“All is ashes. From the ashes, we rise.”

“Memory can be a powerful gift to those who hold on to great pain…”

“Our interference has not shaped the world for the better.”

“It is the dream of many that another exodus from the Land of the Shadowed Forests will one day come, though there are just as many who speak in quiet conversations about an ethnic state within Ería controlled by liberated Hanaqi.”

“The myths of the Kifu are indeed that. Entertaining myths and nothing more.”

I stare past the ancient Umabum temple and across the Strait of Farra to Ería, trying my best to enjoy the night air. And then my life once again changes.

…the Avosi faith is built upon their deity’s omnipotence. Any teachings that challenge this position is believed to be a threat to his divinity, and therefore, the authority of his priests.

“I swear upon the ancestors in the sky and Great Star of the North that what is theirs will become ours.”

“…a few are called to follow the path set by Bin Lin Hai. Each will stand before our sacred elder sister…”

“They believe his rule has been sanctified by Avos, the King Beyond the Stars. As I watch this young man take dominion over three lands, this is what scares me most.”