The Crown Jewel's Heirs

The Gods Commanded Separation. Their Children Chose War.

Before the magic, there was the silence. Before the war, there was the treason.

For millennia, the Xerxoan Empire thrived on cold, absolute stability. Ruled by a distant King, the court was a gilded cage where the volatile Prince Ares and the intellectual Princess Eira plotted their escape. Shamed by their low status, they initiated the greatest act of treason in imperial history: stealing the Planetary Regulator?the crystalline Crown Jewels that controlled all life.

But Ares craved power, and Eira craved a future.

Their escape was not a victory, but a catastrophe. The fleeing vessel crash-landed on a primitive planet called Earth, destroying the last of their civilization and shattering the Crown Jewels into seven volatile Elemental Fragments. Ares seized the largest shard, crowning himself the Immortal King of Chaos and sealing Earth behind a barrier, severing their connection to home forever.

Left with only ash, fire, and raw magic, Ares issued his chilling decree to his Twelve Wives: Separate, Compete, Dominate. The Elements scattered, establishing the militaristic Iron Stronghold, the calculating Mercantile Rivers, and the secretive Hidden Enclaves, ensuring a perpetual war for control.

Yet, one Queen saw the truth. Eira, possessing the Oracle's sight, knew Ares's path was self-destructive. To save the dynasty, she defied her King with a quiet counter-tactic: the Prophecy of the Seven Fated Pairs. The future, she dictated, depended on the seven Elemental Children eventually finding their forbidden Mortal Anchors?ethical, short-lived humans whose souls alone could stabilize the chaos.

A thousand years of isolated training passed, molding the children into perfect weapons. But silence breeds rebellion. When one Elemental child breaks the perimeter, fueled by a craving for independence and the distant call of a lost fragment, the prophecy is triggered.

The war for the soul of the new world has begun, and the greatest threat to the Immortal King is the destiny he tried to forbid.

For a thousand years, Earth has been ruled by the exiled, tyrannical Xerxoan royalty?beings of terrifying longevity and chaotic, stolen power. King Ares, the self-crowned Immortal King, maintains a brittle, fearful peace, ruling a planet fractured into rival dominions: the militant Iron Stronghold, the calculating Mercantile Rivers, and the secretive Hidden Enclaves.

His seven elemental children, the true inheritors of the apocalypse, have been raised in total isolation, weaponized by their mothers to be perfectly obedient?Moiregana by Dominion, Oldiver by the burden of Restoration, and the others by cold Management and absolute Secrecy.

But silence breeds rebellion.

The first crack comes not from the tyrant's mountain, but from the shadow. The Air Child, a ghost bound to the element of Secrecy, is consumed by a relentless need for independence. Driven by the distant static call of a lost technological fragment, she channels a power greater than anything her mother taught her.

With a surge that shatters a millennium of silence, she breaks the perimeter and launches herself into the unknown.

Her path of unfettered speed is leading her toward the one person who can anchor her chaos?the short-lived Mortal Anchor she is forbidden to love, and whose fragile, ethical soul is the only force capable of taming her destructive power.

The age of the Xerxoan Wives is ending. The age of the Elemental Children?and the devastating war of the Seven Fated Pairs?has just begun.

Mary Dawn Tunstall is the kind of writer who starts an argument with her own characters and then spends three hours documenting the new story structure they've just invented.

She's currently fueling her creative process with an alarming amount of iced coffee and a soundtrack with the best song ever.

When she's not mapping out the next great story, Mary Dawn can be found enjoying in a good book. She also enjoys long walks with her dog, and giving the treats to her two cats.