The world before the Veil had been warm.
Solvi remembered warmth not as a feeling, but as a concept. It was a word that her mind drifted back too often. A feeling of comfort.
She remembered sunlight on stone walls, the call of wind through alpine spires, and her mother's voice; soft, stern, always humming half a lullaby.
They had lived in the high reaches of Myrthal, where the sky pressed against the mountains, and clouds rested on the ground.
Her home was behind a waterfall, whose great power gave energy for her home, brought life to their crops, and gave them fresh water and a place to bathe.
She had been a scholar then. Or perhaps an exile pretending to be one.
Solvi's true talent had not been knowledge, but already knowing.
