Ilara

From early dawn on the following day, the two brothers began to dig the foundation of a tower meant to elevate them to heights lit by a supernatural glow. As days passed, the tower took shape, rising higher and higher until its shadow began to slice away at the day, extending the lingering night over the land. And from that height, Solé appeared closer to both brothers than ever before.

Antar, under Prior’s urging and driven by his own youthful desire to accomplish great deeds, immersed himself in the building with a fervor he had never known. His hands transformed stone and stardust into massive blocks, stacking one atop the other until it seemed the very heavens would be swallowed by the peak of this monumental structure. Eta, who distanced herself from the frenzy of construction, stood in the valley below, observing how the world around her gradually changed.

The towering structure, however magnificent, cast an ever-darkening shadow, and Eta noticed her animals, flowers, and trees retreating before Ilara’s immense presence. Where once forests thrived, now lay twisted, dried thickets, and animals that had once roamed joyfully in the meadows and basked in the sun now slinked into hiding places and burrows. They cloaked themselves in reptilian forms and bloated vermin, quenching their thirst for light with blood. Even the waters, once clear and freely flowing, grew murky as though they’d lost their magic, turning foul, with vapors tainting the once-sweet air.

Eta now understood that the tower was an unnatural creation, and its existence had disrupted the balance they had painstakingly carved from the void and dust. Solé, once a source of life, seemed distant, its warmth diminished, as its light was now blocked by the unsightly structure her brothers had built. She increasingly sensed that Prior’s lust for power would lead to their ruin.

She approached Antar one day as he was absorbed in his work. "Brother, the tower is now towering too high. Don’t you see how the world beneath it withers? How what we dreamed of fades away? Are you willing to sacrifice everything just to obtain something that cannot be grasped by your hands?"

But Antar did not hear her, for Prior had set powerful winds around his ears, whisking away each of her words to distant lands. Instead, it was the second brother who responded to her. "Eta, go down. You do not understand matters that exceed your power. If your realm withers, save it, instead of crying over spoiled milk. Ilara will stand as our legacy, the pinnacle of creation, and it will carry the steps to even greater things that neither you nor I can yet conceive, for they do not exist. Just go down. Go! Do not delay us from our work."

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Eta felt that words would be of no use. Prior's obsession struck her like a blade, wounding her deeply, for despite everything, she still held love for her brothers in her heart. But Prior paid her no further heed, his mind wholly consumed by the blinding white light as he ascended to the summit, where absolute power awaited him. His gaze upward burned away any doubts, and in his soul, he began weaving plans to seize Solé’s light and claim its radiance for himself. Only he, he believed, could govern chaos and step out of Arcana’s cradle to continue his work under Sagit's cloak, in his name. And even if some semblance of order remained in the world, it would be neither Antar’s nor Eta’s harmony, but his own law—the law of chaos.

When the tower Ilara reached its fateful height, and Solé seemed almost within grasp, Prior came to Antar and said, "Brother, the tower is beginning to grow thin, and I fear it will soon bear only one of us." Antar’s face, looking up at his brother, shone in Solé’s radiance like a pure crystal. "Do not fear, brother; I have built a strong tower!" Antar replied. "Look at what we have achieved! We have reached the heavens!" Prior, grinding his teeth as he knew he would have to rid himself of his brother, extended his hand and said, "Then give me your hand, dear brother, so that I may lift you to Solé. Reach out to it and take it from the skies."

The moment Antar’s hand rested in Prior’s, Prior betrayed him without hesitation, casting him down from the tower, and Antar fell into the depths, betrayed by his own brother. Eta saw everything, and so she sent her dragons to aid Antar. Along with them flew all the birds, who caught his falling body. The dragons then attacked the tower, and it began to crumble under their flames. Prior, a mere moment away from realizing his goal, slipped from its peak and clung to a falling wall of the tower. Catastrophe struck; debris rained from the skies, embedding themselves in the grassy plains below. The ground trembled and thundered, heralding an awful storm. And when Ilara came crashing down, it fractured the land of Írisië, and the earth bled with molten lava. Thus were born three continents; Eta departed with her dragons on one of them, while Prior, buried under the tower, fell into the tumultuous waters and remained forever imprisoned beneath the second landmass. And the last of them, Antar, lay alone and wounded among the rubble.

Thus ended, for an age, the era of shared building; the wanderers parted ways, and the world remained afflicted.