Inexorable Rule

Grandmaster Battalia got right to work as soon as she took power. After forging her crown, her first act was to order punishment upon the Sky Legionnaires who were deemed responsible for the death of Nevan; the specifics of which she left to their own grandmaster, who declared they acted independently and violated domestic laws. Battalia then set her sights on reversing every bad decision her mother ever made. From her time among the clavigers, Battalia already knew which bad nuts had to be removed, and they were promptly discarded along with their corrupt projects. Most of their positions were left vacant as Battalia herself took up their roles. In stark contrast to her predecessor, Battalia gave her entire existence to her role and to her legion.

Seasons passed, and Grandmaster Battalia quickly restored the Night Legion to a state of glory that most of its inhabitants had never known. Once relations were doing better at home, Battalia, alongside her archmaster Cavaliere, set out to develop relations with their neighbors. Trade flourished as the outside world learned of what the Night Legion could bring to the table. Battalia met personally with each grandmaster, never holding anything against Empyreal for his legionnaires' prior misdeeds, and overseeing Crooked's transition to power. Relations with the Frost Legion, however, would not be so simply smoothed out. Not so easily would they let go of the Night Legion's stigmas, exemplified by the ever prickly Tyranness Cryolith.

Despite Battalia's best efforts, she could never get her and Cryolith to see eye to eye, though she did persist. The Tyranness finally snapped when an unfortunate miscommunication was taken as a sign of aggression; unwilling to let the weak leader of the most detestable legion make the most of her, Cryolith lashed out and enchanted Battalia to freeze solid from the inside out. With quick thinking, Battalia retaliated by enchanting her body temperature to never fall below freezing, which was able to keep the ice at bay - but her weaker Night soulbound power could never overtake the Frost grandmaster's unrivalled magical strength. As thus, the curse remains, always and endlessly working towards its goal, only stopped by Battalia's counter. From this point on Battalia was subjected to unending torment as the curse repeatedly attempted to freeze her but couldn't, resulting in a constant unrelenting pinprick sensation across her body.

Battalia was forced to rescind much of her duties and halt most interregional travel as the curse took its toll on her body. She was only able to stay alive through her enchantments retroactively repairing or covering up various health issues caused by the curse. It nearly blinded her, giving her irises a wraithlike blue rim, a constant reminder to all who met her piercing gaze. She was forced to promote many of her aides to claviger positions in her absence. Despite Battalia's best efforts, echoes of her handicap were felt throughout the Night Legion.

Battalia listened as her clavigers repeatedly urged her towards the prospect of an heir, worried that the Night Legion's strongest soulbound power might die along with her. They had a point, and Battalia knew it - in this state, she could not ensure the future of her throne, as much as she hated to admit it. She turned her attention towards a young orphaned aide whom the Alcazar staff took in after finding her alone. Battalia saw herself in Aridity and found herself being the mother to her that Nevan never was. The grandmaster had never expected nor wanted their relationship to be anything more than professional friends, but her unprecedented situation called for unprecedented measures. Battalia officially declared Aridity as an adopted daughter.

The realm took kindly to Aridity's new status; her upbringing in the Alcazar was no different than a true dragonet of the grandmaster's would have been. Battalia dedicated much of the following seasons towards mentoring her, using the dragonet as an extension of herself while allowing her more agency than Battalia ever had at her age. Even those who disapproved of Battalia's decision could see that the strength of the regime improved as Aridity's involvement increased. With time, Battaia decided Aridity could be trusted with the future of her legion, and so she gifted her with her own soulbound power, solidifying her as the next Night grandmaster should anything happen to Battalia.

The Frost Tyranness's merciless son, the dragonet that would later be known as the dreaded Ice King, killed her in ritualistic combat some seasons later, causing all her previous enchantments including Battalia's curse to remain active as the newly crowned Rex Niveal took power. To Battalia's dismay, the new Frost grandmaster was even more of a thorn in her side than his mother was. Niveal was excessively prideful of himself and his legion and loved to rub it in the face of the Night Legion. Lacking a moral compass, Niveal ordered random violent acts on the Night Legion as shows of power. As the realm cried out to her, Battalia demanded Niveal enter peace negotiations. Coming as a shock to all, the latter complied.

