Illyria Sunborn

Cradle Of Infernal Ashes

No one ever saw who left the child, only the ash-laden wind curling through the crags of the Twilight Veil Mountains, and the swaddled bundle placed atop the soot-dusted steps of the Enclave of the New Dawn. The mountain range, a spine of ancient stone, stood sentinel over two extremes: the blinding Sunweaver Wastes, where sunlight punished the sand, and the cursed Embercore Expanse, a land of volcanic rage and whispering dark.
The child, quiet, warm and untouched by ash or heat. Should not have survived there. And yet, she breathed. Mother Superior D’orya, weathered and wise, found her wrapped in fabric embroidered with runes no one could read. She looked east, toward the smoldering horizon where the volcanoes wept rivers of fire, and cradled the child with care. Whatever she was… she was meant to be found. They named her Illyria, and the monastery raised her on mantras of balance, discipline, and devotion.

Her days were filled with sparring under sun-filtered stone, quiet meditation, and the rhythm of temple bells echoing across the mountains. But Illyria never felt entirely at peace. At night, when silence fell over the monastery and ash drifted like snow across the rooftops, she would sit by the eastern overlook and watch the red glow of the Embercore. From deep within the volcanic chasms, she heard it, a voice, ancient and low, crooning lullabies in a language her ears didn’t know but her blood remembered. It whispered tales of fire and forgotten pacts, sweet promises shaped like love but forged in darkness. And always, it called her "daughter."
Among the few who truly saw her was Janka, a stern but patient monk who taught Illyria the art of battle fluid movement, balance of force and flow, and led her into the monastery’s oldest, dust-veiled chambers. There, they lit candles no longer blessed and performed rites that felt like breathing to Illyria. She learned of forgotten gods, of primal forces sealed away beneath layers of doctrine. But after one such rite, Janka grew silent, disturbed. Soon after, she was sent beyond the mountains on a pilgrimage to the Embercore’s edge and never returned. In the wake of Janka’s absence, the elders forbade all unsanctioned practices. The old rituals were “errors of memory,” they said. Illyria was forced to forget. Or at least, she thinks....
So she left. Not out of anger, nor banishment, but with a quiet certainty. The world beyond the Twilight Veil whispered in the same tongue as the voice from the Embercore. She took odd work. Guarding caravans, soothing tensions between tribes and towns but never stayed long. Beneath her composure lived something untamed. People saw her as calm, thoughtful, graceful. Few noticed how she stared into fires too long, or how her eyes flicked eastward at dusk, as if expecting someone. She never spoke of her father, but she heard him still.
Now, as distant powers stir and shadows creep where once there was only sun, Illyria feels the voice growing louder. The volcanoes crackle with familiar warmth. Old rituals rise unbidden in her dreams. And within her heart, long pressed beneath vows and silence, a flame coils, divine, infernal, and waiting to be claimed.