Before the first sun burned, there was Kalfar, and the dark obeyed him.
The throne room of Elementus was not built; it was remembered. Its pillars rose from the memory of mountains that had not yet been made, and its floor was the still surface of a sea that would one day drown a kingdom.
Kaius arrived first, as the eldest always does, wearing his father's silence like armour. Aer came with the wind at his back, Flarius with a warmth that made the marble sweat, and Lucien with nothing at all — which is how death prefers to travel.
"You have been summoned," Kya said, "because one of you has already betrayed us."