Lavos

Lavos: The Fourth Air Eater and Betrayer of Fire

Some say he betrayed fire itself. Others whisper that fire betrayed us all, and Lavos merely showed us its true nature.

— Anonymous Malondrian Scholar

In the first age of the Aina Continuum, when the elemental realms still pulsed with raw divine power, Lavos stood among the four original Air Eaters of Malondria. Created by Aejeon himself to maintain the balance between fire and air, Lavos possessed an affinity for light that set him apart from his siblings. His radiance rivaled the sun itself, earning him the title "Lord of Light" and mastery over the White Tower.

Unlike his fellow Air Eaters who embodied more primal aspects of fire, Lavos represented its illuminating qualities. Where Altabar commanded raw flame, Anvirthiel channeled life-giving warmth, and Draleba wielded storm-fire, Lavos wielded fire's capacity to reveal and transform. This unique position would ultimately prove to be both his greatest strength and fatal weakness.

His light did not warm like Anvirthiel's or inspire like Altabar's. It pierced, it exposed, it burned away illusion until only stark truth remained

— Fragments of the White Tower Chronicles.

The complex relationship between Lavos and his fellow Air Eaters defined the early ages. He shared deep bonds with both Altabar and Draleba, their three-fold alliance maintaining crucial balance in Malondria's upper reaches. However, it was his connection to Anvirthiel that would prove most fateful - their secret affair producing two sons, Thodrim and Ogor-Thad, whose existence complicated the already delicate politics of the divine court.
But Lavos's piercing insight eventually turned inward, leading him to question the fundamental nature of divine power itself. His studies began innocently enough - theoretical inquiries into the boundaries between elements. Yet each revelation led to darker questions, especially regarding the relationship between fire and the chaos that predated even Te Vevutur's arrival.

Every flame casts shadows, but his cast doubt.

— Inscription in the ruins of the White Tower

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The transformation began subtly. Those close to Lavos noticed his light taking on strange qualities - not dimming exactly, but somehow hollow, as if it illuminated things that should have remained hidden. His experiments with divine essence grew bolder, concerning even Aejeon himself. Yet none dared directly challenge one of the four founding Air Eaters.
When Azmodonai the Archfiend became conscious once more in 5833, Lavos was the first to sense the ancient evil's stirring. While others saw only a threat, Lavos perceived opportunity. Through careful divination, he discovered that Azmodonai possessed knowledge of fire's primordial nature - secrets from before Te Vevutur's arrival that even Aejeon did not know.

The Archfiend offered no mere power, but understanding. And for one whose essence was revelation itself, that proved a far more seductive lure.

— Recovered fragment of Lavos's personal writings

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In 7669, Lavos made his fateful journey to Zandabalân, Azmodonai's seat of power. Their pact was sealed not with promises of power, but with forbidden knowledge that shook Lavos's very understanding of divine nature. He learned that fire was not merely an element to be controlled, but a primal force that predated the gods themselves. This revelation would eventually drive him to betray not just his siblings, but the very order of the cosmos.
The beginning of the Black Fire War in 7596 provided perfect cover for Lavos's growing ambitions. While others saw Aejeon and Malovatar's unleashing of the Black Fire as pure destruction, Lavos recognized it as an opportunity to reshape the fundamental nature of power. He used his position as an Air Eater to secretly study the Black Fire's properties, learning how it could be harnessed for transformation rather than mere destruction.

In the Black Fire he saw not an ending, but a metamorphosis - the potential to burn away the lies of divine order itself.

— Banned text from the Cult of the Hollow Flame.

His betrayal, when it came, was absolute. Rather than simply joining Malovatar's forces, Lavos systematically dismantled the defenses his fellow Air Eaters had established. He turned his light into a weapon that blinded rather than illuminated, using his intimate knowledge of their weaknesses to devastating effect. His murder of Anvirthiel, mother of his own sons, shocked even his new allies with its calculated brutality.
The war saw Lavos transcend his original nature entirely. Where once he had been the Lord of Light, he became master of a more insidious illumination - one that revealed the hollow core at the heart of divine power itself. His new magic could not only destroy, but fundamentally corrupt the essence of other gods, turning their own power against them.

His light no longer revealed truth - it unmade it.

— Account of a surviving divine witness

Following the Black Fire War, Lavos's fellow Fire Gods turned against him in 7730, recognizing the existential threat he posed. Yet even in defeat, he managed one final act of defiance - slaying two of his fellow Black Fire Generals before being imprisoned in the remote regions of the Core. His prison, guarded by the mindless Phaethons, became a place where reality itself grew thin.
In 7669, Lavos's influence resurged through his pact with Azmodonai, demonstrating that even imprisonment could not fully contain his corrupting power. This alliance would prove crucial in the Battle of Ruzanhelm, where their combined forces would test the very foundations of divine order.
The years between 12508 and 12568 marked Lavos's most ambitious play for power. During the War of Pandemonium, Azmodonai offered him lordship over Hell's Fifth Layer in exchange for his service. But true to form, Azmodonai's gift was a prison - Lavos found himself trapped within a glacier, his burning essence forever at war with the imprisoning ice.

Even bound in ice, his light burns. Not with illumination, but with the promise of unmaking.

— Warning carved outside the Frozen Prison

Today, Lavos remains trapped between ice and flame, his very existence a paradox that strains reality. Yet his influence continues to spread through whispered heresies and forbidden texts that suggest divinity itself is merely another illusion waiting to be burned away. His legacy serves as both warning and temptation to those who would question the fundamental nature of power itself.
The most dangerous aspect of Lavos's corruption wasn't that he fell from grace - it was that he revealed grace itself might be the greatest illusion of all. His story serves as a testament that even the highest and purest aspects of divinity contain seeds of their own unmaking.

His greatest victory was not corruption, but revelation. He showed us that corruption had been there all along, waiting to be illuminated.

— Final entry in the Chronicles of the White Tower

Even now, ages after his fall, devoted cults still gather in darkened rooms to whisper his name, seeking not power but the bitter enlightenment he promises - the illumination that burns away all certainties until only questioning remains. His light still burns in the deepest layer of his frozen prison, neither illuminating nor warming, but forever unmaking what was once believed absolute.

Parents

Te Vevutur