The destruction of Vaenor did not end with its fall, for Baelor was not content with ruin alone. He would ensure that no seed of that kingdom could ever take root again.
In the wake of the slaughter, he commanded the battlemages of the Grey Tower to enact a ritual of such depth and malice that its consequences would endure beyond the span of any mortal life. This was no mere act of devastation, but a corruption of the land itself, a wound inflicted upon the world that would never truly heal.
Thus was Vaenor transformed into the Ashen Wastes.
The earth blackened and hardened, stripped of all fertility, while pale ash gathered in endless drifts that moved as though stirred by a will of their own. No crop could grow there, no clean water could be drawn from the soil, and any beast brought into that desolation soon sickened, as though the land itself rejected the presence of life.
The ash does not lie still. It shifts and gathers, deepening toward the heart of the ruin, where it rises in great dunes like a frozen sea. Beneath its surface lie the remnants of what once was—streets, bones, and the shattered echoes of a kingdom that dared to seek understanding where others found only fear.
Those who wander too far into that desolate expanse speak of a presence that cannot be seen, yet is keenly felt. It is not merely emptiness that lingers there, but memory—an awareness etched into the very ground, as though the land itself recalls the horror of its unmaking.
Though Baelor sought to erase Vaenor from the world, he did not wholly succeed, for some things cannot be so easily extinguished.
The blood of Vaenor endures, though only in fragments scattered across the lands. Those who bear it carry a mark that cannot be concealed, for when emotion or magic stirs strongly within them, their eyes ignite with a violet light that is both beautiful and terrible to behold. It is a sign of their lineage, and a beacon that draws danger as surely as flame draws moths.
In the years that followed the fall, the survivors of Vaenor did not gather or rebuild. They scattered, breaking themselves into small and secretive lineages, each one striving to remain unseen. They abandoned the open practice of their arts, teaching their children restraint and silence before they were old enough to understand the reason why.
They speak among themselves in a hidden tongue, one that is never set to parchment, for to write it would be to risk its discovery. Their knowledge is passed in whispers and memory, and their lives are lived in the shadow of a history that cannot be spoken aloud.
Yet even in hiding the descendants of Vaenor are not beyond the reach of those who would profit from their suffering.
In the darker corners of the world, where law holds little sway and conscience less still, there are those who hunt the Vaenori not for knowledge or alliance, but for what may be taken from them. Their eyes, when torn free while the light yet lingers within them, retain a trace of the arcane power that once defined their people.
Preserved with care and ground into fine powder, these remnants are distilled into elixirs that grant fleeting mastery over the arcane. Those who consume them speak of heightened perception, of power that surges through their veins like fire, and of a terrible clarity that fades all too quickly.
The allure of such power is not easily forgotten. It calls to those who have tasted it, drawing them back again and again, until they are willing to pay any price for another draught.
Thus the hunt continues, quiet and unending, and for many who bear the blood of Vaenor, death is neither swift nor merciful, but deliberate and profitable.
Vaenor is gone, and yet it is not wholly lost.
Its ruins lie buried beneath shifting ash, its knowledge survives in hidden texts and guarded teachings, and its blood endures in those who walk the world in silence and fear. The tale told by Alveron speaks of necessary destruction, of a cleansing of corruption that threatened the order of the realm.
But there are those who remember differently, who speak in quiet voices of what truly came to pass.
They do not name it conquest, nor war, for such words are too small and too clean for the truth that lingers in the ashes.
They call it what it was.
An extermination, wrought in fire and lies, whose shadow has not yet passed from the world.