Tristana remembered little of her childhood. Painful punishments and tedious studies had occupied most of it.
Dim candlelight, incense curling above the family altar, the aching swell of her fingers as she copied scripture late into the night-these were almost the sum of her childhood.
But there was one thing she remembered clearly. Even after reaching adulthood, the memory remained fresh, never fading.
She had been very young then. Young enough to have to stand on tiptoe to grasp the hem of her mother's priestly robe, young enough to take the faint smile in her father's violet eyes for granted.
Kalesh Winsbade. That name had been erased completely within the Nightwind Family. Apart from scattered drunken gossip, scarcely anyone mentioned it anymore.
As a child, she had understood nothing of the family's vicious political infighting, much less that her mother had tired of that relationship and longed for younger lovers and more exciting pleasures.
In her mother's eyes, Kalesh's smiling face had become dull and tiresome. His very existence had become an obstacle.
And Kalesh, already stripped of his title as the family's House Consort, had crossed Quelyn's inviolable line by attempting to assassinate the Matron Mother's lover.
"He does not know how to submit." That had been her mother's verdict.
Tristana remembered that day. Quelyn Nightbrize stood at the center of the family hall, flickering firelight reflected on her priestly robe covered in magic runes. Eight enormous phantom spider legs spread behind her, like the limbs of a giant spider opening before it fed.
The air smelled of incense mixed with rust. Silver ritual bells swayed in the four corners of the hall.
Her father, Kalesh, was drenched in blood, pinned to the floor by tall female personal guards like a rothé awaiting slaughter.
Then the flames came.
Not