The Marital Wars and the House of Gwyndael

Lumeris is ruled by a High Queen and a King-Consort, who is little more than a figurehead. From the silver starlit palace of Gwyndael, the High Queen disperses her orders, and her supposed husband is but one of her many courtiers. Yet it was not always so.
Long ago, Queen Gwyn and King Tigraean ruled from the golden, floating city of Lan Meridia, in the heart of the lake-filled realm of Lumeria. They ruled for three centuries, and they were loved by the people. Gwyn was an ethereal beauty, a fey, white haired being who was said to possess the powers of the stars themselves, her eyes black orbs with pupils of blue radiance. Tigraean was a golden haired, headstrong warrior, beloved of animals, his lion steed never far from his side. Yet for all their success, all their happiness, they could not produce an heir.
Tigraean was despondent, but his heart was full of resolve. He left on a quest to discover the secret to weaving life from magic, and departed for the west. For many years he searched, until he came across a shard of amber, a wisp of smoke trapped within. It sang to him of creation, of weaving the strands of spirits into new life, and of the glorious heights his child would achieve. He returned, his quest seemingly fruitless, for he told none of what he found. Yet for many a night he whispered to Gwyn in her sleep, planting a magic seed within her.
She grew with child, and the whole realm rejoiced at last. Yet with each passing month Gwyn became frailer, as if her life force itself was being drained. She seemed to be wasting away, even as the life within her grew ever greater. Tigraean was worried, but in his heart believed that even the death of his Queen was a fair price for an heir, for long had he waited fruitlessly for a child. A gulf began to grow between them as the strain of the pregnancy took its toll.
Gwyn was not of the same mind. In secret, she consulted arcanists, who after long weeks resolved to scry within her. Inside, they found a being of shadow, an eldritch creature feeding off of her very soul. Gwyn knew instantly of her husband's betrayal. Tearing the creature out of her, she purged it with pure starlight. She roamed the halls of the sky palace, searching for Tigraean. Yet as she approached the doors of his chambers, assassins fell on her; Tigraean had known what she found within her. She narrowly escaped with her life, spirited away in a cloud of starlight even as she bleed from a dozen shallow wounds.
Escaping to the tangled forest of Arkilon, Gwyn turned to raising an army and half the realm rose with her. In a devastating, 10 year long war, the high elf realm was nearly torn asunder. In the end, Tigraean's golden ranks fell to darkness, raising creatures of shadow and hate to replace their fallen. But it was still not enough.
In the siege of Lan Meridia, in the waning years of the war, Gwyn and her High Magisters called shards of pure starlight from the heavens, smiting the former royal capital from the sky. Tigraean and the last of his court fell cursing the heavens, drowned as the floating city sank into the lakes below. The cataclysmic battle turned the former heartland of Lumeria into a swampy, magic-saturated wasteland.
In the years that followed the Marital War, the Order of the Mirrors was established. A new capital was constructed at Gwyndael, on a starlit lake. At the behest of her High Magisters, she took a husband again, but under conditions most severe: the two would never meet in private, he would live in Theron, and he would remain her puppet ruler. Yet her dynasty continued. For in the aftermath of the war, it is said that the stars took pity on lonely Gwyn, and blessed her with a child of the stars: Gael, the second of the House of Gwyn; the second High Queen. Thus have the Mirrored Courts and the House of Gwyn ruled Lumeris ever since.