The Everlasting

Yvanne saw the tears of the peasants and knew it was time to claim her heritage, for Yvanne was of course descended from an ancient line of kings who had ruled the continent before it was divided by creed and tongue. In the gnarled grain of her trunk there is a woman’s face, with weeping cankers for eyes, and in her heartwood there is a sword driven so deep that only the hilt is still visible. But there was no God in Dominion; there was only Vivian Rolfe, telling a story. The current Chancellor was a zealous, sallow young man, who talked often of God and destiny and the days when Dominion’s borders had reached from one sea to the other.