"You are not like the boys in Solthera," Draeven would hiss as his sons bled on the training mats. "You were born for the Abyss. You were born to take what was stolen from me."
He nurtured a hatred in their hearts that was as deep as the Shadowed Abyss itself. Malakor, the elder, was a mirror of his father's fury—a hammer designed to crush gates. Vane, the younger, was a master of the shadows he inherited from his mother—a dagger designed to find the cracks in armor.
While Draeven focused on his sons, he was also weaving a web of much subtler threads. He used "Xeraphyn Shadows"—elite spies—to slip through the wards of Solthera.
"Find the crack in Aetheron's armor," Draeven commanded his wraiths. "Find the thing he hides even from his closest friend."
Deep in the library of Zhalver, Queen Elara—now known as the StoneQueen—began to find her own ways of resisting. Using her Xeraphyn blood, she listened to the whispers of the returning spies. She heard a name mentioned in hushed, confused tones: Vaelora.
The spies spoke of a girl in Solthera who looked nothing like her supposed father, Lord Kaelor, but bore a haunting resemblance to the late Queen Lysara.
Elara's heart felt a sharp pang of recognition. She realized that Aetheron had done the unthinkable—he had traded a life to save a throne. This was the secret Draeven was looking for. But Elara kept this knowledge buried deep. She would not give Draeven the satisfaction of this victory.
The shadow of Zhalver had grown long enough to touch the heart of the world, and the first blow was about to be struck—not with a sword, but with a whisper.