Sir Aelisha Enimdere Silver Braids was raised knowing she belonged to something old and quietly powerful. She was never quite told how or, more importantly, why. The town of Enimdere, nestled among the southern vineyards of Gildensong, is genteel and not grand. Sun-warmed stone, trellised grapes, and old-money manners shape daily life. The massive, six-story tower called Saelgard dominates the skyline. Fayholds lie just beyond the cultivated hills, and they are commonly known, respected, and politely not discussed. Fey magic is not feared here; it is bargained with, toasted to, and quietly blamed when children dream too vividly.
Aelisha grew up in her father’s keep, Mistleoak Manor, and was educated by tutors who stressed chivalry without bombast, swordplay without cruelty, and history with carefully edited genealogies. Her father, Aiden Enimdere, is an unmarried lord at Castle Edderoth’s court. He is known as a deeply private and probably the richest man in Gildensong. He has never taken a wife. No scandal has ever quite stuck to him, which in a court as sharp-eyed as Edderoth’s is its own kind of miracle.
Aelisha was trained as a knight not because she was expected to inherit land, but because she was expected to walk the world. Knights in Gildensong often serve as diplomats, wardens of faybound borders, and living symbols of harmony between mortal wealth and fey whimsy. Aelisha’s temperament is measured, observant, and unusually resistant to glamour, all of which marked her early as suited to this role. What Aelisha does not know (at least at first) is that she was shaped not merely for service, but for something like containment of a power much greater than she could understand.
To Aelisha, Sir Paulnes, the acorn knight was never a legend. He was the man who smelled of woodsmoke and old leather. The man who sharpened blades before breakfast and then doggedly sharpened his opinions after. The man who taught her that a sword was not a symbol, but a tool of responsibility. Sir Paulnes came to Enimdere long before Aelisha could walk, carrying a dented shield etched with an oak-and-acorn device few still recognized. Once a knight of renown along the Silverymoon marches, he had survived three wars, two broken vows (not his own), and one love he never spoke of. When he bought the Silver Oak Inn, many assumed he was retiring. He was not. He was standing watch.
Paulnes trained Aelisha not like a prodigy and not like a noble’s daughter, but like a knight who might one day be alone, wounded, and outnumbered. Her lessons began behind the inn at dawn, dew soaking her boots as he barked corrections through clenched teeth and a crooked grin. He taught her footwork by making her fight uphill. He taught her mercy by telling her why he no longer raised his shield for kings. He did not praise easily. When he did, it was quiet: “That one would’ve lived.” That was the compliment. Paulnes never taught her to fight for honor as an abstraction. He taught her to fight for space; space to retreat, to negotiate, to choose differently next time. Against knights, bandits, and once (briefly, disastrously) a fey duel where he drank through the aftermath and forbade her from asking questions.
The Silver Oak Inn became Aelisha’s second home. Its common room was where she learned to read people faster than she could read scrolls. Merchants, hedge-mages, vineyard guards, fey envoys with disguises that fooled no one—all passed beneath the Silver Oak’s beams. Paulnes insisted she serve tables when she stayed. “Knights who don’t carry plates forget how much a spill costs.” The Silver Oak was a sanctuary where arguments ended peacefully more often than elsewhere, because Paulnes had a way of settling disputes with a look that suggested he had already buried better men.
Aelisha never called him father. But when she was hurt, she went to Paulnes before Aiden. When she doubted herself, she sought the silence of the acorn knight, and not her father’s reassurance. When she took her vows, Paulnes stood in the back, arms folded, eyes wet, saying nothing. He never asked where she truly came from. He never commented on how certain enchantments slid off her skin, or how, in fay-magic, some songs seemed to recognize her. Once—only once—he said: “You’ve got a long road ahead. Longer than most. Don’t let anyone tell you that makes you chosen.” That night, he gave her his shield—not the oak-and-acorn one, but a plainer thing. Iron. Scarred. Honest.
