The Aetherim

The Aetherim are the radiant host of the world's first age — luminous, winged beings said to have walked Chane before the Sundering, and to have left it when the world was torn apart. The oldest temples keep their likenesses in stone and gold: tall figures, great wings folded close or held wide. By the common account they were forged by the gods to carry out the divine will, and whatever became of them in that breaking, they walk the world no longer. Where the gods are distant, the Aetherim were once near. Their memory survives in old carving, in the names of saints, and in the quiet sense that the world was, in some first morning, well kept.