The Dragon and the Deep Kingdom
In those days, the Kingdom of First Knuckle still stood at the heart of a deep-lake, where the mists were a perfume of spores and the wind smelled like velvet shank. There was no reaching the castle at its center without taking a gonleden up the locks to the channels. To set upon the lake itself was to die in the jaws of the leviathan; to take the channels without the King’s blessing was to die by her arrow. King Thornblade surveyed her kingdom from the highest chamber, reminding herself of legacy. It was Mikteshfis gold studding the walls, Mikteshfis…