As magic faded, the strong oppressed the weak. Monsters from the dungeons, once sealed away in the natural order, now clawed their way freely into the world. The sky, once a canvas of gentle luminescence, was now a bruised tapestry, perpetually stained by the sinister glow of the Violent Moon. The air itself was thin, the very magic that had sustained life having been systematically drained away by the Artifact of Severance. After the cataclysm was unleashed, the dagger, its purpose fulfilled, had fallen dormant a silent, pulsating shard of oblivion embedded where it is was taken, its malevolent work continuing autonomously.
Across the Ten Kingdoms, the consequences were not merely felt by the inhabitants they were endured. Farmland once lush and golden was now cursed, the earth no longer yielded its abundance as before. The harvests decreased into dust, and what little grew was pale and bitter. Some lands could no longer bear life at all, their soil drained of vitality and stained by the lingering taint of the monsters of decay. The very roots of nature recoiled, as if refusing to breathe.
Cities were reduced to graveyards of singing crystal, their harmonies replaced by the moaning wind. The world was dying quietly.
The kingdoms, already strained by the fading magic, were utterly overwhelmed by this new, scheduled terror. The Dungeons of Despair were not merely holes in the ground, they were weeping sores on the face of the world, from which a tide of monstrosities was vomited forth every fifth day. The armies of the kings, their numbers decimated and their spirits broken, were forced into a perpetual, defensive war. Walls were built, then shattered. Heroes were forged, then consumed. A pervasive sense of despair, as tangible as the plague-ridden air, had settled upon all of civilization.
It was in this climate of fear that the High Mages, those who still held fragments of the world's former glory, declared themselves the sole voice of the gods. And when children were born with unnatural eyes glowing with colors no human should possess violet, amber, silver …, swirling with faint, unreadable symbols the mages had their scapegoats. They were branded cursed, the Reaper's-Spawns, the living proof of its vengeance.
It was into this world of shattered grandeur and mounting despair that a new terror was introduced, a subtle poison that would divide what little humanity remained.
In the northern reaches of the Kingdom of Frosthold, nestled in a valley perpetually brushed by a chill wind, lay the village of Blackvale. It was a place of hardy loggers and stoic farmers, a settlement that had always fought against the harshness of the land. But nothing could have prepared it for the new, existential terror that now gripped the world.
From within a modest house of pine and stone, the sound of a child's first, healthy cry pierced the anxious silence. It should have been a moment of pure joy. The first official case recorded in the kingdom's ledgers would be a little baby girl, Liora of Blackvale. The name had been chosen by her parents in a time of hopeful anticipation, before her birth. But when the midwife, Eliara, laid eyes upon the infant, a strangled scream was torn from her throat. The baby's eyes were not the soft, unfocused blue of a newborn, they were a deep, luminous violet, swirling with an inner light like storm-wracked skies.
"By the gods, what is this?" Elara had gasped, stumbling back from the birthing bed as if scalded. Her face was a mask of superstitious dread. "The Mark… the Reaper's Mark! It is upon her!"
"What mark?" Liora's mother, Anya, had whispered, her voice weak with exhaustion and a sudden, icy fear that eclipsed the pain of labor. She tried to draw her daughter closer. "What is wrong with my daughter? Let me see her!"
But the midwife would not be calmed. "They are born with the eyes of the damned! She is a Curseling! She will be the death of us all!"
The poison of the High Mages' decree had done its work perfectly. By dawn, the news had slithered through the village like a venomous serpent, and the knights were summoned.
The Bargain of Blackvale
The knights were seen approaching at dusk, their arrival a death knell for the family's happiness. Their silver armor was illuminated by the flickering torchlight, glowing like pale, cold fire. The three-eyed sigil of the Order of the Sacred Blade was emblazoned across their chests, a symbol of an order that had twisted from protector to predator. At their helm, Captain Rykard was observed, his face set into a mask of grim duty, though the shadows in his eyes spoke of a soul weary with such tasks.
Liora's father, once a proud merchant of Frosthold, was driven to his knees in the churned mud of his own yard, his fine clothes soiled, his hands clasped as if in prayer to unhearing idols.
"Please, Captain," his voice was shattered by sobs that wracked his entire frame. "I beg of you, by all that is merciful. She is just a child. A baby! No wrong has been done by her! She knows nothing but her mother's heartbeat!"
Behind him, his wife Anya stood in the doorway, clutching Liora to her chest as if her own body could form a shield. Her face was streaked with tears of rage and despair. "Leave her be!" she cried out, her voice raw. "She is my child! My only child! You cannot take her from me!"
The baby's eyes, a vibrant and undeniably unnatural violet, were wide with a primal fear she could not comprehend. They swirled like captured tempests, a beautiful, terrifying testament to the curse the mages had proclaimed.
The knights' faces remained impassive, but one among them, a young man named Ser Evander, took a half-step backward, his grip on his reins tightening until his knuckles were white. He had never liked this duty, this perversion of their oath to protect the innocent. The kingdom's fear had bred a monstrous logic he was forced to serve.
Seeing that slight retreat, the merchant desperation found a new target. He scrambled on his knees toward the young knight, his pleading eyes locking with Evander's. "You… you see she is just a babe, do you not?" he implored, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper. "Show us mercy, I beg you! Do not be a part of this!"
But Ser Evander could not meet his gaze for long. His eyes dropped to the ground, his jaw clenched in silent shame. He could do nothing.
