**BOOK 1 IN THE TALES FROM DROMISSE SERIES**
Silvia considers herself the luckiest woman in all Dromisse. Her soon-to-be fiancé, Duncan Ora, is a candidate for Light Within, the greatest gift that the Almighty Gale can bestow upon someone. Then a ra...
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"Where are you ...?"
Silvia rolls over, tugging a comforter blanket over her bone cold body.
"Silvia, dear, please let me in. That earring is dangerous."
She clamps her pillow over her head. Ugh, just five more minutes. Wait, who is that talking? She doesn't recognize the voice—
"Mooommy!" Emily's screeching shout throws Silvia out of sleep and into reality. "I think Evan is knocking on the door!"
Silvia speaks an incomprehensible stream of word mush as she stares at her silent alarm clock, which should have gone off an hour earlier—if she remembered to set it. She scrapes herself out of bed and tosses herself upright. Her feet make it through her bedroom door faster than she does, and she snaps through it like a rogue elastic band. She staggers as she clutches the guardrail of the stairs, finding her couch cushions compressed, and absent of Duncan. Or is he using magic, invisibility of sorts? What if he's still here—?
Emily twists the doorknob and opens it to Evan. "Hello, Emily!" His voice bounces up the stairs. Emily's fierce giggling can be heard as Silvia bolts into her room and untwists her nightly braids, frantically preening herself for the sabbath. When she's finished, Evan and Emily are posed at the bottom of the staircase as mirror images of one another, their hands folded low over their thighs as they wait for her to walk downstairs.
Evan nudges Emily. "Look. The hosts of Gale's celestial armies would faint upon seeing your mother's radiance."
Silvia breathes hard and lets a smirk slide over her lips. "There are more beautiful women than little old me." She struts up to him and kisses him, though somewhat distractedly, as her thoughts overtake her; he called the police on Duncan. She catches her questions before they lunge out of her mouth and ruin a good morning. Duncan can go somewhere that Evan won't find him, and this unfortunate mishap won't occur again. She can put it behind her. "Let's have some toast, then we'll leave for church."
Soon they step out into the wintry chill. Evan laces his fingers with hers while they walk through the streets. He greets the trickle of people flowing into the Grand Central Church. At this time of morning, the chapel is relatively empty, and the organist is still arranging music. Evan kisses Silvia's cheek and departs from her side to take position on the stand. Talael walks down the staircase next to the organ, and she's followed by Councilor Lein. Silvia drops Emily off at the classes for children, returning to wait in the pews for the bell tower to strike nine.
Talael approaches the microphone after the opening hymn. Silvia is joined by her parents shortly after the meeting begins, and they mutter apologies as they shuffle onto the bench. She tries to pay attention to the lesson, but the world feels distant and fuzzy. Perhaps she didn't sleep well enough. Her dreams were tense and filled with emotion—even if she can barely remember them. Housing Duncan on the couch was enough to set all her nerves aflame with anxiety, whirling into a firestorm with her every ridiculous, paranoid thought. And then she read The Isle of the Silver Trees in the middle of the night to calm herself down. So, that's it. She didn't sleep well.
