PREFACE
THE SAGA OF THE SILVER BLADE
C H R O N I C L E R O F T H E S I L V E R B L A D E
Memory is not a static archive of ink and parchment. It is a vibrating string; the harder we pluck it, the more the truth of the original strike begins to fray.
The Grand Composition is a history vast enough to drown in. It stretches from the first discordant breath of the Epic Sundering to the final, static silence of the Void—a span of time that defies the meager comprehension of mortals who view their lives in seasons rather than cycles. But within that endless, perpetually active cosmic symphony, there exists a single, sharp reef upon which the waves of resonance broke and changed direction forever.
We call it the Saga of the Silver Blade.
To the uninitiated—those who still use "magic" as a vulgar shorthand to describe the precise mechanics of the world—this Saga appears to be a sprawling era of bloodshed, defined only by the conflict between 1081 AV and the rise of the Dark Sun. They see the chaos of the crescendo, but they miss the structure of the song. History is not a line, traveler; it is a reverberation. To understand the melody of our present, one must first hear the tremor of the past, beginning with the notes of the initial chord.
The origin of this Saga is not singular, but twin-born—a call and a response separated by one hundred and fifty-three years of agonizing silence.
The first note fell in 928 AV, during the celestial alignment we call the Gaze of the Watcher. It was the Middark, that precarious pivot when the shadow of Aithyris eclipses the Great Violet Storm of Selyne. On that night, the shielding frequency of the Storm failed. The defenses of the city of Ciermanuinn, which rely upon that barrier as a navigator relies upon a steady current, flickered and died.
And the Nottsver came.
The "Night Swords"—a brutal sect of the Stornir—did not see a city of light; they saw a vault hiding a heresy. To the Stornir, the Silver Blade is not a weapon of heroes, but a key to the Symphony of Oblivion. They sought the "Ice Shard" not to wield it, but to find a conductor capable of summoning the Silence. They tore Ciermanuinn apart hunting for a way to erase the Song, but they found only ash and the bitter taste of rumors.
The second note fell in 1081 AV. The Nottsver returned to the Eleysian Islands, their fervor reignited by the belief that the "Ice Shard" had finally been unearthed. They struck the Lockstone, hunting the Elowyn remnants with a feral ferocity that suggests they had mistaken Volume for Resonance. They battered the shield, forgetting the immutable law: a lock does not break under force; it only opens to the correct key.
But this time, the call was answered.
An orphan of that first fire, Krysaalis a’Ciermanuinn, made the choice to return to the source of her dissonance. She was the spark that would ignite the dormant timber of history. You must understand: the Fall of Ciermanuinn and the Return of the Daughter are not separate events. They are the rising and falling of the same tide.
What follows is the account of that return.
I have compiled this narrative from countless chronicles, oral histories, and the lingering soul-songs of those who lived it. In my youth, I believed knowledge was an ephemeral thing, but I have since learned that knowledge is physical, imprinted on the very frequency of our breath. I have reproduced the resonant notations with the clinical precision of a Cantor; I have woven together fragments of dry fact into a tapestry of living truth by plucking the strings of history itself.
Where the record was silent, I have utilized the material link of my own heritage to calculate the resonant probability of the past. History records the dates—the mechanical why. I have endeavored to record the feeling—the how of the heart. If I have favored the truth of the internal resonance over the cold arithmetic of the calendar, it is because I know that it is the heart, not the counting of time, that truly wields the blade.
There are no absolutes in the telling, only the analytical sincerity of the witness.
Let the Chronicle begin.
Chronicler of the Silver Blade
5th Circle of Arc 135, 1207 as reckoned by the Arcs of Vespria
Castle Silverblade, Avryn
