Prologue: The promise
There was only darkness. Only death. Nothing more, nothing less. The bodies of their comrades littered the ground, their eyes opaque and void of life. The rukh in the air black, full of hate, envy, greed. Full of the traitors' hate towards their own fate. Alma Torran…. Was ruined. It was a world were no living thing could survive, and they knew it. Ugo's face showed it clearly. There was no salvation for this world, therefore there was only one more thing to do: Move to the new world they had created and live on, trying to recreate what was once a perfect society… Well most of them would. She didn't have that choice, and neither had her other two companions.
The three of them wouldn't live on, they couldn't. They had promised Solomon that they would protect the world that he created, this world. Alma Torran. But they didn't, they arrived too late, too weak. They couldn't do anything else than watch the home they had fought to create crumble to nothing else than ash and dust. Watch how life changed to death, blessings to curses. They could only see the world they loved so much fall under the greed and rage of the ones that had fallen into depravity. Nothing was left, and with that, their promise had been broken. The same promise that had saved them from the abyss, the promise that had guided them, which had become their fate…. Broken.
But that was not the end, and the three of them knew it. The darkness in the air was a threat. A whisper. A evil that promised to come back. To destroy Solomon's new world, a world no longer protected by their friend and savior… Their king. And so, with the threat hanging in the air, the three of them made a new promise. A promise of retribution, but not of revenge. A promise that in future generations would be forgotten by all but the Guardian of the Palace.
"We, the three guardians, promise to this world, and to the rightful flow of rukh, that we will protect this new world when the dangers of depravity return. We promise to be there to help the proxy of our king, to protect his ideals. We promise to make things right, to let the rukh flow as it pleases. But above all. Above all, we promise this! We promise that we will not let this new world be destroyed by calamity! We will fight for the bright future of those not yet born!"
Silence followed that promise, a silence that charged the air with power. Power coming from the three of them, and their staves. The power continued to increase in the next couple of minutes, until her body, and theirs, started to dissolve, to turn back to the rukh. But it was not death. They would not die until their promises were fulfilled, and even then, death would not come as a friend for them. Because they were strong, they were the guardians of Solomon.