Chapter 1
In a land where hope had withered like a flower denied the sun, where humans humiliated one another, where no power remained to break the chains of injustice and tyranny, where men wore their cruelty like a crown, Velaris was born from the womb of suffering. Her first cry rang through the night and settled in the ears of the oppressed, a small, fierce reminder that even in the deadliest of places, one could still choose to live.
Aytina held her daughter against her chest after long hours of labor, her body trembling with exhaustion, her eyes tracing the tiny fists, the damp dark lashes, the fragile rise and fall of breath. Joy bloomed in her heart like a lantern lit in a storm. Then, all at once, it ached. She had brought a daughter into Riffydin.
For more than 187 years, the land had lived beneath the iron boot of Rameira's wicked royal family. The Rameirians had invaded in the year 2789, a number that marked the union of the seven kingdoms of Ableisia, when after countless wars a peace pact was sealed and the leaders began to count time anew, hoping to mark the dawn of a gentler age. But peace was a fragile thing. Hungry with greed, the Rameirians wrote their own laws in blood and ink and crushed all who dared to oppose them. No power rose to stop them.
When they swallowed Riffydin, they brought harsh decrees, and among the cruelest was the oppression of women. It was a wound deeper than any other, for the Riffyndors had once honored their women almost as goddesses. A family blessed with many daughters was treated as royalty, and an old saying had traveled from generation to generation, passed from grandmother's lips to granddaughter's ears: "Where a daughter lives, abundance will never leave the house."
Aytina was still lost in her baby's face when the door creaked open and Arcanis stepped inside. He was a tall man with wavy black hair, his face pale from hours of worry. He had paced outside the room through the long night, afraid for his wife, until the sound of a newborn's cry broke through the wall and stopped his heart. He had stood frozen until the nurses finally let him enter. Now he crossed the room slowly, as though afraid to disturb something sacred, and kissed his wife's forehead.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice soft and heavy with concern.
"Yes, I'm okay," she said, smiling through her tiredness. "Look at her. She's here."
Arcanis lifted his daughter into his arms, and the whole world seemed to narrow to the weight of her. "I will protect you forever," he whispered. Then he turned back to his wife. "What shall we name her?"
"Velaris," Aytina answered, "because she came into this dark world."
"I love it," he said. "Velaris sounds beautiful."
The name had only come into being after the Rameirian invasion. In the old tongue of the Riffyndors, it meant daughter of the shadow. Once, the people of Riffydin had named their children for joy and love, after sunlight and laughter and blooming fields. Now many families chose names that mirrored their reality, names heavy as stones. The Riffyndors were a people rich in joy and culture, yet the Rameirians had forbidden it all: their language was banned, their children could not carry traditional names, their festivals were silenced. Everything tied to their civilization had become a threat. So the Riffyndors built an alternative culture in secret, a hidden garden growing in the cracks of a ruined city, and it helped them survive.
Arcanis, still cradling the baby, walked to the window on the left of the bed. Beyond the glass lay the crumbling houses of Riffydin beneath a sky swallowed by darkness, no stars, only a pale smear of moon. Everything in the land looked weary and grieving. He let the wind brush his face, cold and restless, as if the night itself were whispering of what awaited her. Then he looked down at the small sleeping face and returned to his wife's side.
"I will never let you down," he murmured. "I will never let them steal your joy, Velaris. I will raise you to be a proud girl." And he kissed her forehead as if sealing a vow.
He placed the baby back in Aytina's arms and sat in the chair beside them, watching the two precious souls who were his entire world. A soft smile touched his lips. In a land that had forgotten how to hope, his heart was full of it.