Chapter One
Origins & Loss
Elendriel was born beneath an expansive and radiant sky, which appeared as though Aetherius had descended to caress the spires of Firsthold with a breath imbued with starlight. She is the youngest scion of a distinguished lineage of Altmer mages, who whispered to the heavens as though they were lovers exchanging secrets. Each twilight, her mother would carry her to the balcony, enveloping her in wool infused with the intoxicating fragrance of night jasmine, tracing the celestial tapestry with a finger as delicate as moth wings: "That bright wanderer is yours, my little star—protect it with the unquenchable fire of your heart." These words took root within her soul, akin to vines reaching for sunlight.
At the tender age of six, she ventured to the cliffs where the restless sea met the boundless sky, her bare feet chilled by stones smoothed by salt spray. With her palms raised in silent yearning, she drew fragile wisps of starfire that danced between her fingers like ecstatic performers caught in a dream—her inaugural spell, a tender golden helix cradled in breathless wonder, revealing that magic could nurture the delicate, that the cosmos might respond to a child's kindness.
However, the tranquility was shattered by the descent of the Planemeld, a cataclysm that rent the heavens with a lament akin to the world's dying breath. Daedric infernos consumed their tower in a voracious tempest; she vividly recalls her father's incantations fracturing like brittle ice, her brother's arms forming a frantic cage as beams splintered with thunderous cracks, the searing heat clawing at her lungs, and the acrid stench of charred parchment, molten gold, and singed hair choking the air.
Her mother emerged from the choking haze, kneeling with eyes ablaze like final stars, seizing her trembling hands and pressing a moonstone circlet into them. "Keep the light, my star," she gasped, her voice splintering like frost-shattered stone. "Keep it." In that instant, a falling timber obliterated her shadow. Elendriel escaped through crumbling halls that groaned like wounded beasts, choking on ash and scalding tears, a twelve-year-old bearing the weight of loss that bowed her spine, clutching the circlet's fading warmth as if it were a fragile ember against an encroaching void.
The anguish coiled within her chest like a thorned serpent, striking with each breath, robbing her of the air in her lungs. Weeks dissolved into a spectral drift through desolate streets slick with rain and ruin until Dominion scouts discovered her huddled against a wall in Skywatch, too hollow for tears. She pledged allegiance to Queen Ayrenn not for banners or conquest, but to quell the cavernous echo within her.
The archmages of Firsthold recognised the embers flickering in her gaze and welcomed her into their fold without question. They forged her fury into spells—lightning that rent stone asunder, vitality that mended ravaged flesh—but each incantation pulsed with the same silent supplication: no more death before my eyes. She bound dolmens at Tanzelwil until her palms wept crimson; she hurled Maormer invaders into the foaming waves at Torinaan until her cries scraped raw, delving into every rune and rite to create an impenetrable veil against the night's insatiable hunger.
Her inaugural dolmen battle at Tanzelwil carved scars deeper than mere flesh. Violet anchors throbbed like festering hearts, staining golden grass with bruised twilight. At seventeen, she froze as Daedra erupted—clannfear shrieking like shattered glass, atronachs trailing fire in comet veils. A veteran crumpled beside her, his chest rent open in a spray of crimson.
This sight ignited her fury. She screamed, unleashing lightning that arced blindingly white, hurling the beasts back into the rift; her Bahraha's Curse armour surged, thorny shadows exploding from her feet to ensnare foes in writhing graves. She dropped to one knee, her palms scorching the earth, pouring nascent restoration into the fallen, her Prayer blossoming like captured dawn. The rift imploded with a metallic shriek. Silence enveloped the scene, broken only by the veteran's ragged gasp. She knelt amid dying embers, blood mingling with ash, alive—vowing to safeguard the light with every ragged breath.
Then dawned the New Life Festival in Vulkhel Guard, a revelation emerging like an unbidden sun through an endless storm. She intended only to linger at the periphery—to observe the bonfire's edges and witness others feign wholeness. Instead, she encountered the silver peal of laughter from a Bosmer child as she guided a colossal Orc's hand to skewer sweetmeats without charring; a Khajiit peddler slipping moon-sugar delights into the hands of awestruck Altmer youths; strangers intertwining arms and whirling into dances without a hint of wariness.
This vision pierced her heart like a lance of pure light. Her knees buckled; she grasped a dew-slick post for support. Tears carved scorching paths through the grime on her cheeks—these were not jagged sobs of loss, but a tender unraveling that wounded anew, terrifying in its mercy. For the first time since clutching her mother's moonstone amid the embers, she comprehended that healing transcended mere flesh: it flung wide barred gates, inviting the forsaken to hearths, defiantly—ardently, soundlessly—with each throb of her scarred heart—challenging the void's decree on who merited illumination.
That twilight, an inner fortress crumbled and was reforged. She chose her sentinel beneath the leftmost lamp of Auridon's wall—never aloft, never gazing downward—and consecrated it as her vigil. She extends open palms to wanderers, inclines in subtle reverence to kin of yore, and confronts bearers of malice or dominance with serene, incisive rebukes before pivoting so their venom does not taint the fragile radiance she has nurtured.
Isobel Veloise, the Breton knight-errant from High Isle who shares her calling as a healer, stands as her steadfast companion in this vigil—a bond forged in shared quests to rectify wrongs and mend the wounds of Tamriel, their complementary magicka weaving restoration in tandem like intertwined vines, transforming solitary burdens into an unbreakable alliance.
