Iceblade

Seven thousand years ago, Venawyn was torn asunder by the fury of the Realm War: a colossal string of bloody battles and awful treachery that spanned both continents and divided the six races into two alliances of near-equal power.

But Prince Asdion Ritarishal of the Elves sought to alter that balance by infusing three swords with incredible magic; keeping one for his own people, he offered the others to their allies, the Dwarves and the Men. But the Men perceived a slight in their gift, as Redblade lacked the unlimited potential of its brother swords, and the King's close adviser, the Mage Vaxlur Daun, persuaded his ruler to join forces with the Demons, Wraiths, and Trolls’ alliance instead, determined to protest what they believed to be an unforgivable insult. The Elves and Dwarves would pay for this humiliating offense with their blood.

Managing nevertheless to wrest a series of victories out of this disastrous turn of events, the Elves and Dwarves were poised to be the unassailable rulers of the Realm: Nightblade and Iceblade could only be bested by each other, and the alliance between Elves and Dwarves had held strong since the beginning of time. However, Nightblade was cleverly stolen by the Demons, who used it against the Elves and Iceblade during the final battle, and in a blinding explosion of magic, both swords vanished from Venawyn and were believed to be irretrievably lost.

The Realm War now concluded in a shaky facade of peace, the newly crowned High Lord Asdion utilized his powerful mastery of magic to doom the Men to the worst of punishments for their despicable treason: the destruction of their innate magic and with it, their immortality. Stripped of their faerie birthright, incensed but powerless, the Men turned to nursing their wounds, and something of the old order was returned to the Realm.

Ages passed, and it seemed as if this era of peace would last forever. Most Men believed their former immortality to be some sort of dream, certainly not something they would ever possess again.

But with terrible might and no warning, a revived army of Demons and Trolls attacked and razed the Elven capital city in what would be the first of many devastating strikes. Only afterwards, while the smoking wreckage was cooling, did it become widely known that victory had been assured by the mysteriously still-immortal Man Vaxlur Daun... who had somehow carried Nightblade into battle and used it to secure an unequivocal triumph.

Over the next three centuries, the tyrant conquered the whole of the Realm and began his greatest revenge: eliminating all the Elves. Their population crippled, the Elves marshal one last-ditch attempt at overthrowing the tyrant and saving themselves from extinction, but that may not only require securing alliances with the now-subjugated Dwarves and even perhaps the Men, but also finding the one weapon that could ever defeat Daun... the long-lost sword, Iceblade.

The task falls to Aridon Everlin, a hot-tempered and hard-headed Elf, along with a handful of his old friends and new allies, but they discover along the way that some secrets are perhaps best left buried...