Feya opened her eyes on the veil of darkness above her head. She rose and yawned, blinking in the dimness. Shrugging off discouragement, she picked up her walking stick, and fumbled down the road once more.

Fifty days had passed since the sun stopped rising. No one knew what had happened, but one morning, it never appeared. No gentle rays softly pushed away the dark curtains of night. Nor had it returned in weeks. Each morning was as dark as midnight but there were no stars, and no moon. Great was the distress in the kingdom of Calrian, but Feya had taken little part in the ensuing panic.

As a child, her old grandmother recounted a story of the Great Giants in the North, Giants tall enough and strong enough that they even took a star from the heavens before they were banished to the World Underground.

After some time, when the light did not return, Feya decided to go in search of it. Everywhere she went, each town she traveled through, was ransacked with terror. People raced by, taking little notice of a complete stranger. Others slumped on chairs or on porches, staring blankly into the dark. Feya's heart stirred with pity. The further she went, the less panic there was. Silent hopelessness was fast filling her beloved kingdom, a land that once rang with joyful music.

On Feya went, in search of the end of the world, where the dark kingdom of the Giants' Underworld was said to hide.

Feya had long since lost her youthful agility and deftness, and so the trek to the World Beneath was undertaken primarily on horseback.

Farine was a strong mare, with a shiny chestnut brown coat, rented from the disturbingly despondent stablemaster from the town of Galeila at a heavy discount. She mounted the animal carefully, easing herself off her stick with the rusty inelegance of a baby swan, holstering the thing away atop her saddlebag. Farine took to her immediately, responding to her control with the light deference of an animal who had long sensed the world was ending and was glad to aid in its cessation.

As the pair trotted slowly down the winding mountains of Ae'ra, guided only by the trembling glow of Feya’s oil lamp, the air thickened around them. It became darker still, colder, stiller and began to smell of wet, metallic stone, as if the caverns themself were bleeding, mist clinging to Farine's coat like incense smoke. Farine’s hooves clopped softly against the stone, each step swallowed by the thickening dark. The lamp’s glow reached only a few paces ahead now, as though the air itself resisted the light. Shadows clung to the walls like damp moss.

The mountains of Ae’ra had always been steep, but now the world seemed to be folding inward, funneling her toward the depths. Feya felt it in her bones, a pressure like deep water. Even Farine’s ears twitched uneasily, though she made no sound.

A faint glimmer caught Feya’s eye. At first she thought it was a trick of the lamp, a reflection on wet stone, but as they descended further, more appeared: tiny points of pale light embedded in the cavern walls, stars that looked real enough to make her breath hitch. Each one was set into the rock with uncanny precision, as though plucked from the sky and hammered into the earth by a colossal hand. Her grandmother’s tale echoed in her mind:

Giants tall enough and strong enough that they could steal away thousands of stars from the heavens in one fistful…

Feya reached out, fingertips brushing one of the lights. It was smooth and cold, like polished bone. Farine snorted softly, shifting her weight.

“Easy, girl,” Feya murmured. “We’re only looking.”

But the cavern did not feel like a place that welcomed curiosity. The further they went, the more the star‑stones thickened, clustering like constellations torn apart and rearranged by a mind that,, at least, did not understand the sky, and at worst, did not care to. And beneath it all, a low hum began to rise.

The Underworld was waking.