The Seven Arcs of Aurelia

Every Aurelian carries power born from one of seven foundations.

Bastion. Specter. Blaze. Terran. Flow. Umbra. Hollow.

Together, they form the Seven Arcs of Aurelia.

They can become lightning, flame, crystal, frost, radiant force, healing light and darkness powerful enough to swallow sound. They strengthen the bodies carrying them, form the Veils that protect them and, in rare individuals, become Arc Resonances unlike anything another Aurelian may ever create.

Yet sometimes the Seven are easiest to understand through someone who simply loved them.

The Girl Who Knew the Seven

High above the mountains, a sky-chaser raced toward a healer.

Leon stood upon its storm-oak platform with a badly wounded little girl held securely against his chest. Her name was Linnet.

Her sister Willow stood behind him.

On either side, Enzo and Solace kept pace through the open sky, one upon a dragon of living Blaze and the other carried by a sleek Hollow construct.

Leon knew Linnet was fading.

So he kept her talking.

He asked what she knew about Aurora Arc Academy.

Then he asked whether she knew the Seven Arcs.

Linnet did.

She began with the one she knew best.

Hollow

Hollow belonged to Linnet, Willow and their mother.

To Linnet, it was the quiet Arc.

Darkness gathered around Willow's fingers as her sister spoke, and for a heartbeat even the rushing mountain wind seemed to lose its voice.

Hollow is the Arc of controlled destructive force, silence and darkness.

Its energy can swallow sound, cut through matter, form dark constructs and unleash tremendous concentrated power. Some Hollow Aurelians fight through precise crescents or consuming blasts. Others create creatures from shadow or shape their power into entirely personal forms.

Hollow can be terrifying in battle.

Willow would eventually demonstrate just how terrifying.

Yet the Arc itself does not decide the person carrying it.

In Linnet's family, Hollow had also been the sound of quiet rooms, still air and a sister who understood when the world had become too loud.

The sky-chaser continued through the mountains.

Linnet looked toward Enzo.

Blaze

Fire rolled beneath Enzo as his dragon flew beside them.

Linnet understood Blaze immediately.

It could burn gently.

It could also explode.

Blaze is the Arc of fire, heat and overwhelming pressure.

At its simplest, Blaze can gather around hands, weapons or the body itself. With greater control it becomes torrents of flame, explosive impacts, concentrated heat and enormous constructs capable of carrying their wielders through the sky.

Blaze is not limited to destruction.

The same Arc capable of reducing an enemy formation to fire can create warmth, controlled heat and delicate flame in the hands of someone with sufficient skill.

No two Blaze wielders need to shape that fire alike.

Enzo's own power loved dragons.

Another Blaze Aurelian might create something entirely different.

Linnet watched his construct roll through the air beside the sky-chaser.

Then she moved to gold.

Bastion

To Linnet, Bastion was the heavy Arc.

Golden power carrying the weight of the sky so somebody else could keep flying.

Strength that refused to break.

Far across the mountains, a golden glow moved along a distant ridge.

Bastion is dense, radiant Arc Energy built around tremendous force, resilience and physical power.

It can reinforce the body, turn fists and weapons into devastating impacts, produce shockwaves, form dense defensive pressure and unleash concentrated golden light.

Bastion Aurelians are often capable of extraordinary feats of raw strength.

Yet Bastion is larger than strength alone.

At its heart sits the idea of holding.

Holding the line.

Holding the weight.

Standing between something dangerous and the person behind you.

Some Bastion Resonances become shields. Some become creatures. Some tear open radiant pathways through space. Some transform the wielder's own body into something capable of meeting forces that should have crushed it.

The foundation remains gold.

What the Aurelian builds from it belongs to them.

Linnet continued.

Terran

Terran was green and alive.

It fixed what had been broken.

Along a nearby ledge, mountain flowers turned gently toward the light.

Terran is Aurelia's great restorative Arc.

Its energy strengthens life, closes wounds and gives trained healers the ability to preserve people who would otherwise be lost. Powerful Terran wielders can restore devastating injuries while using the same Arc to reinforce their own bodies with exceptional endurance.

Healing still costs power.

The greater the damage, the more an Aurelian must spend to repair it.

Terran therefore produces some of the kingdom's most important warriors. They stand inside the same battles as everyone else, surrounded by collapsing Veils and catastrophic injuries, and keep people alive long enough to come home.

Its color is emerald.

Its presence can be gentle.

Its importance is immeasurable.

The mountains continued slipping beneath them.

Linnet's gaze found violet light.

Umbra

Umbra was crystal.

Sharp enough to cut.

Strong enough to stand between someone and the thing coming for them.

A violet shimmer caught across a distant cliff as though crystal buried beneath the mountain had briefly awakened.

Umbra is Aurelia's Arc of violet crystal and spatial power.

Its wielders can shape crystalline shards, walls and weapons, detonate formations of violet energy and use space itself as part of the battlefield.

In some Aurelians, Umbra develops into pathways between distant places.

Portals can open.

Distances can collapse.

A person standing on one side of a battlefield can step through violet light and emerge somewhere that should have taken minutes, hours or even far longer to reach.

For others, Umbra remains centered around crystal, geometry and devastating spatial precision.

The Arc provides the language.

The individual decides how fluently it is spoken.

Linnet looked toward the waterfalls ahead.

Flow

Flow moved like water.

