Moments later…
"They are called the Old Ones..." Sylteena's palms rested on the parchment as her eyes ran over the lines; Philip only sat silently opposite her.
She then began to read,
"Before the birthing of the High Kingdoms, before even the River-Claim and the Ashen Crown, there were the Ones-Who-Walked-First. They were not kings, nor were they men... not entirely. The Old Ones, as later tongues named them, dwelt not within stone walls or bound law, but in Root, in Rift, and in Reverence."
She then picked up one of the sheets from her father's document.
"Papa wrote that... They were shaped not by time, but by the turning of the world itself — as if the land had dreams, and those dreams birthed them."
Philip pinched the side of his temple, already feeling overwhelmed with the information.
