Morning broke over the remains with a pale, cold light. Snowflakes drifted lazily from the argentine sky, and frost had woven delicate lace across the broken monuments. Elara stirred from her restless sleep, her heart heavy with the question that had visited her dream What will you surrender? She rose stiffly, brushing snow from her cloak, and set up the white fox watching her, its amber eyes glistering with undecipherable depth. 

Long agone , when fiefdoms still rested in the hands of lords and queens whose banners gestured proudly above gravestone halls, there lived whispers of an object said to hold both fortune and doom the Enchanted Mirror. The tale was told to children around domicile fires, spoken by rhymesters in vill places, and guarded in hushed tones by scholars who thumbed through brittle scrolls.

Long agone , before the world was measured by timepieces and timetables, there was a area so far east that the daylight sounded to begin there. Its denes were green with vineyards, its gutters bright with tableware fish, and its mountains shone white with snow indeed in summer. The people of this area believed that the land itself was entranced, for the timbers rumored in languages only children sounded to understand, and on clear nights, stars dropped low enough to rest on the rooftops before evaporating like sparks.