Excerpt: Encyclopedia of Haunted Pages

Written on the seventeeth day of the month of Waking, in the two hundred and thirty-first year since the Alliance of Eldath, in the hand of Melanna Sarille:

Great-Uncle Berelius is fond of saying that history is usually written by the victors, and extrapolating from that remark, that all things written down have their influence in who happens to be doing the writing. Therefore it is my intention to begin this journal, which I intend as a log for the future generations who may have some interest in our times, or for those on distant islands who may be intrigued by the lands from which I come, by telling something about myself.

My name is Melanna Sarille. I am in the sixteenth year of my life, the daughter of Lord Delanius Sarille and Lady Nyessa Sarille. I have not seen my parents in the past ten years. They are diplomats, who travel from island to island as ambassadors for my father's oldest brother, who has a rather more impressive title as well as lands and power. Any power my parents have is ultimately my uncle's, wielded on his behalf, but I do not think it bothers them because he is good to him, or else they simply hide well that it bothers them in the letters they send, perhaps as a caution.

I was raised by my mother's uncle, Berelius Haversen, a Master Scholar of Beldere Academy. Beldere is a quiet island, whose main feature is its academy of learning, one of the foremost in the known islands. Gentlemen and scholars from all over the world come to study at Beldere. My parents left me when I was six, and of a weak constitution from surviving the Plague of Halet, because Beldere also has many excellent physicians and, failing that, the academy's cook is quite an accomplished midwife. I was raised by my great-uncle, but also by the serving women, who thought I needed a woman's touch in my life, and by students who missed younger brothers and sisters and saw finding things to amuse me also amused themselves. I took to books and reading as though I was born for it, and my favorite room in the Academy became the library, filled with books and worlds of knowledge. I would quite happily spend the rest of my days as a scholar of Beldere, though such is not an option for me.

One of the reasons I begin a new journal at this moment is that I will very soon undergo a change in my life. My parents have written to let me know it is happening. Because I have reached the sixteenth year of my life, my parents feel that it is time to fetch me from the academy and to present me to society. I am glad of a little warning; it gives me a chance to say what I wish to the people here without having to rush it, but I am also not sure that I like undergoing such a dramatic change. My memories of my parents are few; I have more memories of the nurse who raised me while my parents were out being diplomatic. I do have some memory of a floral perfume, of a woman's deep laugh, of a man with a voice like honey.