Crownstone, the capital city of Drakara, was built on top of a massive flat granite formation, three miles wide and two long. The rock, once known as Svarga Zikhara by the native people of Janua, had been a lone mountain on the plains of the land that would come to be the Kingdom of Drakara. This was, in fact, the mountain that Athurious had mentioned to Willow that had been “split in two” by his ancestor. That was Atrius Pendra, and it had been more of a ‘chopped in two’, as the mountain had been deemed the perfect place to build the foundation of the new kingdom. Atrius cleaved the top of the mountain off, carved out the sections that would come to become the city districts, and the cutaway rock was turned into the stones that built the castle at the top of the Royal Highlands.

Of course, the native peoples of Janua took great offense to this desecration of a sacred landmark, and attacked the Drakaran’s in retaliation. Sadly, the Unawakened had no chance against the power of the Druids and Atrius, failing to fell even a single Awakened warrior. Not long after this did some of the kingdom set out to capture and enslave the natives. Many of the tribes refused to surrender and were completely wiped out. Some saw sense and bent the knee to the foreign warriors, such as the Kerach Tribe of the north. Those who surrendered were collared and brought back to Scarga Zikhara and made to help build a city from its remains.

The first building completed on the Royal Highlands was not the castle; but instead a simple barracks with four stone towers standing at each corner. This barracks became the foundation of the army, where the first new Awakened on Janua were trained. As the years passed into centuries, the small barracks became dwarfed by the Royal Knights Academy that was built onto its Eastern wall. And while the barracks was all but obsolete, it still served as a residence for teachers and soldiers who wished to live there.

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In the South-Western tower, sitting at a desk of oak covered in parchments was the current headmaster of the Academy, Calder Henwick. The room was silent aside from the scratch of his quill against the parchment in front of him, writing out the words that he had written so many times throughout the years. Every time he had to write these words, he prayed it would be the last, but he always knew it would never be. Death was part of life, and those who chose to stand against the evils of this world were always going to meet death sooner than the rest.

Once, he had taken the time to get to know every new student that entered the halls of the academy. Know their names, their faces, their hopes, dreams and ambitions. And when they died, he would write out a letter to their family expressing his true despair and regret at their passing. But that was decades ago. Now, after losing hundreds of students, he just couldn’t do it anymore. He could not look them in the eyes; could not take the time to get to know them as people. He could not write a true letter of remorse to their loved ones. It was all just too painful, and it had killed a part of him. Now he just wrote the same letter, the same words; the only difference between them being the names of the fallen.