Long before the Nightingale, before the Starborn rose and the Shards began to awaken, Vaelion was no one.
Or at least, that's what he told them.
But the truth was written in blood and betrayal.
He was born in the realm of Velmora, a kingdom that no longer existed — erased from maps, buried in memory. Velmora had been a place of scholars, flame-weavers, and artists, a realm that believed knowledge could hold back the dark tides of chaos.
They were wrong.
The first cracks of the Shattering tore Velmora apart.
Not from the outside — but from within.
Serian's first whispers, long before he openly declared rebellion, seeded themselves among Velmora's scholars. Promises of power. Secrets of the Starflame never meant for mortal hands.
Velmora fell not to war — but to ambition.
Its brightest minds turned on each other, desperate for a fragment of forbidden truth.
And in the ashes, a boy survived.
Vaelion.
He watched his family burn their libraries to summon forbidden embers.
He watched his teachers sacrifice their students for glimpses into realms beyond understanding.
He watched as friends turned to monsters.
He ran — at first.
But he was caught.
Marked.
Changed.
The cult that rose from Velmora's remains, the Ashen Covenant, branded him with a living rune — a sigil that tied his soul to their endless hunger.
For years, he served them unwillingly.
An assassin.
A thief.
A collector of knowledge too dangerous to exist.
Each life he took, each relic he retrieved, deepened the scar on his soul.
Until one day, on the shores of the Broken Mirror Sea, he found her.
Lyra.
She was still a fledgling warrior then, barely beginning her journey.
He had been sent to kill her.
To tear the Starborn lineage from its root before it could rise again.
But standing before her — sword poised, flame trembling — he hesitated.
Because she didn't fight him.
She didn't fear him.
She simply looked at him with those defiant, stubborn eyes and said:
"You don't have to be what they made you."
In that moment, something cracked inside Vaelion.
Not his loyalty to the Covenant.
Not his hatred for himself.
But the iron belief that he had no choice.
He turned his blade away.
He broke the rune's hold with a flame he didn't know he still carried.
And for the first time, he chose himself.
He fled the Covenant's reach, hunted, wounded, damned.
And Lyra?
She offered him something even more dangerous than escape.
A second chance.
Now, standing aboard the Nightingale after surviving the Ash Choir, Vaelion stared at the new scar along his arm — a reminder of the Choir's illusions, their attempt to pull him back into the dark.
He flexed his hand, feeling the lingering ache of the old rune under his skin.
But it was dead now.
Burned out.
Buried.
He looked toward the bridge, where Lyra stood at the helm, the Fifth Shard's light haloing her like a crown.
She didn't know the full story.
Not yet.
But someday, he would tell her.
Because loyalty wasn't born from orders or contracts.
It was born from salvation.
And Vaelion had vowed — with every beat of his still-scarred heart — that he would see her to the end.
No matter the cost.
Far away, in the ruins of Velmora, something ancient stirred.
The Ashen Covenant had not forgotten their lost son.
And they would not let him go without a final reckoning.