The Grand Duchy of Virelion stands as the eldest and most martial of the Houses, its roots entwined with the ancient flame that once crowned the kings of Vaelthar. Though the unified crown has long since fallen, the Dukes of Virelion still wear their lineage as a mantle of fire, claiming guardianship over both land and legacy. Here, nobility is not idle privilege but a burden of command, earned by steel, oath, and sacrifice. Each duchy within the realm bends to the Grand Duke, yet beneath his authority burns a rigid hierarchy of banners and vassals, each sworn to keep their blades sharp and their spirits tempered in loyalty.

The Duchy’s people live in the shadow of barracks and citadels, where the rhythm of their lives is measured by the clash of drills and the toll of the watch-bell. Farmers speak as proudly of their sons marching beneath crimson banners as of their harvests; artisans hammer armor with as much devotion as they shape plows. In Virelion, the state and the sword are inseparable, each citizen is bound, in some degree, to the defense of their House. On the battlefield, Virelion’s strength lies in its discipline and relentless will. Their armies advance not as scattered hosts but as a living phalanx of fire and iron. To face them is to face the certainty of attrition, lines that do not break, knights who do not falter, and a command structure that bends all action toward the singular will of the Grand Duke. Their flames are both weapon and banner, a declaration that their House still burns with the right to rule Vaelthar. Yet, beneath their grandeur lies a quiet weight. The Duchy is not untouched by the Aether’s mysteries, and rumors speak of fire that burns too brightly—of warriors consumed by the very element they wield. Still, the people of Virelion do not shrink from such whispers. To them, the flame is destiny: both crown and pyre. On the battlefield, the Grand Duchy embodies unyielding frontline control. Virelion units thrive in close combat, excelling at holding objectives and breaking enemy lines through sheer force and resilience. Abilities often reward discipline, formation fighting, and fiery retaliation, punishing those who dare strike against them. The Grand Duke’s authority extends across the battlefield, tightening command and ensuring that even in chaos, the banners of Virelion march as one.

“The flame is not ours to command, only ours to bear. In its light we march; in its fire we are tested.”

— Inscription at the gates of Veythar, capital of the Grand Duchy of Virelion

The Requiem of Flame

They say the shard came to us because we were already a nation of embers—iron-blooded, oath-bound, our banners glowing like forges at dusk. But I remember the hour it appeared too clearly to call it destiny. Destiny doesn’t make old men weep.

It was found deep in the White Forges beneath Veythar’s citadel, where the anvils are carved with prayers to kings no one names anymore. The crucible had gone cold, yet the ore inside refused to dim. When the master-smith cracked it open, something pulsed within—bright and living, like a heart trapped in iron. Soldiers came with shields, priests with incense, engineers with tongs too afraid to touch. We all felt it before we saw it: the heat moving through the stone, crawling up our legs, settling behind our eyes like a second sun.

The Grand Duke came down himself, soot still on his gloves. He didn’t need to ask for silence—the shard already commanded it. It didn’t sing in sound but in pressure, a promise you could feel in your teeth. When he knelt, the light climbed his palms like oil catching flame. I swear I saw the scars on his hands vanish. He didn’t cry out. He just breathed—and we all fell to our knees as if the world itself bowed with him.

That night, the Rite of Bearing began. We stood shoulder to shoulder on the forge terraces, armor polished to mirror the firelight, rifles stacked in ceremonial triangles. The shard lay on the anvil of Founding, glowing like a coal that dreamed. The dukes of other banners arrived—faces tight, ready for debate—but the heat silenced them. In Virelion, some decisions are not argued. They are endured.

I took the brand that night. They call it the Ember Vow—pressed above the heart with a sigil lit only by the shard’s glow, no flame. It didn’t burn skin at first. It burned memory. Every oath I’d ever sworn rose up like smoke; every promise I’d broken hissed like steel in water. I saw my sister’s face the day I told her I’d return before harvest. I hadn’t. The mark wrote that failure into me, forever. When the pain came, I thought: If this is the price to keep the dark from our doors, it isn’t enough.

We say discipline is mercy. We say order is prayer. Because the alternative is chaos—and we’ve seen it.

Three weeks later, the Aether came roaring down from the hills. They call it the sacking of Khar-Valis. We called it necessity. The city had left its gates open to refugees. Noble. Fatal. The Aether rode the crowd like a plague. Lanterns turned white, fountains boiled, and the air shimmered. We marched with triage tents, water carts, and the shard sealed in a mother-of-pearl reliquary—six men to carry it, twelve to die for it if the street narrowed.

At the eastern gate, the world broke.

A boy stood preaching atop a statue, barefoot, eyes fever-bright. He told the crowd to lay down their arms and be remade. And they did. They dropped rifles and knives and pride at his feet as if in a dream. The light pouring from him was the color of our shard—but thin, sickly, like fever fire. It climbed the prayer ribbons on the walls and burned away color, then texture, then stone.

“Saint,” someone whispered.

I aimed—and lowered my rifle. We do not shoot children. The Grand Duke stepped forward with the reliquary in his hands and spoke one word: “Kneel.”

The word struck like a hammer. The crowd froze. The boy looked at him as if seeing a father returned from war.

Then the shard woke.

Heat burst outward, turning fog to steam and dust to glitter. The boy’s false light faltered. He gasped—suddenly human—and the shard denied him. He fell weeping, not from pain but from loss. The crowd broke, ashamed. We put out what fire we could and sang the song for the nameless dead. The boy lived. He never spoke again.

They call us tyrants for that—for closing doors others would open, for cutting where others pray. But I have seen a woman breathe fire through her teeth because grief cracked the seals on her soul. I’ve seen men mistake rage for holiness. The shard doesn’t make us kind. It makes us honest.

That is the first cruelty of fire: it shows.

Don’t make heroes of us. Our saints are charred black. Our heroes wake shaking. We drill until our bones ache because the day we stop, the Aether will find us soft—and softness is how cities die. The shard does not let us forget. In dreams I still hear the hammer and anvil of Veythar. When I wake, the brand over my heart is warm. I check my rifle. I knot my sash. I whisper the vow:

Hold the line. Hold the light. Burn clean.

Once, a Seravellian envoy accused us of worshiping obedience. “What is a man without choice?” he asked. The Grand Duke replied, “Alive.” Then he ordered the envoy’s guards fed before they left. Later, I asked him if he ever wanted to set the shard down. He smiled the way scars do when it rains. “Every morning,” he said. “And then I remember the plaza.”

You’ll call this propaganda. Maybe it is. A soldier’s memory is a disciplined country. But I’ve stood where the ground still glows glass-black from the night the Crown broke. If you stare long enough, the reflection asks you one question—always the same:

What would you burn to save what you love?

We carry the burden of fire, and it burns us as it lights the way. Our path is not gentle, but it is steady—steadier than the storm, more merciful than the tide, truer than the shadow.

If a crown is ever forged again, it will not rest on one head. It will be hammered in the forges of a thousand refusals—the refusal to abandon, to mistake fury for justice, to let the world’s wound make saints of its monsters.

We will burn for that. We already are.

And when the order comes, when the line steps forward and the stone warms beneath my boots, I know the truth we all live by:

The flame was never ours to own—only ours to bear.