"It is the name of the entity from which the Taint was born," Mother Rhoyne answered, her voice trembling slightly with the weight of ancient memories. "We do not know its true origin. When mankind had only just begun to walk across the world, it came piercing through the darkness, ushering in the end of the Dawn. Pieces fell from the heavens—pieces that were gathered, pieces that corrupted. For a time, our pantheons studied them, but they appeared to be naught but dead rock, and so we abandoned them. That was our first, fatal mistake. The corruption oozed from the stone unseen, tainting the minds and hearts of men.
"When the Last Son of Dawn committed his heinous acts, we did not intervene. Ultimately, our inaction allowed him to commit the ultimate heresy: he proclaimed the black stone divine, birthing a foul religion around it. Our second mistake was not striking him down then and there. Bathed in the raw power of mortal worship and belief, the black stone began to reawaken. From it emerged the nightmare we called Nemesis. The Taint is his blood; the stone, his bones."
She paused, her chest heaving as she gathered a shuddering breath.
"Nemesis does not utilise mana the way we do; it is an energy foreign to him. Instead, he corrupts it with his blood and malicious intent, twisting it into something far easier for him to manipulate."
"When Nemesis first manifested, he spoke a drastically different tongue than any of us had ever heard. He was banished from the realm by the Maiden and the Lion for inciting the Last Son. Nemesis did not fight, nor did he argue. He simply left. We thought him weak, for his mana was only that of a Youngling. We were so wrong."
A tear slipped down her flushed, pained cheek.
"It took centuries, but Nemesis travelled the world before returning to the Dawn. He had grown in those dark years—grown wiser, shrewder, and infinitely more powerful. He had laid the seeds of his foul foundation, and even after his banishment, the Last Son continued to worship him in the shadows, cultivating a cult that ceaselessly empowered him. When Nemesis finally returned, he waged a merciless slaughter against the Dawn. That was the First Night. Ever since that war, he has been our sworn enemy."
Hadrian, who had been listening intently to her tragic tale, gave a slow nod, his thumb and forefinger pressed thoughtfully against his chin. "From your words, I can see that the gods used to openly speak with both mortals and each other. Yet now, you are all locked within your own realms, unable to stay in the physical world. Why is that?"
Mother Rhoyne closed her eyes, the golden chains holding her clinking softly. "The First Night began when Nemesis did something to the leylines of the world. Even now, we have not discovered exactly what he did, but it trapped ambient mana. It could no longer spread freely across the earth; instead, it became concentrated around the leylines. Mortals naturally flocked toward them to survive, and so we had to move as well. As for speaking with us... that became severely limited after the Second Night. Nemesis violently severed our connection to the world's mana. He forced us to mutate, to adapt our very beings just to store energy and convert it into divine mana. To protect our young and weak from his unending wrath, each pantheon forged their own divine realm, effectively cutting ourselves off from the mortal plane."
"What happened to Nemesis?" Hadrian asked, his questions growing sharper, more pointed. "If he was strong enough to fight all the gods of the world, he should still be around."
"Nemesis murdered the Maiden and severely wounded the Lion during the First Night," she whispered, the ancient horror still fresh in her sky-blue eyes. "Many of my kin forsook him then, but there were those who vied for the esteem the Maiden and the Lion had possessed. In their foolish jealousy, they actually praised Nemesis. But the monster revealed his true nature during the Second Night. He slaughtered the Fisher Queens and their entire kingdom, butchering millions and using their souls to forcibly change the order of the world. We knew then that he would never stop. He was changing the world to be suitable only for himself, and we could never allow that."
Her golden aura flared defensively against the creeping black Taint as she continued. The taint was reacting to her words flailing and grasping at her.
"Those of my kin who had favoured him finally woke to the horrific reality. Thus, we waged war upon him. That was the beginning of the Long Night. It was a brutal, merciless slaughter. Entire pantheons were sacrificed in battle. Ultimately, we were able to kill Nemesis, but we could never truly destroy his bones—the black stones. So, we sealed them away. The stones... they absorb divinity. When Nemesis was alive, he could drain a god in mere moments. Even after his death, his bones maintain that foul property, though the process now takes far, far longer."
She bowed her head, exhausted by the recounting.
"After the ravages of that war, the world itself was left deeply scarred. Mana became less prolific, and the lifespans of humans drastically decreased. In the beginning, the world had sustained them effortlessly, and they lived in harmony alongside us. But after the Long Night, they were forced to adapt to a dying earth. Before, the relationship between us and the mortals had simply been that of guardians and wards. But the changing nature of the world allowed us to become so much more to them. We used our mana to help them survive this harsh new era. That was when the first temples were raised, and we were proclaimed as gods."
A wistful, heartbreakingly tender smile graced her lips.
"Their belief and faith allowed us to discover an entirely new domain of power we had barely touched in the previous era. By amassing faith from mortals, we could actively strengthen our divinity. The fiercer their love and devotion, the stronger we grew. I was so young when the First and Second Nights happened, but witnessing those atrocities made me absolutely certain I never wanted such horrors to befall my own people. So, I nurtured the Rhoynar. I taught them to be strong, yet deeply peaceful. And for a glorious time... they were."
"Until they were not," Hadrian countered coldly.
Mother Rhoyne looked at him, deeply wounded by the sharp interruption, but she ultimately nodded, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. "Yes. They changed... but not because of their own vices. They changed because they encountered the Valyrians."