“Remember always, Aurelian*, my child, my one and only treasure bestowed by fate.
In your blood flows a curse of a countless years, yet all I wish is for you to live a life of peace and happiness.
No matter what happens, you must never set foot in Nod-Krai, nor heed the delusions of any so-called paradise.
For mortal world beneath the moon no paradise has ever been built; all that the Lord of the Sky created bears its limits.”

On a snow-country night brushed by auroras, she who had once been revered as a Holy Lady once again glimpsed a dream-vision of her homeland.
Though years had passed since she severed ties with her birthplace, the whispers she had tried to forget crept back into her warm sleep like frost.
Perhaps it was the new life growing in her womb that awakened her dormant sight, for the visions that wound through her dreams grew ever clearer.

First came the endless nightmares — nightmares looping without end.
Seeds of life unshaped by heaven fell from silver-white branches into ruined cities.
Featherless creatures walked upright, basking in a flood of wisdom and prosperity.
In their wake followed greed and desire without end, crowned with fair-sounding names —
Hatred, curse, betrayal, strife, plunder, slaughter, fratricide.
The scattered cities each pursued good or evil while the envoys of the gods only watched in silence,
Until the kings of earth dared challenge the eternal firmament,
Then the proud towers fell in fire, burying the slaves’ lamentations.

Millennia of dreamless dreams, fading like shadows in an instant,
Crowns piled up in secret vaults beneath dead trees, until none came to seek them.
Yet even the divine design can shatter: a golden city rose from the ground.
Mortals unsated by the end of cycles cradled ambitions to rival their master,
Casting eyes on the vacant throne of the world, trying to shatter the barrier that held back the outer darkness.
Yet that boundless paradise, like all fragile wishes, fell into ruin.
The Dragonlord of Light and Flame sank into the black mists, the tide swept away the empire of white stone,
And the dying world drifted to its end, leaving only the shades of old days wandering the deep halls.

Countless dreams soaked in blood, tears, and sin; countless unreachable dreams.
Generations of estrangement, generations of hate, turning ceaseless in a starless night.
Yet a voice she had never heard — more intimate than any she knew —
Always whispered at the end of pain, like soft light of compassion:

“Then let me end the strife of this earth, and raise a boundless paradise.
Not to be anyone’s king, but so no one shall ever be king again.”

The vision always shattered at the promised moment, her mind drawn back to waking shores.
With it came the faint stirring of the life within her, under the frost-tinged morning light.
The young mother sighed softly, fingers brushing the silver amulet at her chest.
Gazing at her beloved beside her, she placed a hand upon her belly.

“My child, my child… why do you stir so?”
“Is it because you feel your mother’s heart… and are afraid?”