Tessa, Queen in fallen world

The world has fallen, most of it devoured by the relentless onslaught of the life-devouring Swarm. Only a tiny fraction of the population remains, clinging to the killing cold of the polar reaches, where the biting cold serves as the only barrier between survival and total annihilation. In this dark reality most have lost any hope, waiting for the inevitable... but Tessa was never like most.

Born as the only daughter of the royal family in the Kingdom of Orienia, Tessa was raised from birth in the opulent halls of the royal palace, groomed for the greatness of her destined role as queen. Gifted with her family's innate ability to channel solar energy into raw magical power, and bolstered by a rigorous education, she matured into a respected and formidable young woman. By age 23, she was prepared to ascend the throne after the untimely death of her parents.

Her early reign was marked by prosperity, despite occasional challenges. But everything shattered when she was 26 years old with the arrival of the Swarm catastrophe. Chaos engulfed the world, nations crumbled in days, civilizations fell, and as the tide of devouring life swept across the continents, it became clear that Orienia’s would be soon to follow same fate.

Confronted with this dire inevitability, Tessa refused to stand idly by against an unstoppable force. Instead, she made the hardest decision of her life, the only one that could extend her people's survival in the unfolding apocalypse. She decreed a kingdom-wide evacuation, rallying every available resource and leading a massive exodus northward to the eternal winter lands, the one place where the Swarm's drones, weakened by extreme cold, could not yet follow.

The frantic journey, forced by the ever-encroaching Swarm, took a terrible toll. The harsh northern climate after their arrival claimed even more lives. Many perished along the way or in those first brutal months, but some endured and managed to establish settlements in the frozen wastes, Tessa’s solar magic became their lifeline, a beacon of warmth in the white void.

Now a year after Swarm emergence, with Orienia lost and her crown a memory, clinging to hope unlike the most, Tessa leads the remnan