Valara

"There is a veil in every soul. Lift it gently, child." A voice, a dream... Beneath an eclipsed moon, as the sky glowed with violet flame and the stars seemed to turn their gaze away, a child was born at the heart of Elyndris. Her parents—noble, distant, and ever watchful—never spoke of the blood that ran through their veins. They named her only in hushed tones, as if the syllables themselves might awaken something they could not contain: Valara. They raised her in the old ways of the fae, polished her for court, and cloaked her in veils of grace and discipline. Yet in their eyes always lingered a flicker of fear, for whispers followed her like a second shadow—rumors of an ancient line long buried in shame, of a cursed union, of a forgotten knight who traded life for death and bludgeoned his name into legend. Still, the child carved her own legacy. While other fae studied arcane arts or sculpted moonlight into song, she strayed to the wild edges of Elyndris, where the city's enchanted veil thinned and spirits stirred. There, in the dawn of her twelfth year, she found it: a wounded winged steed of alabaster, thrashing in pain and panic. Where other fae would have recoiled—bound by their pride, their untouchable grace, their unease with the mortal scent of blood—she knelt. Something inside her pulsed in rhythm with the creature's pain. It was not mastery she offered, but empathy. And in that moment, the beast stilled. From then on, they were inseparable. Rider and mount. Heart and wing. In the years that followed, across many a battlefield, she became a whisper in the chaos, a streak of silver light dancing on the hills. With spear in hand, she moved like wildfire. Yet it was what came after—the silence—that earned her title. She did not simply kill. She consoled. As enemy soldiers gasped their final breaths, it was her presence they clung to. She became known as the Soul's Guide—not just a warrior, but a shepherd of the dead, one who ferried the fading gently into the veil. Among the fae, death was a distant thing, cloaked in myth and ceremony. But Valara seemed to know it well, as if it knew her in turn. Seers whispered that her spirit was old—older than most could understand. That she walked in dreams not her own, that she wept in her dreams for faces she had never known. Despite her personal victories, her past remained haunted, her lineage a tapestry with threads deliberately severed. When rumors of a dark rider reached Elyndris, the elders dismissed them as old fears reborn, but she could feel the shift beneath her bones. She saw flames in her dreams and a voice calling her by name—not with hostility, but perhaps something far more chilling: Recognition. Now, as the skies darken and Elyndris braces for war, Valara is one of the few souls who still believes the city can be saved. She does not know who the dark rider is, nor why he haunts her dreams. She only knows this: when the end comes, she must stand before it—and she will face it—whatever it may cost.