The Myth of Lirae's Glassmilk

Long before The Order of the Glassroot, when the island still rippled from the First Tone, there lived a woman named Lirae who spoke to crystals not with songs, but with silence. She was no Shardcaller, no seedvoice or ritekeeper. She was a stone-sifter, a lowly gatherer who wandered barefoot through the fractured groves to collect hollowbuds and splinterfruit that others cast aside. She fed the village with what the land wept. One season, the Lake went mute. The Crystal Lake, which always sang in soft light beneath the moons, fell still. No hum. No glow. No ripple. And without its song, the edible crystals—the island’s lifeblood—stopped blooming. Crops faded. Fractures spread. Even the elders could not coax sound from the lake. The people cried out. Some blamed outsiders. Some blamed the First Fracture. The Order prepared a ritual of closing, believing the island had chosen to die quietly. But Lirae... Lirae did not believe it was death. She believed it was grief.

And so, with no title and no training, she carried her own broken shardbowl to the Lake and did something no one else dared. She offered it her tears. Lirae sat at the edge of the silent lake and wept—not in desperation, but in understanding. She told the lake her story: of hunger, of being forgotten, of tending to the pieces no one wanted. And with each word, a thin thread of light returned to the crystals. When her tears filled the bowl, she placed it on the surface—and it did not sink. Instead, it glowed with pale resonance, and the lake sang a single note in reply. From that shardbowl, a substance formed: thick, silvery, and softly glowing. It looked like melted glass, but moved like cream. When she sipped it, her bones hummed with joy and her voice cracked the stillness.

This was Glassmilk.

Effects & Legacy

It is said a sip of Glassmilk could heal the deepest tonal wounds, restore a voice lost to dissonance, nourish a body for forty days, and let you hear the Lake’s true name. But Lirae never shared it. She returned to her village and simply said: “It will sing again, when we remember what sorrow tastes like.” The lake sang the next morning. The crystals bloomed. And Lirae was never seen again—some say she became part of the Lake, its eternal silence beneath its song.

What Remains Today

• Some Láenthelin believe Glassmilk still exists, deep beneath the surface, forming only in bowls offered freely, never taken.
• No one has succeeded in recreating it—though many have tried.
• During the Lean Harmon, a fasting season, some villagers still place empty shardbowls by the lake’s edge, in hopes Lirae will offer a drop.

Modern Saying:

If you taste something sweet after sorrow, perhaps Lirae smiled at you