Place
The Mistmarches
A region in the north of Aeryndor where time does not function properly. Not a place anyone enters willingly.
Dense forests, motionless fog, trees that grow in spirals or jut in impossible directions. The Chrona Stone — the Solar Stone of Time — fell here nearly a thousand years ago. Since then its energy has distorted the flow of time across the entire region. At the edges the effects are subtle. At the heart, the world is unreliable: leaves fall in reverse, stones age centuries in minutes, and anyone standing five paces from a companion may be living in a different second.
The most dangerous places are the Time Pockets — invisible zones where time stands still or dissolves. Anyone caught in a strong pocket can age years in seconds. Only those who can see the currents recognise them in time.
At the centre of the Mistmarches, in a large clearing, lie the ruins of a station of the Sun Engine. Stone pillars, broken walls, golden conduits in the ground. A stone path from the time before the Breaking leads there. Here the Chrona Stone has been waiting for a thousand years.
