The Last Light of Elaria

The world of Elaria had not always been broken.

There were times when the rivers ran gold with magic, when the skies shimmered in hues of blue never seen on Earth. Once, every child born was blessed by the stars, and the forests whispered the songs of the ancients. But all of that had dimmed when the War of Silence began—when the stars stopped speaking.

The war, they said, started over light. The Kingdom of Solan, worshippers of the sun, feared the dark powers rising in the Obsidian Realm, where night was eternal. The two powers clashed, dragging every neutral land, every whispering forest, and every mountain kingdom into the chaos. And as the war raged, something worse stirred beneath the world—something that did not choose sides, but devoured both.

It is into this world that Liora was born.

She was not like the others in the shattered village of Thren, tucked away in the shadows of the Bladewind Mountains. The children there had hollow eyes and ash in their hair, born amidst fire and famine. But Liora had something different. Her eyes carried flecks of silver. And sometimes, when she cried, her tears shimmered in the dark like stars trying to return to the sky.

Her grandmother, Ilyen, once a star-priestess before the temples burned, would whisper, “She’s the last of the Lightborn, child. The last gift the stars gave us before they left.”

No one believed her. Not until the day the soldiers came.

They were not from Solan, nor from Obsidia. They wore armor carved of bone, their eyes black with hunger. They called themselves the Eclipsed—a cult that worshipped the darkness that now festered beneath the world. And they sought the last spark of light.

“Bring us the girl who weeps silver,” they demanded.

The villagers, desperate and afraid, gave no answer. But eyes turned. Liora, only ten, clutched her grandmother’s hand as the night screamed around them.

Ilyen did what she had to. She lit the last skyfire torch hidden in the temple ruins and whispered a binding spell to the winds. The flame exploded into a column of white light, blinding the Eclipsed and letting Liora run.

She ran until the mountains swallowed her, until the sounds of her home being torn apart faded. Until there was only silence.

Days passed. Then weeks. Liora wandered the wilds of Elaria, guided by half-memories and dreams she could not explain. She saw the world as it had become—cities in ruins, rivers black with ash, people turned into shadows. But she also saw things others missed.

In the heart of a dying forest, she found a tree that still glowed.

In the ruins of a temple, she heard voices that spoke in light.

And deep within her, something began to awaken.

It was on the 40th night that she met him—Kael, a young thief from the fallen city of Vire. He’d tried to steal her satchel and ended up with a broken nose, a glowing cut across his palm, and an unwilling respect for the strange girl with stars in her eyes.

“You’re either cursed or chosen,” he said.

“Maybe both,” she replied.

Together, they traveled toward the Starspire, the last known beacon of the Lightborn. Along the way, they were hunted by the Eclipsed, shadowhounds, and worse—creatures with no names, born from the war’s despair. But they were also joined by others: a disgraced knight from Solan, a shadow-mage who had turned against Obsidia, and even a sentient wolf who spoke only in dreams.

Each of them, broken in some way.

Each of them, drawn to Liora.

And as their journey continued, her light grew stronger. She no longer cried silver tears—she bled light, whispered fire, and sometimes, when she sang the old songs, the stars flickered faintly in the skies again.

The group called her Starborn.

But the truth was more complex.

Liora was not just a child of the stars. She was their last creation—a living seed of light planted before they left, meant to awaken only when the world had truly lost its way. And now, that time had come.

At the peak of Starspire, Liora faced the truth. The darkness beneath the world was The Forgotten, a being once cast out by the stars themselves for consuming hope and feeding on despair. It had slumbered for eons but fed during the war until it could rise again.

It would not be slain by swords or fire. Only light remembered could bind it.

So Liora did what she was born to do.

She became light.

With a word, she unleashed the memory of stars across the skies. The heavens ignited, and for one night, all of Elaria remembered what it was to hope.

The Forgotten was not destroyed. But it was pushed back. Bound again. Weakened.

And as Liora faded into the morning light, Kael wept silver tears.

She was gone. But her spark remained in each of them.

And in time, the stars began to whisper once more.