The Heartstone
"It was beautiful. The records all say so. The people who saw it burning said it was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen. Right up until it wasn't." — Warden Thessaly Orin, founding address of the reconstituted Veilwardens
The Heartstone was the magical engine designed and built by Valdris the Architect under the authority of The Irenian Empire — an enormous crystalline structure intended to serve as an infinite source of magical energy by tapping The Weave at its deepest structural layer. Its activation during the ceremony in Vel Ira caused The Sundering.
The original Heartstone was destroyed. Its crystalline matrix shattered across the continent — and the sky, and the clouds, and The Deadlands below. Those shards survive.
Design and Purpose
The Heartstone was physically an obelisk of engineered crystal standing approximately nine metres tall, installed in a specially constructed chamber beneath the Emperor's Tower in the imperial capital. Valdris the Architect's notes (partially preserved in The Ashen Court's archives) describe it as "a lens for the Weave — not taking, only focusing; not exploiting, only making available."
This description is either naive or disingenuous, depending on which scholar you ask. What the device actually did, in The Veilwardens analysis, was attempt to restructure the Weave's local geometry to create a permanent, stable high-pressure flow — essentially forcing the Weave to generate usable energy at a rate far beyond its natural equilibrium.
The Weave's response to this was to rupture. What happened next was The Sundering.
The Shards
The explosion distributed Heartstone shards across an enormous area. No complete census exists. Current known or suspected shard locations:
| Holder | Shards | Status |
|---|---|---|
| The Veilwardens | 3 confirmed | Contained in the Collegium vault; heavily warded |
| The Iron Compact | Unknown (7+ suspected) | Officially denied; used in aetheric engine research |
| The Ashen Court | 1 confirmed | Held at Ashfen; purpose unclear |
| Independent holders | Unknown | Scattered across The Skyward Cities and The Deadlands |
| Lost/unrecovered | Unknown | Primarily in The Deadlands and cloud-bank depths |
Each shard is:
- A concentrated source of magical energy — raw, unstable, and enormously powerful. Mages who know how to work with them can fuel spells far beyond normal capacity. This is addictive.
- A focal point of Weave degradation — because each shard is a remnant of the original tear, it continues to propagate the tear locally. The more a shard is used, the faster it degrades the surrounding Weave.
- Resonant with the other shards — shards respond to proximity with each other. Experienced Veilwardens can use this resonance for detection. It also means that concentrated groups of shards are unpredictable in ways that individual shards are not.
The Repair Theory
The Veilwardens' primary theory for repairing The Weave — shard convergence — holds that the shards, reassembled at The Breach, could be used to re-seal the Primary Thread tear. The logic is that the tear was made by the Heartstone's explosion; the inverse — a controlled implosion of the shards back toward the original point — might close it.
This theory is untested. It requires:
- All or nearly all shards (the minimum viable quantity is unknown)
- A mage or group of mages capable of performing the ritual without being destroyed by it
- Political cooperation between all current shard-holders (effectively impossible without either a crisis or a miracle)
The Ashen Court has a different interpretation of the repair theory, derived from Valdris's original notes: the shards don't need to be destroyed at the Breach. They need to be re-assembled. And a re-assembled Heartstone would be, once again, the most powerful magical object in the world.
Cassian Voss-Aldrath does not publicly discuss what he intends to do with that.
Shard Handling
Physical handling of shards requires significant magical protection. Raw Heartstone shards:
- Burn non-magical skin on contact (they are perpetually warm to non-magical touch)
- Cause disorientation and vivid hallucinations in sensitive individuals within proximity — typically visions of the Night of the Sundering as experienced by those near the blast
- Gradually corrupt the magical attunement of mages who use them repeatedly without careful technique
The Veilwardens have developed containment protocols. The Iron Compact has not published any such protocols, suggesting either they have none, or they have them and consider them proprietary.
The Dreams
A consistent report among those who have worked closely with Heartstone shards: they dream of Valdris.
Not in the religious sense — not visions or revelations. Just dreams. Specific, detailed, consistent across individuals who have never met each other. A grey-eyed man, sketching geometric diagrams. Looking at the dreamer with an expression of acute assessment. Sometimes speaking — though what he says is always forgotten on waking.
The Veilwardens note this in their containment documentation. They classify it as unexplained resonance phenomenon. They do not have a theory that explains it to their own satisfaction.
Related Topics
- The Sundering — the catastrophe the Heartstone caused
- Valdris the Architect — who built it
- The Weave — what it damaged
- The Breach — the site of the original explosion
- The Veilwardens — who are hunting the shards
- The Iron Compact — who are hoarding them
- The Ashen Court — who may want to re-assemble one
