Falconia—that is, the Wyndham region, the former capital of the Kingdom of Midland—was shrouded in and protected by the World Tree and its radiance. Day or night, it was as bright as midday, like a land out of a dream.
And it was within this enormous, towering, sturdy, beautiful, and dreamlike fortress city—magnificent, with heavy iron gates, layer upon layer of bastion walls, a stone bridge that one man could hold against ten thousand, and every other defensive feature imaginable, all surrounding a grand palace that seemed all but impossible to conquer—that countless refugees and nobles, no longer able to live anywhere else because of the changes to the world, had been forced to gather. They had been comforted and settled in the vast, impregnable city by the men under the "Hawk of Light" and members of the Holy See who had begun following him.
Though only a little over a month had passed, after that epic battle, the capital—which had once been ravaged by the Kushans and Emperor Ganishka until barely one in ten people remained—had quickly recovered. Falconia's population had not dwindled; it had grown, surpassing even Wyndham's peak, and continued to increase at an astonishing rate every day.
That was only natural.
Once the World Tree's glowing, magic-infused branches had reached every corner of the world, and this world had merged with the Astral World to become a new magical realm—a high-magic world—ordinary people, and even the lords and nobles with armies at their command, could no longer live normally amid the rampaging astral beings, monsters, magical beasts, legendary creatures, and all manner of other horrors.
So, when the "Hawk of Light's" people were sent out with proclamations, announcing under the dual authority of the "Savior" and the "Holy See" that they would provide free "shelter," and