Prologue
When I was a child, the world smelled of summer.
The heady perfume of dancing wildflowers hugged my senses as the breeze took them on a journey to soothe my cheeks from the heat of the afternoon sun. The scent of damp soil when the sun had pushed the sky too far and it wept rain for days before wearily turning the world back over to its golden companion. The refreshing aroma of lemons in the thick air of the house mingled with my mother’s baking as she prepared our afternoon repast of bitter lemonade and thick warm bread, slathered with creamy butter made cold from the sheltering shade of the larder.
And my father’s pipe.
The sweet odor of tobacco tickling my nose as Father held me close and whispered the stories of our Salvation and the mighty kral who lived in the grandest palace in all the land with his beautiful daughter, the princezna, how kind and gentle they were—and the reason my private world was one of innocence and endless summer.
My memories of that life never leave me. I can still hear my brother’s laughter carrying back to my young, happy ears as we chased through the fields of purple and gold, racing over the farm to the brook that ran behind our land. I remember the gentle trickle of that stream and how it drew us each day, my brother sprinting for the rope swing he had looped around the strongest tree, the one with the trunk that seemed to bend toward the water as if thirsty for a taste of its pure relief. I was drawn to its coolness on my skin, its moisture in my dry mouth, its familiar smell … like damp metal and wet grass.
Sometimes I hear my mother calling our names in my dreams.
There was no warning to summer’s end. It began like any other day. I stretched alongside my brother beneath the shadow of an oak by the brook’s edge, my young voice barely heard above the babbling water as I recounted the story my father had told me over and over. I could hear Father’s rich voice in my head, had memorized every word, and as I recited it, I remembered to speak in the hushed, awed tones he used to make a story sound as magical as this one really was.
“Eons and eons ago, our people were the most blessed of mankind. Powerful and beautiful, we could tap into Mother Nature and draw from her powers. Magical beings, spiritual and wondrous to behold. But mankind grew envious of us, and wise as we were, we knew mankind, with so many wars already brewing among its people, could not withstand a war with us. Our wisest leaders persuaded us it was time to fade from mankind’s Earth, to fade as one into a world of our own.
“We withdrew and imagined a paradise. Mankind melted around us as we fell deep, deep into the fade. When our people awakened, we found ourselves here, in a newborn land—a sky, a moon, a sun, trees, plants, water, and familiar animals awaiting them, waiting to begin the new world in peace.
“Fearful of our emotions betraying us as they had mankind, it was decided that the Dyzvati, a clan of magical evokers with the ability to lull the people and the land with peace, would reign as the royal family. The Dyzvati named our land Phaedra, splitting it into six provinces, giving a province to the clans with the most powerful magic. Sabithia, in the south, was taken by the Dyzvati, and they built a beautiful palace in the capital city of Silvera where the shores of the Silver Sea edge its coast with its vibrant silver surf.
“Clan Glava, the largest and most powerful of the mage with their many psychic abilities, whether it be reading the past, present, or future, or moving objects and summoning elements with their minds, was given Javinia to the east of Sabithia and also Daeronia in the northeast.” I turned my head to smile at my brother who stared at me, enraptured. “And our own slice of haven, Vasterya, was given to the Clan Azyl, mage with the ability to seek whatever their hearts desired. Eventually, the Azyl became servants of the Dyzvati, using their abilities to seek whatever the royal family wished, helping the upkeep of the peace in Phaedra.
“Many centuries onward and the Azyl’s magic evolved with their position, no longer able to seek that which they wished for themselves,