From the Book of First Light

Before the kingdoms of men were raised, before stone towers broke the horizon, before the wolves of the wild places chose their companions among humankind, the world lived beneath a sky that never changed.

Light lingered, never growing. Shadow gathered, never leaving. The sun drifted without promise of returning, and the darkness held its ground without yielding. Day and night had not yet learned their rhythm.

In those first days, two ancient powers held the balance of creation. Lumen, keeper of living light, whose warmth stirred the breath of forests and awakened the rivers from stone. And Umbral, bearer of the deep shadow — for shadow was not merely absence, but a shield, holding back the greater void that waited outside the veil of the realms.

There was one place older than kings, older even than the first villages of men. A forest whose roots drank from the bones of the world.

The ancients called it Aelderen.