Lassar’s days are long gone. Four hundred ninety-six years to the day of his death. And again, the darkness preceding his Covenant gathers. It reveals itself in the plague that already rages in the outer reaches of the Three Lands. The Raven escaped Vasyllia. For all I know, he is at the brink of finding Living Water. But no Harbinger has come to give light to my reign. Am I wrong, then, to seek a renewal of covenant with Adonais for my people, though it cost me my very soul?
-From “The Apocryphal Diary of Dar Cassían” (The Sayings, Appendix D:6e)
CHAPTER SIX
The Dar's DaughterSabíana despised high day afternoons. Once a week, it behooved Adonais—or at least the clerics who spoke in his name—to confine all members of the Dar’s household to the palace. All anyone wanted was to be outsid
