Prologue

General Summary

You are on the other side of the Mist. How you crossed the magic barrier, you don't know. Your left arm, however, it's bandaged from hand to shoulder and under those bandages are freshly inscribed runes... intricate blood magic.   You can remember fragments of your life... but everything is muddled, out of order and missing enough pieces to drive a wagon train through the gaps.   Snippets of a childhood filled with books, beautiful buildings and manors, a figure you can never discern that your mind labels Mistress.   You can remember elaborate social events but you can't place yourself within them Were you a servant at the ball or a noble?   You remember a family... parents and siblings, but you also remember being separated from them... taken, sold, given... you're not sure why, only that it happened when you were young. You know that you had multiple siblings but you aren't sure how many... it's hard to tell in your memories if you had an older and a younger sister or if you're just remembering the same sister at two different ages and your sense of time about events is off....at least one sister and at least one brother. You don't have any memories of cruelty within the family... normal sibling feuding and rivalry, sure, but nothing you'd call cruel from parents or siblings.   Several memories of days spent in sunny fields, under shade trees or sprawled on a blanket with a book in hand, and frequently your head in the lap of a dimly remembered boy. The feel of his fingers in your hair and the warmth of his smile are among the only details you can remember about him.   You also have memories of late nights spent in candle light with piles of books. You remember staying awake so long that you'd fall asleep reading until you were woken by someone with soft feminine hands wrapped her arms around you and led you to bed. Whoever that person was, she wore an elaborate dark ring set with a large purple stone   You also remember stepping into a vast dark space. in your hand, a ball of roiling azure flame. The walls of the space were lined with ancient tomes and tables piled high with books covered with dust filled most of the floor space. The feeling of your heart pounding in your chest and dread as the door closed behind you are strong in the memory.