It could freeze.

It could carry.

As Linnet spoke, mist along a distant waterfall curled strangely through the air. For a moment the falling water seemed almost to slow before continuing toward the valley below.

Flow is the Arc of water, frost and movement.

Its wielders can gather water around the body, redirect it through combat, freeze it into weapons or structures and turn fluid momentum into an extension of their movement.

A Flow Aurelian may fight surrounded by sweeping water.

Another may cover a battlefield in frost.

Another may create creatures born from ice.

The same foundation can produce extraordinary differences between people because the Seven Arcs are never rigid lists of techniques.

They are beginnings.

Linnet had one Arc left.

She looked up at the boy carrying her.

Specter

Specter belonged to Leon.

To Linnet, it was white lightning that struck with purpose.

Fierce and true.

Like the sky itself fighting beside you.

White current flickered along the edge of Leon's sky-chaser.

Specter is the Arc of lightning, speed, storm force and lethal precision.

Its energy is sharp and violent. It can cross enormous distances in bursts of acceleration, channel through weapons, gather around fists, tear outward as beams and crescents and turn movement itself into a weapon.

Specters are among Aurelia's fastest warriors.

At sufficient levels of training, their bodies can move through combat in flashes of white current while their Veils absorb the tremendous forces those movements create.

Leon carries Specter.

His lightning can race through a greatsword.

It can drive his body across a battlefield.

And through his Resonance, it can become something much more personal.

Living Phantoms of storm energy stand beside him.

They belong to Leon.

Another Specter may never create anything resembling them.

That difference lies at the heart of the Seven Arcs.

Arc Energy

An Arc is more than the visible power surrounding an Aurelian's hands.

Arc Energy lives through muscle, bone and spirit.

It strengthens the body carrying it.

Speed increases.

Strength increases.

Reflexes sharpen.

Endurance rises.

Bodies survive movement and impact that would destroy an ordinary human being.

A trained Aurelian can leap between structures, accelerate across battlefields, channel enormous force through weapons and fight through the open sky at a scale once associated almost entirely with dragons.

Their Arc also forms one of the most important defenses in Aurelia.

The Veil.

A Veil surrounds the body in a protective layer of Arc Energy. It can absorb impacts, elemental attacks and tremendous physical force before the body beneath is harmed.

Veils can crack.

They can weaken.

They can shatter.

And rebuilding one costs power.

Everything does.

Every movement driven beyond ordinary physical limits.

Every construct.

Every beam.

Every portal.

Every act of healing.

Every weapon flooded with Arc Energy.

Every Resonance pushed to its limit.

An Aurelian can possess all the courage in the world and still eventually reach the point where their body has nothing left to give.

That is why they train.

Arc Energy becomes stronger through use. Control becomes finer. Veils become harder to break. Constructs become more stable. Movements become more efficient. An Aurelian learns how much power they possess, how quickly they can spend it and how deeply they can reach when everything depends upon the next strike.

But training only builds the capacity.

Something more personal determines what that capacity becomes.

Arc Resonance

The Seven Arcs are shared.

Resonance is personal.

Arc Energy establishes the foundation.

Resonance is what an individual Aurelian teaches that power to become.

A Blaze wielder may create a colossal fire dragon.

A Specter may summon guardians made from white lightning.

A Hollow wielder may create living shapes from darkness.

A Bastion may discover golden pathways through space.

A Flow wielder may call frost creatures across a battlefield.

An Umbra wielder may reshape distance through violet crystal.

A Resonance can be influenced by instinct, imagination, training, love, grief, relationships, memory and the wielder's understanding of themselves.

That is why two people carrying the same Arc may become almost unrecognizable from one another in battle.

The Arc is shared.

The miracle belongs to the person.

Dual Arcs

Very rarely, an Aurelian carries more than one Arc within the same soul.

These individuals are known as Dual Arcs.

One Arc remains dominant, providing the power the Aurelian actively wields. Beneath it sits a second foundation capable of influencing the body, natural traits, reserves, recovery and even the way the dominant Arc behaves.

A Dual Arc does not ordinarily give its wielder two complete sets of powers.

The two currents exist together.

Sometimes subtly.

Sometimes extraordinarily.

They are rare enough that even among a civilisation filled with Arc Energy, the birth of one remains remarkable.

And beyond them stands an even rarer exception.

Charlotte Aurelian.

The daughter of the first king.

The only known Aurelian capable of commanding all Seven.

The Kingdom Listened

Linnet finished with Specter.

She had named all seven.

Hollow.

Blaze.

Bastion.

Terran.

Umbra.

Flow.

Specter.

Then the sky itself seemed to answer her.

The mountains glowed.

The wind softened.

Water shimmered between the peaks.

Violet light caught beneath distant stone.

Flowers turned toward the sun.

White lightning danced beside the girl as Leon carried her through the sky.

For one brief moment, Aurelia seemed to recognize one of its own.

The whole kingdom turned its ear to listen to the gentle girl who carried its power in her heart.

Linnet never reached Aurora Arc Academy.

She never stood on one of its training platforms or discovered what her own Hollow might have become after years of training.

But she knew the Seven.

She loved the kingdom they belonged to.

And while Leon carried her toward a future everyone around her desperately wanted her to reach, she gave one of the simplest descriptions of what Arc Energy has always meant in Aurelia.

Power can become almost anything.

What matters is the heart carrying it.