The Secret Canticle of-

Note appended in cipher: All that follows has been erased from the canon of the Isola by decree of the Sacra Vigilia. To possess this text is heresy. To understand it is treason.

A Concealed Archive of the True Ending of the Old World

Before there was silence, there was sound.
Before there were gods, there was the song that named them.
The world was born in its echo—
and the age of gods ended when it returned."
— Fragment from the Forbidden Hymn of Luthmir

The Secret Truth about the War of the Five, the Shattering, and the existence of Luthmir

On the Nature of Luthmir (secret and concealed from Isola's history)

In the final age of the Old World, when the land was green and unbroken and the gods still walked beneath open sky, a tremor passed through creation.

It was not wind.
It was not thunder.
It was not command.

It was a note. A tone without source or direction, pure and terrible, which set mountains shivering and drew salt from the eyes of the sea. The air quivered as though the world itself were remembering a promise it had made before time. Stone rang faintly. Roots loosened their grip. Even the gods fell silent, for the sound did not answer prayer — it preceded it.

Then came the falling. A radiance descended from the high dark, burning without heat, casting shadow that glowed like dusk. When it struck the heart of the world, silence broke apart, and the earth opened like a wound. That place would later be named the Plunge, though no name can truly hold it. From its depths rose dust like powdered gold and the scent of storm and old fire. Nothing cast into it ever returned unchanged — if it returned at all. The being that fell was Luthmir.

Neither god nor mortal, neither spirit nor beast. It stood as a figure half-remembered: tall, blurred at the edges, clad in fur that shimmered like hammered sunlight. Long, mothlike antennae stirred as though tasting a rhythm only it could hear. Its eyes burned amber-bright, and when it breathed, the world sang. Luthmir did not speak. It resonated.

With every motion, golden motes drifted from its form — not sparks, but fragments of meaning. The air hummed around it. The land strained, not in pain, but in recognition. For Luthmir was not a destroyer. Luthmir was the echo of creation itself — the memory of the world before gods shaped it, and the promise of what would remain after they were gone.

The Foreseen End of Divinity (secret and concealed from Isola's history)

Where Luthmir stood, the land began to change. Rivers thinned to salt-veined stone. Roots loosened from soil. The earth rang faintly when struck, hollow and musical, as though the world’s heartbeat had shifted key. The gods felt it first — a subtle diminishing, like breath drawn too slowly. Their words, once laws, returned to them as echoes.

Nytheris, Veil of Twilight, understood first. In Luthmir’s presence, she saw not ruin, but truth: a future where divinity could no longer bind the world, where gods would fade as stories fade, and mortals would inherit the fullness of choice. A world not ruled — but answered.

Vaelith felt it next — freedom without celestial weight, thought ungoverned by divine breath, a sky that belonged to itself. Morghain felt it in the deep places — memory unchained from eternity, foundations laid by mortals alone, stone that would remember human names.

To them, Luthmir was not a threat.
It was the ending that allows beginning.

But to Pyrion and Thalyra, it was annihilation. For they felt what the others did not deny: that Luthmir’s song did not merely weaken the gods — it unwove their necessity. Divinity itself was being rendered finite. Fire and tide would burn and flow still — but without will, without throne, without name. To remain was to become less than they were. To allow Luthmir was to accept an end no god had ever chosen.

The True Cause of the War of the Five (secret and concealed from Isola's history)

Thus the world divided — not by pride, nor betrayal, but by fear of ending. Nytheris spoke for the truth that must be known. Vaelith for the freedom that must be allowed. Morghain for the memory that must endure even after gods fall.

Pyrion and Thalyra stood against them — not as tyrants, but as beings unwilling to vanish. What followed was not rebellion, but irreconcilable belief. The war that tore the Old World apart was not fought over dominion, but over whether divinity itself had the right to survive its own obsolescence.

When fire struck storm, it was desperation. When tide broke stone, it was refusal. When shadow stretched between them all, it was mourning. The sound of their conflict shattered continents. The sky cracked beneath clashing truths. Oceans fled, mountains folded, and the great song of creation fell into discord — not because it was wrong, but because it was too complete.

The Sealing of Luthmir and the Lie of Salvation (secret and concealed from Isola's history)

As the world began to die, Pyrion and Thalyra chose preservation over truth. They turned their power not against Luthmir — for it could not be slain — but against the world itself. Flame and tide were bound together, sealing the wounded land. The seas were drawn into a great ring. The heart of the last continent was set alight, not to burn, but to contain.

Thus the Isola was born. Far beyond its shores, in the Saltscar Plains, the Plunge remains — layered beneath molten stone and drowned earth. There, Luthmir lies dormant, not imprisoned, but waiting. Its song is muted, not silenced. The others — wind, earth, and shadow — were cast away. Not for treachery, but for agreeing.

The Final Concealment (secret and concealed from Isola's history)

The victors named their act salvation. They told mortals that three gods had betrayed creation, and that fire and tide alone had saved the world. They forbade wind, stone, and shadow — not because they were corrupt, but because they remembered. The Sacra Vigilia was founded not only to hunt heresy, but to guard silence itself — to ensure the world never again hears the note that ends gods. For beneath the Isola, still, the rhythm endures.

The world was never broken by war.
It was broken by a note too perfect to be borne.

And when the sea grows still,
and the air trembles without wind,
listen closely.

You may hear the pulse beneath the earth,
keeping time for a song not yet ended.