Liora didn’t sleep.

  It was a city of eighteen years old. In the time before the Reshaping, many would’ve said it was in the last throes of adolescence, still clinging to the aspirations and ambition of youth. Those who hadn’t yet learned how hope can be quenched.

  It was fitting, then, that only a few months before its nineteenth birthday, it would have to be rebuilt. For Liora wasn’t a thing of stone and wood. It was a city of ideas.

  The ideas of its Founders, who designed a government with loosely held checks and balances. The ideas of its people, who eked out pleasant lives in the spaces between fear, fire, and a world turned hostile.

  It was enough that most of its people still lived. Tears were shed, levels were gained above and beyond expectation, and titles were discovered. As the wreckage and detritus were cleared, new paths opened in such abundance as to stagger the knowledgeable and knowing. Though the buildings fell, those who survived rose to new heights of power.

  As for the boy-king, who by many accounts had saved them, he vanished. A few spoke of strangers in the night, placing him in a cart drawn by oddly haltered animals.

  In the days and months to follow, rumors grew as rumors were known to do. Some would swear that he lifted in the air, just like the golden words that had appeared in the sky, carried to the next place that needed him. A few began to whisper that he would return when Liora needed them the most; a silent guardian watching over the darkest nights still to come.

  Only one of those accounts was entirely accurate. And yet, all of them were, in a way.

  Cassio Vale, the QuestWright who wrote in the sky. The boy who, two months into his Calling, was thrust into saving his city, his friends, and his family. Cassio Vale, who led an army of monsters on a desperate charge through the city, drawing death away from the defenseless.

  Pieces of crushed and stampeded bodies were found all over Liora. Anywhere that the invading creatures touched left a trail that one didn’t need a Calling to track. The audacity of what Cass had done left many breathless to consider, spoken of in hushed and reverent tones.

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  Children soon ran through the streets wearing brown cloaks and eyepatches, horse-like toys strapped to their legs. Others chased them, as a new game was created only a day after the carnage. Some called it the Hero’s charge. Others, One-Eye’s Run. But among the adults, it had only one name: The Guildmaster’s Gallop.

  Of the Dark Guilds and their members, no sight was seen. A headcount was started and then given up in quick order. It was unknown how many had died, disappeared, or never really been a Lioran all along. With the death of the monstrous horde, so too came the disappearance of the outside threat that had plagued the city and its people for those many weeks.

  The damage and loss were unforgettable. The invaders, unforgiven. They knew they would heal and rebuild as they must. But they also knew, if there were ever a chance to give those same Dark Guilds a thorough piece of revenge, there would be no hesitation.

  As dawn touched the broken city, the Company men and women from the Red Tower began to trickle in. Their journey had been no less grueling. Many sobs of joy and sorrow were had as their plight wasn’t one to be forgotten, either.

  They’d fought what seemed an unending battle as the largest monsters in the region had attacked with great ferocity. Many of the company’s highest-tier fighters had died in the tower’s defense. Many more bore scars that would take long to recover.

  But still, they had prevailed.

  And as Cassandra Vale, mother of the missing Guild Master, learned of her son’s courage and disappearance, a city-wide search began. Though vanished from the city he saved, he left behind not a statue, or relic, or monument. Only a legacy.

  Of his linked partner, no body was found. Of his valiant steed, the same. And as the search slowed, the disappearance was reflected upon and accepted, many questioned what the boy-king’s Calling truly was.

  What is a QuestWright?

  A designer of Quests? A living font of experience? A Leader? A hero?

  They did not know. They only knew this: on the darkest day in Liora’s history since it first stood up after the Reshaping, one boy had stood tall.

  And it had mattered.

  In a cart moving far too fast away from those he loved, an almost-man slept.

  He did not dream, but the world dreamed of him. And though he had left the city, Liora would never leave him.

  The legend of Cassio Vale had begun.

  End of Book 1