mysterious ways, and sometimes those we think are lost return to us at the most unexpected times…