Making the most of this gesture, in pursuit of an end to the violence, Battalia chose to make the journey back into the heart of the Frost Legion for the first time since being cursed. She met with Rex Niveal under pretenses of no tricks, no magic, just words and promises. Upon meeting face to face, the two snidely traded remarks, with Niveal offering Battalia a new enchanted bracelet made by his own power which would allow her to take control of her curse for good, in return for forgiving past grievances and moving on. To prove his candor, Niveal produced this bracelet, stepped forward, and personally handed it to Battalia, before sneering as his guards restrained her wings and the Ice King blasted her off the palace balcony.

Battalia was helpless against the enchanted restraints as she plummeted down, down, for what felt like forever, her final destination being the enchanted lake surrounding the Palace of Ice; a moat which spelled a cold demise for all who took a plunge. Upon making contact, Battalia was completely suspended in frozen stasis, losing consciousness and presumed dead. Her body drifted down to a final resting place alongside the other corpses at the floor of the lake.

The 87th aeon knew no outcry like that which followed the death of Grandmaster Battalia of the Night Legion. Countless calls for the dethroning of the Ice King culminated in the inevitable, and Rex Niveal was found dead four cycles later. Both the Frost Legion and the Night Legion were in shambles upon the sudden deaths of their leaders. Since Rex Niveal had no surviving family, his royal lineage and his soulbound power was lost forever. Archmaster Niphados took interim control of the shattered Frost Legion. The Night Legion proudly crowned Grandmaster Aridity and joined the entire realm in mourning the loss of the great Grandmaster Battalia.

Neither Aridity nor Archmaster Cavaliere ever disclosed that they never felt the redistribution of soulbound power that should have happened upon Battalia's death, suggesting that perhaps this wasn't quite the end....

Dawn of Destiny

When Battalia regained consciousness she found herself before a line of eight crowned Frost Legionnaires in a dark, cold, cavernous room. She assumed the Frost Legion had come to kill her for good after Niveal's theatrics, and immediately sprung into action. Relying on quick, trained instinct, she swiftly fought off her surprised captors and blazed down the hall, following sunlight, punching holes through walls to reach it. She breached the surface but found it difficult to fly, gliding as far as she could before the ground no longer sloped. Having escaped, but not for long, she then took the chance to assess her situation.

The aspect most surprising to Battalia as she made her escape from the Frost Legion was that she was not pursued, not even by Niveal or Niphados. Over cycles, she travelled by night and shadow to the border of the allied Forest Legion. During this time she was confounded by considerable fatigue, which she first attributed to seasons of atrophy and having just come out of stasis, but she later realised she had grown considerably. Regardless, the bracelet Niveal gave her was no farce, it did indeed nullify her curse, though not quite in the way she expected.

Battalia stopped running once she reached a cave in an uninhabited, desolate region of the Night Legion, where she was certain she wouldn't be found. Knowing the Frost Legion could likely track her via the enchantments she cast, the first order of buisness was to fortify her sanctuary from prying enchantments and eyes. Then, she used enchantments to reveal the current state of the realm, learning of Rex Niveal's death and the considerable time she had spent asleep at the bottom of the lake. She also learned perhaps the most vital aspect of all: her bracelet negated her curse not by removing it, but by giving her full control of her body temperature without damaging it. Battalia's curse persisted, but as long as she wore the bracelet, it could no longer harm her.

In the many seasons she spent in her sanctuary, Battalia worked to regain her strength and hone her skills after being incapacitated for so long. She devised her own fighting style, combining remnants of her Night combat experience with improvised techniques. When studying the movements of her prey, Battalia discovered the Soul of Night can be used to predict an enemy's movements. She also experimented with the control her bracelet granted, using it to set fire at will and discovering she could intentionally allow the curse to freeze her limbs and whatever she was touching. In his unscrupulous actions, Rex Niveal may have given Battalia her greatest weapon.