The Deck of Crows

In the forgotten realm of Virellia, where the sun had not pierced the ash-ridden skies in over a century, there was a place called the Hollow Throne — a broken citadel where the Sorcerer Aeskavar ruled with a crown of black iron and breath like smoke.

The rivers ran thick with soot, the trees bled sap the colour of rust, and the wind carried whispers of the dead.

All hope had bled out of the land — except for one: a wanderer wrapped in rags, wearing a cracked bone mask, and carrying a leather-wrapped deck marked only with a single black feather.

They called her Noira — though whether it was her name or a title inherited from death itself, none could say. Noira did not draw her blade like other warriors. She drew cards.

Each card she pulled was not fortune, but fate — not for herself, but for the world.

🃏 Card I — The Tower

She stood at the edge of a ruined village, its spires collapsed, corpses hanging from splintered gates. Her fingers trembled as she drew the first card: The Tower.

As the image stared back — lightning shattering a crumbling keep, two figures falling from its heights — a real tremor tore through the earth.

In the distance, atop the Hollow Throne, Aeskavar’s citadel split, a glowing seam forming like a wound across its spire. His power was beginning to fracture.

Noira smiled, though her teeth were bloodstained.