No one hates Snow White more than her younger half sister, Rosavere. Not since a star broke the world a thousand years ago and cursed humans with Grand Banes--powers never meant to be theirs--has there been a more traitorous tale. Snow murdered thei...
Partial transcript of Rosavere Leonesse's address to the Fathomsea Cartographer's Society—Dated 790 After Starfall (ASf)
Some say our ancestors murdered the world and the Starfall was mankind's salvation. The sun took pity on the poisoned soil and dead waters and wept a single tear, cleansing even as it drowned our earth with the fierce fires of magiation. Others claim our ancestors forgot the ancient gods and the Starfall was mankind's punishment, taking back the land where once they stood too proudly.
I stand before you now on the eve of an audacious enterprise: It is my intent to map the new horizons of our world as we search for the epicenter of the notorious meteor that destroyed the old one.
Time has washed away most of the artifacts and records that once linked all isles and races together. But I am certain that my crew and I will uncover myriad clues in the geologic anatomy of each new isle that will bring us one step closer to the lost heart of the impact crater that forever changed our earth. Our proposed journey may even yield a hint to the true origin of the two Grand Banes—
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From the private journal of cartographer Rosavere Leonesse —800 ASf
Each isle we have encountered has been affected by different degrees of magiation. The rate of mutation in life surrounding astral impact zones astounds me. From the mile-high bamboo trees of Ochis to the palm-sized lions of Tasselway, there is no end to the intricate diversity among plant and animal species! Some histories speak of the star fracturing in the sky before striking the earth, and I wonder if perhaps the varying distribution of astral minerals gave rise to the many unique life forms?
But there are two Grand Banes common to all lands in the Kingdom Isles—gloriphagy and verdai. These "blessed curses" are almost like two sides of the same coin. While human children born with unsealed souls can transform inanimate substances, elves may affect only living plants with their verdai, corrupting the very seeds with their thoughts and teaching them to grow out of season.
Yet I sense that there is an even stranger power running through the root and soil of this newly charted isle. The crater in the center of Albemar is many times larger than any discovered elsewhere, and a peculiar heavy silver metal warps the forest growing inside it into a garden of living blades. Somehow, I find myself irresistibly drawn to these dire woods, even in my sleep! The sigh of leaves almost blends into words, but I can never quite catch them. The whispers flow from somewhere in the deep shadows of the silver forest.
Tomorrow, we enter the Wildershade . . . .
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Excerpt from the Chronicles of Queen Rosavere I, First Geomage — 810 ASf
Don't bite.
I warned them to eat nothing before we studied the new Starfall metal contaminating these woods, but my crewmates were starving. The Wildershade wouldn't let us go; our party of seven wandered in fevered circles for days, the thick canopy dropping leaves heavy and sharp as dagger points every time one of us dared climb a tree to gain a better vantage point.
A monstrous boar taller than a horse and glistening with argent hide gored two men to death before it was brought down by our bows. Yet the creature still won in the end; its metal-tainted meat left the other four foaming at the mouth. The violent convulsions took hours to kill them off. I buried my crewmates' corpses and vowed to taste nothing in the Wildershade, until—
I saw the jewel on the bough.
A lone ruby fruit glowing in the poison silver glade—
Why did I bite it? I knew somehow deeper than the marrow of my bones that this fruit was anything but safe. But the draw was immensely powerful and I was too blinded by its radiance to gaze away. There was nothing so red in all existence! Even my blood paled in comparison. Perhaps I wanted to make the apple's color my own. Now I pay for that desire again and again—and so must my children. They will forever be shackled to the Third Grand Bane of this world, prisoners of Albemar.
Forgive me, if you can. I cannot.
*Art by Audrey Bagley, Map by S. E. Page
*BONUS: a poem I wrote about the first Rosavere's encounter with the apple that was published in Star*Line:
