My mind wandered to our history and how everything came to be.
And I started to tell Joshua everything.
----
Humans and Duskren weren't always two.
Once, they were the same... the same flesh, the same breath, the same species.
And they drew their strength from one source.
Aether.
They say Aether flowed through all living things, a pulse older than thought, older than the first word.
It was there before there was light or will, before the idea of life ever took shape.
It didn't demand worship.
It didn't care for balance.
It simply was.
And for a long time, we were part of it.
We could touch only a fraction of it though.
Aether was vast, infinite, but we were limited.
Like holding a sea in your palms.
And still, our ancestors could touch the world as easily as they touched their own skin.
They could bend the tides, calm the wind, command the stones.
They were not gods, not yet kings... just men who had forgotten where their limits were.
We used what we could, enough to shape, to move the world around us... but never enough to control it fully.
And then, something changed as nothing stays pure forever.
It never ends with thunder or fire, corruption begins softly, like rot beneath polished wood.
No one saw the change when it started.
No one ever does.
Somewhere, somehow, Aether faltered.
Its rhythm split, and its light dimmed just enough for a shadow to take root beneath it.
It developed a second current. This one wasn't pure.
It was unstable, darker, and stronger.
And in time, it was given a name.
Thren.
The reflection of Aether, but twisted, raw, unfiltered, and endless.
It was power without patience.
It was strength without restraint.
It let whoever used it reach deeper, connect stronger.
They could pull more power, shape more freely, bend the world faster than anyone who stayed with pure Aether. The power came without limits, and limits are what keep minds whole.
Some who felt its pull stepped toward it.
Others turned away.
And in that single choice, the world divided.
The more Thren someone used, the less human they became.
At first, it was subtle... eyes losing color, skin paling, emotions dulling.
Then, thoughts began to twist.
Soon, what remained were beings unrecognizable to what they once were.
They were Stronger, yes.
They were Sharper, yes.
But they were hollow as well.
They were the first Duskren.
The others, the ones who refused to touch Thren... became us.
Humans.
But even those who stepped away weren't untouched.
We were still connected to Aether and thus a part of Thren.
A trace of that corruption lingered, small and quiet, buried deep in our souls.
And from time to time, it woke.
Those people... the ones who changed, who began to hear voices or dream of places they had never seen.
They became hosts, vessels for the Duskren who reached back through the shared source.
That was when fear turned to desperation.
And desperation led to invention.
The Rite of Severance.
It was simple, in concept.
Cut the connection.
Break the link between the soul and the source before Thren could use it.
And it worked.
It stripped away the corruption, silenced the whispers, ended the possessions.
But it came with a cost... it cut everything.
Including Aether.
Humanity severed itself from the source entirely.
And we were left defenseless and helpless.
So with centuries of time and research, we found a way in something that was not exactly Aether anymore, but a reflection of it.
It wasn't as strong as Aether and it was certainly weaker, thinner, and slower than Thren.
But that was all we had.
That reflection became Heka.
Where Aether was the sea, Heka was the rain that fell from it.
Instead of humanity directly connecting to the Aether, we connected ourselves to Heka...which in turn ultimately connected to Aether.
It was a secondary usage and less powerful.
We could still use power... still shape, still create but through distance, through filters, through effort.
And that became our new normal.
A life free from corruption, but also free from the power that once defined us.
We were fourtune enough that when humanity was at it's weakest, so were Duskren.
We were powerless, and they... They were unstable, mad, insane. It gave us the time to stand up again.
Centuries passed.
The severance became tradition.
Tradition became law.
And in time, even law hardened into faith.
We forgot the importance of why it began.
We only remembered that it must never be undone.
But fear never leaves mankind for long.
As the Duskren grew. They learned, adapted, stabilized, and we began to feel small again.
We had purity, but they had strength.
And that was enough to start a different kind of corruption.
Insecurity and fear.
They in turn led to one of the biggest sin of humanity... Greed.
Greed that led to questions, and to the source we once had.
If cutting the source had saved us… what might reconnecting it do?
Could we open the bond again... take the power of Aether, and still keep the corruption sealed?
That thought gave birth to a new age.
The Rite of Severance: Synthesis and Binding.
The idea was simple.
It was to reopen the bond, but bind the corruption before it spreads.
To wake what was dormant and control it, rather than destroy it.
To make humanity whole again, and stronger than ever before.
In theory, it was perfect.
In practice, it was carnage.
Thousands died in the first attempts.
The connection burned through them, or drove them mad.
Bodies twisted.
Minds collapsed.
It took centuries before one survived.
King Aurelian Valroth, the first man in an age to wield Aether again without breaking.
He ended a war, and united nations.
That man was a god for everyone else.
He was the definition of power itself.
But the experiment wasn't purely succesful.
The binding failed.
And the king started to go mad as well.
But before it could devour him, before it could take his soul.
He chose to end his own life, and die as human.
Even after that, men kept trying.
Each war, another experiment.
Each success... another loss soon after.
We one each war, and we perfected the method more.
It was as if humanity was on a way to power and success.
Until three hundred years ago.
One king didn't die.
He turned.
The corruption took him fully, and for the first time, a Duskren led the humans.
But not to victory, but almost to their room.
That war nearly ended everything.
The king was unstable, and yet it took a lot to kill him.
But we did and we won, if you can call it that.
Barely.
The Rite was pronounced forbidden to use, yet the work was still going on.
Because one day, we might have to use it again.
In another war.
A war, that's yet to come.
They improved it over time.. smaller doses, tighter bindings, cleaner results.
And they found one truth that frightened everyone, and one that challenged the morality of the realm.
They found that the younger the vessel, the cleaner the bond, that is Infants or new borns.
The implications were clear.
For the success rate to increase, children were to be dragged in danger.
That's why they also started calling it the Rite of Gamble.
Because every time it's done, no one really knows what they're betting on.
Power or ruin.