The Birth of the Dark Kings
Over a thousand years ago, the world consisted of only humans and Affinites, and they lived in harmony side by side. Then, one thousand years ago, there was a blood moon on the same night as a winter solstice. A Blood Solstice only comes around every five hundred years and releases an incredible amount of Dark energy.
The night of the Blood Solstice, seven Affinite brothers decided to take the Dark energy for themselves. Their souls were ripped apart as they did so, making them immortal. But they became susceptible to dangerously high forces of greed, lust and anger. They called themselves the seven Higher Kings, and took over the world with their Dark Magic.
The seven Kings spread out over the world, each taking over one continent. Affinites drawn to the allure of their Dark Magic had their souls corrupted just like the Kings, and became Dark Disciples. They had no magic, but still had control over their affinity. And they served a King.
For five hundred years the Kings ruled the world. Humans were taken as slaved and Affinites were hunted for sport. There was no light, only darkness and destruction. Affinites had to go into hiding; living deep in the mountains and forests to remain undetected. Scattered across the world, the Affinites stood no chance against the Kings’ mighty rule.
The Birth of the Queen
For five hundred years the Kings destroyed everything that was good and pure in the world. But it wasn’t enough for them. When the Blood Solstice came around again, they wanted more. But there was one girl who wanted it all to end. Her name was Aiyana.
Aiyana was a gardener like her grandmother. She loved nature and would never hurt a fly. Seen as the black sheep of her family, Aiyana wasn’t a fighter like her parents and her brother and sisters. When she was eighteen, she lost her father to a Disciple. She couldn’t save him when her village on the shores of Denmark was attacked.
There was a ship on the coastline, ready to take any Affinite still alive to find a land that was safe. Aiyana boarded that ship and brought along her favourite flowers that she and her grandmother used to pick along the Danish shore when she was a child: sea asters.
On the ship, Aiyana held those flowers as she prayed to the stars. She prayed for someone to hear her, to one day put an end to the Darkness and make a place of true safety so she could bring light back to the world again. The answer came in a storm. The ship capsized, and Aiyana drowned.
Legend said that after the ship had sunk beneath the crashing waves, the sky filled with brightness, and lightning shot out of the sky and hit Aiyana where she drifted lifelessly in the water. And from underneath her, the ground started to rise, and it brought her up to the surface.
Aiyana took a breath, and was born again. Not as human, but as something greater. Both her arms were covered in black swirling lines and images from her wrists all the way to her elbows. The marks on her skin represented the magic that now coursed through her veins.
Aiyana possessed magic so strong that she grew the land that raised her up. She made it larger, had one side be a towering cliff face, and covered the entire north quarter with a thick forest of pine trees. She covered most of the rest of the flat, grassy land with her favourite flowers, and spelled them to bloom no matter what the season. She cast a spell to make sure no Darkness could ever see or find it. And she called it Salutana.
Aiyana’s magic was colossal. She could talk to animals and turn into them, and use their strengths. She was superhumanly strong and fast. She could heal the wounded with the touch of her hand. She could stop herself from feeling pain if she got an injury so she could keep fighting and she could heal herself if her injuries got too severe. And she could control the earth’s nature around her. She could create holes in the ground that swallowed up her enemies. She could command trees and roots and vines to trap her opponents. And she was incredibly smart; she understood everything and could communicate with every Affinite, no matter where they came from or what language they spoke.
Aiyana used all the magic she had to bring the thousands of surviving Affinites in the world to this one island. From each corner of the world, of all religions and cultures, the Affinites came together. On Salutana they were safe. And once they were settled on the island, they all started training to form an army capable of challenging the Kings, led by Aiyana herself; the Affinites’ saviour and hero and first ever Queen.
But as trainings continued, and Aiyana ventured into the world to get information on the Kings, she knew that if an open battled war would break out, her magic would be too concentrated to win. It was incredible magic, but it would need to be spread out over the lines of her army to be the most affective.
The Birth of the Asters
Aiyana went to a secluded field of asters, and cast one great spell. She split her magic, creating six different ones: Health and Knowledge, Speed and Flight, Strength, Nature, Endurance, and Analgesia. The black marks on her arms started to disappear, until there was nothing left on her left arm, and only a single bracelet around her right wrist and a Mark that grew from it onto the back of her right hand remained. The Mark showed the image of a wolf howling at the moon; representing the magic of Fauna, the greatest of all powers, which Aiyana kept herself.
Six Affinites, each from a different continent, were granted one of the six unique forms of magic. They were named after the Queen’s favourite flower, and became the Asters.
The Birth of a New Era
Over the next few months, the Queen and the Asters and the Affinites fought side by side. There were losses and there were wins. There were deaths, great and small. Kings could never go extinct, but they could be killed, and their successor could be, too, before he would become too powerful.
For years the Original War raged over the earth. Good Magic swept over the continents, sending Disciples down into the newly created Underworld, while the Surface of the earth was taken back by Affinites and humans alike.
At the end of it all, only two Kings remained. But they, too, had retreated down into the depths of the earth, vowing to one day bring the Surface back to its former glory. But Aiyana vowed they never would. Even though her own didn’t, Aster magic would live on. Affinites all over the world would stay in contact with each other, and every future generation of Asters would shut down an uprising before it could even become one.
A new era had arrived, with Aiyana at the helm.
And even though she didn’t rule for long after she had ensured peace across the earth, and died tragically when her own two Affinite children were no older than seven and five, every choice made since, every battle fought since, every sacrifice since, was made in her name.
In the name of the first and only ever Queen of the Affinites, the Wolf, the Bhediya, and the Mother of Asters.