Sylvanis Roune stood a wild young thing—in appearance and not at all in demeanor. A shy farm hand, young in age, she traveled to Weist Trelliact on the back of an old mule, with a basket of cheese and a jar of goat’s milk. An old linen blanket draped loose around her shoulders, she served as both he eldest and youngest daughter of a family of cattle-herders far north of Illdar’s lands. Though her limbs hung too long for her, her muscles taught and gangly, she stood out with skin bronzed from long days in the fields. Her hair shimmered a dusty, sun-touched gold, short cut to the lobes of small rounded ears. Most of all, the girl’s beauty lay in her eyes:

They sparkled in daylight like the scales of an emerald serpent: a vivid, dazzling green. More verdant than the hillside beneath the noon-day sun, they stood out against her face like new saplings against dark soil.

With much sorrow had her parents relinquished her. Sylvanis journeyed now to the City of White Lilies. In not too much time she arrived.

Now, the brighter side:

Sylvanis arrived very early to the city—long before the King’s Wall stood complete. She arrived at a time of transition, when the White Lilies were not yet as caged as they soon would be. They were permitted to wander the castle grounds, and even off into the countryside if they so wished. Their only order: return by nightfall, that the King might enjoy the flowers in his garden.

So, partially from fear and more partially from nowhere else to go, the Lilies complied—wandering the fields in the daytime, then back as dusk fell to the palace. During the day, beneath the shining sun, the green hills were speckled with white dots, each one a lily of the Tyrant King.

Amongst thousands of maidens, Sylvanis went unnoticed: in fact for a great deal of time—enough time to wander, and to idle, and explore the city and its hills. There in the city she met a boy.

Deyus—the son of a blacksmith. His skin was charred dark from coal, and from iron, and from the fiery heat of the forge. His fingers swept black hair from blacker eyes, and his hands were rough from years with a hammer and leather wrappings and iron rivets. His smile beamed the kindness of an honest trade, and his words stayed soft spoken and gentle.

Sylvanis lost words the first time her green eyes fell upon him. In not long at all, the two fell deep in love.

They often spent time together, the blacksmith and the cow-herder, before the King’s Wall stood complete. In the evenings, when she felt brave, Sylvanis slipped through the palace gardens out into the fields to meet him. They spoke together, laughed together, and grew desperately fond of one another. Sylvanis found that with Deyus beside her, the loss of her family pained her less.

Yet even with silver lining, a thunderhead brings its storm. Sylvanis could not go unnoticed forever.