Sir Aekelin, the olive knightis spoken of in Silverymoon records as a member of the Argent legion during the Witchlight wars. Elves remember longer than humans, but they also learn what not to remember. The Silverhand line, as publicly told, descends through Alustriel and her sisters. But there was once a lesser-known branch, born generations earlier, when the family still walked the boundary between the Feywild and the mortal Realms. That branch traces back to Elanwe Silverhand, a great-aunt or grand-aunt several generations removed. She refused the consolidations of power that would later define Silverymoon. She took vows not to rule cities, but to tend to be a fayhold ritualist: tending places where Feywild and mortal lands bled into one another. Her descendants became wardens, listeners, watchers.
Sir Aekelin descends from this line. By blood, he is a distant cousin to Lady Vivianna, lord queen of Eddertoth, and close enough that old magic stirs at their meeting, distant enough that politics cannot easily claim him. Vivianna knows the connection. She does not speak of it publicly. It allows her to trust him without binding him. Near the Silver Oak Inn, a gentle but watchful fayhold, unreachable without knowing when to step sideways, lies, named Olivenreach. Olivenreach is not wild in the way outsiders expect. It is terraced and quiet, shaped by centuries of careful tending. Pale-leaved olive trees grow there, their fruit silver-green and faintly luminescent at dusk. The air smells of crushed leaves and rain that hasn’t fallen yet. Stone paths wander but never lose themselves. Time moves mostly correctly in Olivenreach. It exists because Gildensong needed a pressure valve: a place where Feywild influence could be contained. The vineyards thrive in part because Olivenreach drinks what would otherwise spill into mortal fields as madness or ruinous abundance.
Sir Aekelin is the Olive Knight, sworn to Vivianna and stationed in Olivenreach as its living covenant. His duties are threefold: balance, containment, and witness. He negotiates disputes between fey courts, local fayholds, and mortal interests—he martially defends the mortal world from some things that wander out of the Feywild, and He records nothing. His role is to remember. When ancient agreements resurface, or when bloodlines awaken, he is the one meant to recognize the moment. He visits the Silver Oak Inn rarely, but intentionally. Paulnes tolerates him. That alone is endorsement enough. Sir Aekelin watches Aelisha the way one watches a long-foretold storm. He has never trained her directly; he offers calm corrections in passing, warnings phrased as folklore, and the occasional look of unmistakable relief when she survives another danger. He addresses her as “Ser Enimdere,” formally—yet sometimes, when magic is thick, he almost says something else.
Sir Kaeshaer, the Silver Leaf, is everything Sir Aekelin is not. Where the Olive Knight, Kaeshaer’s older brother, is restrained and patient, Kaeshaer is quick, decisive, and brutally honest. He laughs easily, kills efficiently, and sleeps poorly. He is younger by decades, but worlds older in the ways that matter to violence. To most, he is simply a Bladesinger of Silverymoon. To Aelisha, he is the one person who never pretends the world can be gentle.
Kaeshaer did not learn Bladesong in Silverymoon’s academies. He learned it in the Umbral Canopy, a violent Feywild demesne that lies below Olivenreach. In the Umbral Canopy, leaves never fall because they are cut from the branch mid-motion, and music is learned by surviving it. The Umbral Canopy was once a training ground for elven warriors meant to fight other elves. Not enemies of the People, but those who broke ancient law, violated treaties, or threatened the balance between Feywild and mortal realms.
Sir Aekelin took Kaeshaer there when he was still young—too young, perhaps—because the boy already had rage in him, and rage without structure becomes catastrophe. In the Umbral Canopy, Bladesong is not art. It is containment. Kaeshaer learned magic in duels fought until exhaustion blurred reality, songs that tore at memory as much as muscle, and from instructors who believed mercy was a flaw. He survived by learning to strike first and completely. That is why his Bladesong is harsher than most—angular, fast, and merciless.
Kaeshaer has killed beings who did not deserve to die. Not monsters. Not invaders. Kin. Fey envoys whose bargains had become too dangerous to allow time for debate. Elves who chose ambition over balance. Creatures bound to treaties Kaeshaer enforced without appeal. Each killing was sanctioned. Each was necessary. None were forgiven. Unlike Aekelin, Kaeshaer did not learn how to carry guilt carefully. He carries it loudly, in the quickness of his temper and the violence of his solutions. His soul is dark not because he enjoys bloodshed, but because he believes the world requires it, and someone must pay the cost. Deep down, he suspects that if he ever stopped being ruthless, everything he did would become unforgivable.
