Long before the orchard bloomed, before marble towers rose to touch the sky, there was only the hush between heartbeat and dawn.
They say the first Aetherion stepped down from the stars, a child of the gods, crowned in borrowed light, carrying the breath of immortality like a candle in his chest. He built his kingdom where the sun lingered longest, and swore the line would never fade while the orchard still bloomed each spring.
Centuries passed. Thrones crumbled, cities burned, rivers changed course, but Aetheris endured, a citadel of marble and gold in a world grown greedy for both. In its halls walked kings whose veins shimmered with celestial promise, queens whose smiles could banish winter, and heirs whose light was so bright the people dared not look away.
And so it was when Lumiel Aetherion was born, the Dawnstar, the kingdom's promise made flesh.
A boy with hair spun from sunlight and eyes that mirrored dawn breaking over snow. His mother called him her living prayer. His father forged him into the edge of a sword. His people watched him and whispered: May the orchard never die. May the light never fade.
But light, too, casts shadows. Beneath silk and ceremony, the throne roots itself in secrets: war without end, sacrifice disguised as duty, loyalty twisted into chains. Beneath the orchard's blossoms sleeps old blood... and old debts that hunger for more.
When the Goddess Queen's breath falters and frost steals her warmth, the cracks begin to show. Generals with iron oaths taste rebellion on their tongues. A son, kneeling in cold soil, promises to keep the garden blooming even as the rot spreads under marble floors.
And somewhere deep in that orchard, under roots older than any crown, the hush before dawn waits to be broken again — by steel, by betrayal, by a prince who was once the sun… and will one day become its eclipse.
For when light bleeds, even the gods must look away.