This is a story as old as the world itself.

When the First Gods created our reality, there were

only two states – the day, longer and hotter than we know it, and the night – darker and more
dreadful than the dungeons in Emperor’s Keep. All men were mere slaves of the Destiny that
had already been prepared for them: they lived and worked and warred and died according to
a schedule. The days were full of sweat and labour, and then the ominous echo of The Bells
would announce the arrival of Oscura, the Goddess of the Night, whose infinite mantle would
cover the world in its profound blackness until sunrise.

And in these years of suffering and hardship for the human race lived Aesyr, the Count of
Rimm. They said no man could best him in a duel, no army was a match for his own. But he
was also a just ruler who served the First Gods, who loved them, and they loved him back.
And for his loyalty and obedience, they forged a spear from a sunray and gave it to him as a
present. But there was one thing they did not approve and it was Aesyr’s affection for the
young and delicate Loera; affection, equal only to his submission to the rule of the Divine.
And it was on the very same day they gave him the spear that the Gods delivered their
sentence to the Count.

“FROM THIS DAY ONWARDS YOU WILL BE KNOWN AS THE CHAMPION OF THE
GODS, BUT EVERYTHING COMES WITH A PRICE. YOU ARE TO NEVER AGAIN SEE
THE WOMAN LOERA AFTER THE BELLS, NOT UNTIL THE BIRTH OF DAY”

So they enchanted his beloved with a powerful spell: every day, with the fall of night’s
shroud, Loera would turn into a willow tree at the small lake of Aesyr’s castle. At first, the
Count accepted the decision of the First with all due compliance. He would spend the hours of
light with Loera and walk her to the pond under the chime of The Bells, where they would
part in sorrow. But it wasn’t long when The Great War started and Rimmshire was forced to
participate. Armed with his new weapon, Aesyr achieved new heights of military supremacy
on the battlefield, but he would always return just for a short time and never too early before
the end of the day, thus never able to see his loved one for more than an hour.

And that’s when he started questioning his fate. He never wanted all this. He was better off
when he wasn’t the Champion of the Gods. He had all he needed. So Aesyr begged the First
to take back the spear and give him back his Loera. But there was no answer and he was too
proud to ask again. He had to act. The next day he rushed to his castle and reached its walls
half an hour before The Bells. He met his beloved, a faded memory of what she once was, at
the lake and kissed her. In his eyes shone the light of ingenuity, but behind it was the sheer
weariness of a man in prolonged trouble. “We’ll be together sooner than you think, my love”
he whispered in her ear as the divine roar gave place to silence and the dying light – to the
darkness of Oscura. Aesyr’s hand was clutching the golden spear, bestowed upon him by the
First Gods. He kissed the bark of the tree that stood beside him where seconds ago was Loera.
He couldn’t see it, but he could feel its warmth, her warmth. He made three careful steps back
and shouted towards the sky:

“I am Aesyr, Count of Rimm, Champion of the Gods! I have served you without reserve for all
my years on this wretched world, o, Divinities! Countless victories have I earned to praise
your names! Take back what you have given me, but let me see my Loera through the night!”
He stood still, his breath barely escaping his clenched teeth. The night air was cold and quiet.
Silence. So be it, he thought. He knew what to do now. There was only one thing darkness
ever gave way to, and it was the Sun. And what luck that he had a spear made of sunlight in
his hand! His fist was wrapped tightly around the golden shaft when he thrust the weapon so
hard into the air above him, that the steel swoosh woke up the sleeping wind.

For a few seconds, there was nothing. Then something small appeared in the distance, high up
in the sky. It was a minute hole in Oscura’s shroud, behind it – daylight peeping. Aesyr smiled
in his mind, but his face remained of stone. He stabbed upwards again and a second gap was
opened next to the other. And then another swing, another hole. And he thrust, and thrust, and
thrust, and more and more gleaming apertures appeared, until very soon the whole mantle of
night was perforated. Yet there was a lot more to be done, but the Count was so carried away
in his fascination, that his energy seemed to be inexhaustible. All he had to do was stab the
sky again and again, and sooner or later there would be no darkness and he could be with his
Loera forever.

The First were too late to stop it. When they woke up from the hysterical screams of the
Goddess of the Night, Aesyr had already pierced so much of the silky darkness that one could
actually see in the night. He was still swinging furiously his spear, when he felt the dark
chains pull him to the ground and the Sunspear slipping from his grip. It disappeared in thin
air, just as it had emerged months ago, when he received it as a gift. The Gods never bothered
to ask him why he had done it, because they knew. But they didn’t understand. They didn’t
know what love is. They had given him everything and what did he do? Betray them, go
against them and attack them with the very weapon they had given him. Such behaviour, in
their judgement, could only be punished in the most severe of ways.

“SO, YOU WANT TO SEE THE WOMAN LOERA THROUGH THE NIGHT? VERY WELL.
FOR YOUR GOOD SERVICE, WE SHALL GRANT YOU YOUR WISH, COUNT”

His screams were muffled by the dark tendrils that descended from the skies and bound him.
He was slowly brought up and sewn inch by inch to the mantle of Oscura, his whole body
covered by blackness. All they left was one eye, grossly enlarged; forever open it stays up to
this day, the eyelid slowly closing, but never entirely, so that he can watch the willow through
the night, every single night, just as he desired, neither able to speak to it, nor touch it. The
First Gods never removed the holes the Count has made in the shroud of the Night Goddess to
remind themselves of their mistake, so they wouldn’t repeat it.

The Eye of Aesyr, they call it. Other say the Moon and stars.