Kaeshaer earned the name Silver Leaf during a massacre for which there is no record. A rogue fey court attempted to force its way into mortal lands through a weakened fold near Enimdere. The incursion would have poisoned vineyards, twisted children, and shattered the accords Vivianna depends on. The battle was fought at twilight. When it ended, Kaeshaer stood alone beneath an olive-silver canopy—not Olivenreach’s trees, but mortal ones caught in the spillover. Every leaf around him had been sliced clean from its branch by the wind of his Bladesong. They fell slowly, catching the light like drifting coins. Silver leaves. Silent ground. No witnesses willing to speak. Sir Aekelin named him then, and not as praise, but as a warning.
Kaeshaer and Aelisha are best friends. Kaeshaer never flinches when her blood resonates with old magic and her rare sorcery is invoked. Aelisha is drawn to him because he is the only one who never lies to protect her feelings, and he reflects the violence she knows exists but is not supposed to acknowledge. He makes her feel chosen, not destined. Perhaps most dangerously, their loyalty to each other would outweigh any oath they had made to the crown. Kaeshaer would follow Aelisha against Vivianna herself if it came to that.
Gatheranon, the Elden Grove Ranger, is an outsider and a friend of Paulnes. The Bladesong Knights of Edderoth are trained to harmonize with magic, and Gatheranon is trusted by the fay powers, ironically enough, because he does not. He resists enchantment not with counterspell or song, but with distance. The archfey Verenestta did not give him a sword because he was worthy. She gave him a sword because he would never draw it lightly. The Three Swords of Doom: The Rend Blades. These blades are not cursed in the common sense. They are teleological weapons, forged to achieve a specific end, regardless of the moral cost. They were made long before the Draconian War by fey hands, dragon fire, and mortal desperation cooperating once and only once. Each blade “rends” a different lie that dragons depend upon.
Rendelreign (trusted to Gatheranon to bequeath to Aelisha), rends Legitimacy. Rendelreign does not simply kill rulers; it unmakes the right to rule. When Rendelreign strikes a creature that claims sovereignty (dragon-kings, tyrant wyrms, god-backed monarchs), it severs divine mandate, ancestral claims, and prophetic right. The creature may live, but it will no longer be recognized by magic as rightful. Armies hesitate. Vassals turn. Even lairs weaken. This is why Verenestta believes Aelisha can wield it. Aelisha does not crave legitimacy. She questions it. Rendelreign corrupts those who want to rule. In her hands, it becomes a test rather than something evil.
Rendgray (Held in Storage by the Order in the vault of Granitehome), rends Memory. Rendgray does not kill bodies as much as it kills continuity. A dragon struck by Rendgray forgets its own name, loses access to hoarded spells, and cannot trace its lineage or bargains. To mortals, Rendgray feels cold, draining, wrong, and can only be lifted by those who are taken by evil. Rendgray could erase a kingdom without a battle. It is the most dangerous blade politically. It knows that all politics is an amusing game.
Rendpyre (Current Status: Lost. Actively hiding), rends Immortality. Rendpyre does not kill dragons outright. It makes death possible. A creature struck by Rendpyre loses the metaphysical protections that allow reincarnation, phylactery-like anchor points, hoard-bound resurrection, and planar escape at death. After Rendpyre wounds a dragon, it may still live centuries, but it will know that death is now final. That knowledge alone has ended wars before. During the first Draconian escalation, three hundred years ago, it was wielded by a saint-commander whose compassion drove him to end suffering forever. Rendpyre almost agreed. The sword vanished rather than be used to make everything mortal. Some believe it hides in a place where death already waits patiently. Verenestta does not know where it is. She hopes Aelisha will find it.
The prophecy is that the Swords of Doom will end the Scintilliant dragon war, not by slaughter, but by collapse. To end the war, all three must be used in sequence. Rendelreign will strip the dragon-lords of authority. Rendgray will break their continuity and coordination. Rendpyre will make negotiation real by introducing the final risk. The swords are fated because they do not win wars. They make wars untenable.
The six-story tower Saergard dominates the country of Endimere in Gildensong’s Iceshield Valley.
Chronicles of the World of DaoTyr 