Nethrial - The Four Hearts

Introduction

Dawn comes without sunlight, a pale gray glow that seeps through the fog like breath through cloth. The air is cool and wet, carrying the scent of damp earth and turned soil. Below the rolling hills, a village lies nestled in the valley  small, humble, and alive in its own quiet way.

Fields of barley and pale wheat stretch toward the misted horizon. Bent figures move among the rows, their motions slow, almost dreamlike. Wooden fences sag beneath years of rain. Thin plumes of smoke rise from stone chimneys, curling upward only to vanish into the low clouds that never seem to lift.

The sound of distant hammers rings faintly from the market square  farmers trading tools, merchants shouting halfheartedly to draw attention to their stalls. Chickens dart across the muddy paths, and children chase them with laughter that feels strangely fragile, as though the air itself could swallow it whole.

Above them all, the mountains loom to the north, their jagged peaks hidden beneath a curtain of fog. The villagers call them The Crowns of Dusk, though few have ever seen their summits. The fog never truly leaves the ridges; it clings there, heavy and watchful, like a beast waiting to breathe.

As you leave the village behind, the air grows still. The last farmhouse fades into the mist, its lantern dimming like a dying ember. The path ahead winds upward through fields gone fallow, then into thickets of gray brush.
The fog thickens until the world feels small  your own footsteps echo closer than they should.

Every so often, the wind parts the haze just long enough to show the faint outline of something enormous in the distance  a dark silhouette rising where the mountains meet the clouds.

Then the fog closes again, and the sound of the village fades, leaving only the road, the mist, and the sense that someone is watching from beyond it.