What was a man so old looking for in books so ancient? These tomes were from a time before her grandfather’s grandfather’s father was born, and they were retained now only because if they were removed, it was likely that the building would collapse. They had almost fossilized into place, their leaves bound together with damp, stiff covers strengthening the racks of shelves they stood upon. Alishia had looked at some of them, but most were written in languages she had never seen. The diagrams and pictures told stories, and sometimes these were enough. There was enough strife and heartache contained within the books she could read. So she browsed these old tomes only occasionally, and every time she opened one she felt as though she was intruding into histories that should never be remembered.

Sometimes, on those rare occasions when they were written in words she did know, Alishia found truths that she wished she had not.

She felt at home here with her books. Some days she would be all alone, all day long. There were things in the world that demanded people’s time more than books—failing crops, fading health, a reversion to harsher times—and the people of Noreela City would often forgo the luxury of leisure time to cater to the expanding flaws in their own lives. Many of these problems were self-inflicted, but there was also the seed of regression that had been planted in the land after the Cataclysmic War. As time went on, Noreela City and all its satellite communities were being drawn back from the level of civilization they had reached almost three centuries before to an older, more savage time. People viewed rapes and murders in the street in broad daylight, and swords remained sheathed, as did the pangs of guilt. In many ways time had started again after the Mages, and instead of recognizing this year as Year of the Black 2208, people regarded the War as the beginning of the current age instead. Even Alishia was not certain of the exact year; she had read books, used charts, referred to ancient texts, but somehow the Year of the Black had found itself overshadowed by the Cataclysmic War.