Before she became the revered priestess whose choices would shape generations, Althea was simply a wife, a mother, and a woman who believed the world would remain as it had always been.

In the quiet mountain village of the Fala, life follows the rhythms of the seasons until an unnamed fever arrives. Some who fall ill never rise again. Others return changed in ways no one can understand, carrying a hunger that has no name.

When the sickness takes both her husband and her young son in two profoundly different ways, Althea is forced to make a choice no mother should ever face. The path she chooses saves her life, but it also asks her to carry a distance that will echo through every generation that follows.

Set years before Aria's Song, this haunting prequel reveals the tragedy that began a family's legacy, the first whispers of the Immortelle, and the sacrifice that became the foundation of an entire world.

Sometimes survival demands an impossible choice. Sometimes the greatest act of love is the one that breaks your heart forever.