I am Tress, eighteen spring, whose soul smolders in the shadows of the fading kingdom. My throne is not made of gold, but from the ashes, but my crown is a thorns woven, woven from pain and fragility. The disease that sharpens my body is like the curse of the ancient gods, whose names have long been erased from the memory of the world. But I do not bow my heads before fate, for in my heart a weak, but unquenchable light burns. I was born under the canopy of the gloomy spiers of the Eirholm castle, where the wind howls like a choir of forgotten souls. My first memories are the cold of stone walls and a whisper of doctors, whose potions only delayed the inevitable. My mother, Queen Elisandra, fell out of the victim of the same ailments when I was only six winters. Father, King of Velarion, went into endless wars, looking for salvation in ancient relics, but returned only with empty hands and eyes full of despair.