The earth holds its breath as the young Queen falls to the ground. The jeweled handle of her betrayer’s dagger protrudes from her side.
The valley shudders as a great swell of Earthsong is pulled from the source. The spell is cast, the barrier erected, unseen by any eye but felt by all.
The Mantle.
This valley, these mountains, will divide the people forevermore. Wives and husbands are separated, brothers and sisters, parents and children, Songbearers and Silent.
The Queen does not awaken, but neither does she die. Her limp form hangs like a doll from the arms of her lover. He carries her away, for her long slumber.
The Queen’s betrayer compels the people to sing cities from sand, to spell barren land until it is fertile, to bring dry riverbeds back to life. They transform the desert the way their ancestors did, but may not speak of them.
The betrayer has outlawed history, leaving only myth.
He creates a new language and forces the people to use it. He changes the names of their foreparents, changes his own name, demands the land be known as his. He calls it the Fatherland and he must be known as the father, not just the king. The True Father.
Some,
many,
almost all,
will buckle.
Will watch those who fight against the True Father be cut down like trees. Will fall in line to preserve their meager peace. Will have their Songs ripped out and pretend they are whole without them.
But hope comes in the words of a promise from across the mountains. The promise is whispered in secret, passed down through generations, believed only by a few.
It is a promise to never accept that this life is forever, to never forget there was once another way.
The Queen still lives, sleeping in another land, and those who sleep must one day
Wake up.
—EARTHSINGER CHRONICLES,
AS TOLD TO MOORIAH BY THE MOTHER