Subsistence (Firestar, #4) / Firestar (ePub)

The Hollow Realm was like an oasis among the others, a land of restoration, abundance, and peace, but it was also a zealously guarded realm inhabited by powerful spirits, resilient beasts, and the elusive Hunters. To them and their people, the great wilderness of the forest was a garden to be protected, but to their neighbor in the south, it was a vast untamed estate.

Initial contact between the Aural and Hollow Realms was strained but quickly soothed by a hunter's forgiveness and understanding. From there, the two lands exchanged beliefs, resources, and information, but this bond eventually became a snare to the people of the Hollow Realm as war dawned on the horizon.

Spurred by their alliance with the south, the Hunters were encouraged to mobilize and fight against the rising magic arts of the Saline Realm, but they were given signs and prophecies through oracles to abstain from conflict or suffer great destruction. The Salians and Kings both sent delegates to argue their case, and the Garden was divided on what to do. Before long, however, the Hollow Realm honored the cause of their ally and went to war.

Over the course of the bloody campaign, a force of calamity appeared on the battlefield, and it tore into the Garden with unrivaled fury and unbridled wrath. Those who survived described a Terror too fearsome to behold, and after a third of the Hollow Realm was rendered lifeless, the people of the Hollow Realm abandoned the Aural Realm and set their backs to the outside world. After the war ended, the people stayed insulated from the events that followed, and when the Terror returned to the Garden once more, he no longer brought with him a storm of destruction but a firm and gentle tempest of change.