Spurned, the merchant lunged back toward Rykard, the fine silk of the captain's cloak being grasped and twisted in his desperate hands. "My gold! Then take all of my gold!" he cried, the words tearing from him. A heavy iron-banded chest was dragged from within the home, and with a heave, he spilled its contents, a lifetime of savings in gold and silver coin across the dirt at the knights' feet. The wealth glittered mockingly in the torchlight. "Everything I own! My land, my trade, my future it is all yours! Every last bit of it! Just let her be! Please, just let my daughter be!"
Not a single glance was cast by Rykard toward the scattered riches. His voice, when he spoke, was like iron being struck against stone, cold and unyielding. "The King's decree is absolute. It is said that the marked bring ruin. Would you have this entire village be damned for the sake of one child? Their blood would be on your hands, merchant."
The merchant's breath was drawn in ragged, painful gasps. He turned his wild, tear-filled eyes upon the other knights, a silent, wordless plea for one of them to find a shred of humanity.
"She is innocent!" the man roared, his defiance a last, futile stand against the crushing weight of the state.
One of the younger knights was seen shifting his weight, his discomfort clear, but Rykard's gaze never wavered.
"Innocent?" Captain Rykard's voice dropped to a menacing whisper, laced with the official dogma. "Tell me, merchant. When the Plague of the Violent Moon swept through the southern provinces, how many lives were lost? How many great kingdoms were brought to their knees by the madness? Was that child in the south 'innocent'? The abomination must be purged."
No answer could be formed by the man. The horror stories were legend, entire cities that had been reduced to ash, men who were driven to tear out their own eyes, whispers of things that were seen watching from the dark. The fear was a weapon sharper than any sword.
"It is not her!" the merchant pleaded, a final, desperate denial against the inevitable.
A sharp, final signal was given by Rykard. "The child is to be taken. Now."
A heart-wrenching scream of pure, unadulterated agony was torn from Anya's lips as her daughter was forcibly pried from her trembling arms. The merchant lunged at the knight holding his child, but he was sent sprawling into the dirt and mud by a heavy, mailed fist. "Please!" he sobbed, crawling through the muck, blood and tears mingling on his face. "Anything! My life can be taken for hers! I will go in her place! TAKE ME INSTEAD!"
No stop was made by the knights. As they mounted and rode into the encroaching night, the child was held firmly against a cold, metal chestplate, her strange, beautiful violet eyes staring back at the only home she would ever know, now vanishing into the darkness. The villagers were seen watching from behind cracked shutters and half-closed doors, their silence a heavy blanket of complicity, fear, and shame. The only sound that remained was the broken, soul-crushing weeping of a man to whom everything had been offered, and from whom everything had been stolen.
By the next dawn, the merchant's house was found to be standing empty and silent. It was whispered by some that his own life had been taken by his own hand, the grief too monumental to bear. Others claimed he had vanished into the monster-ridden wilds of Frosthold, his mind shattered, muttering broken oaths of vengeance to the unfeeling wind. But no one ever the merchant Sir Aldric or his daughter, Liora of Blackvale, again. The weight of her violet eyes had proven too heavy for one family to bear, crushing them beneath the heel of a terrified world.
The Decree of Extermination and Surrender
By Order of His Royal Majesty, King Theron of Frosthold, and the Sacred Conclave of High Mages,
Let this proclamation be heard throughout the Ten Kingdoms, from the highest spire to the lowliest village:
The world endures a time of unparalleled tribulation. The skies are cursed, the earth bleeds darkness, and monsters born of nightmare assail us from the shadows. These are not random calamities, but the calculated vengeance of a vanquished foe the entity known as the Grim Reaper.
Before his banishment, this enemy of all life sowed a final, corrupting seed among us. He has spawned his progeny, marked not by innocence, but by his own malevolent sigil. These are the Curselings, the Grim-Spawn, born with eyes that shine with unnatural hues the very colors of the hell that seeks to claim our world.
They are not children. They are vessels of the Reaper's will, sent to finish the work their sire began. Their gaze is a poison, their presence a beacon that calls forth the horrors of the Violent Moon and guides the monsters from the Dungeons of Despair. To tolerate them is to embrace our own extinction.
Therefore, by the power vested in the Crown and the Conclave, the following laws are hereby enacted and enforced under penalty of death:
I. The Edict of Surrender:
Any infant or child discovered to bear the Marked Eyes, henceforth known as the "Reaper's Sigil," must be immediately surrendered to the Knights of the Sacred Blade. Failure to report the birth of a Marked One within one cycle of the moon constitutes an act of high treason.
The Penalty of Complicity:
The act of harboring, concealing, or providing sustenance to a Marked One is hereby declared a capital offense. Any person, be they parent, kin, or benefactor, found guilty of this crime shall be executed alongside the abomination they shielded.
III. The Bounty of Vigilance:
Any loyal subject who provides information leading to the capture and purification of a Marked One shall be rewarded with ten gold crowns and the eternal gratitude of the Crown. Your vigilance is the shield of the kingdom.
The survival of our civilization, the memory of our fallen, and the future of the untainted demand this sacrifice. Do not be deceived by a familiar form. See the enemy for what it is.
Purge the Tainted. Protect the Pure. Ensure the Dawn.
So it is decreed.
The decree was echoed from every pulpit and town square, its words chiseled into obsidian monoliths erected in every city square. The people, desperate for order and a target for their boundless suffering, clutched at this official condemnation. Thus, the great hunt was sanctified by law. The marked children, in whose gaze a potential key to salvation might have been found, were now transformed into the most hunted souls in a dying world. The weight of their extraordinary eyes was not a gift, but a death sentence, a burden heavier than any stone, and a dark shadow that stretched over the beginning of the end.