Bodies fell from the sky like stars that had lost their grip on the galaxy. Children in gold burned in the marketplace. Silver-clad people painted the island in heaps of lustrous gray, limbs still knotted together in the last throes of panic. The hearts of lovers were stabbed through with shaking hands and sharpened blades.
The curses were spun and felt in minutes, and Lightlark became more dead than alive.
It is said that by the end of the day, six rulers of six realms came together before an oracle who spoke a prophecy.
Only joined can the curses be undone
Only after one of six has won,
When the original offense
Has been committed again
And a ruling line has come to an end
Only then can history amend.
Blood and pain allowed access to the deepest depths of power. With the island on the brink of destruction, the six rulers sacrificed themselves to give their heirs the chance to break the curses, and with that power, the Centennial was created. Lightlark would disappear and emerge every hundred years for one hundred days, to give the six realms a chance to use the prophecy to save them all.
A cursed storm began to overtake Lightlark as it vanished to somewhere else entirely. The new Sunling ruler-and the new king of Lightlark-stayed on the island, while every other new ruler fled, taking some of their people with them. They formed the newlands, hundreds of miles away from each other and where the island once was.
Every hundred years, rulers returned to Lightlark, desperate to break the curses.
Every hundred years, they failed.
