Starlight

Starlight By Niall Teasdale Copyright 2023 Niall Teasdale Smashwords Edition Smashwords Edition, License Notes This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Contents Prologue Part One: Gifted Interlude: The Lord and the Sorceress Part Two: The Iron Lands Part Three: The Land of Ice and Snow Part Four: Kingdom of the Storm God Epilogue About the Author Prologue Grand Observatory, Mount Estellaris, 20th Day of Yoo in the 85th Year Postwar. Night watch at the Grand Observatory atop Mount Estellaris was not popular in Yoo, the month of snow. It was cold enough to freeze your eyeballs in their sockets, especially on the good nights for observation when the sky was clear. No one liked doing it, except for Angfa. Angfa had it down to something close to an art and enjoyed the solitude. He had personally – and very laboriously – sewed double-layered robes with extra long sleeves he could fold his arms into and a pocket for his feet. The other residents at the observatory had laughed at him, but they complained about the cold and that their toes were frigid, and Angfa sat atop the observation tower as snug as a bug in double-layered robes. He had obtained a special flask which kept hot drinks hot, so he had warming tea throughout the night. Basically, if he was going to do this, he was going to make sure he could survive it. It was not an especially difficult job, when it came down to it, but a vital one. The patterns of stars in the sky were monitored constantly because changes in them could spell any manner of misfortune, or any manner of fortune. The Grand Observatory had been founded during the Romar Empire, thousands of years ago, and had been operating continuously since, always watching the changes in the night sky and documenting them for astrologers across the eight nations. To be honest, there had been no major changes for the last thousand years, Shouchung, Cheol Uitang, 4th Day of Shonshi in the 103rd Year Postwar. The farm about thirty li from Shouchung village was a little unusual for the area. The farmhouse had stone walls, and there was a stone wall around the yard surrounding it. Not a high wall, but something which would give pause to beasts and men attempting entry. The land around it belonging to the farmhouse was a little larger than most of the local farms too, but the farmer who lived there was not particularly wealthy. The land had been granted to the family for services rendered along with something else which had held far more value at the time. The man who had been granted that land, the father of the current owner, had been a warrior before he became a farmer, hence the desire for solid walls. The farmer lived with his daughter, his wife having died when the child was only three. His father had been a little disappointed that his son had preferred tending the fields to learning the combat art which had earned them those fields, but he had not pushed. When the woman of the house, the only one after the death of a beloved wife, had shown an interest in learning about swords, fists, and polearms, the old man had taught her, but she still saw to the needs of the household in more traditional manners. And today that meant… ‘I’m off to the village for groceries,’ Ai called out as she opened the kitchen door. Her father, Myeong, nodded from the kitchen table. ‘I’ll be out sowing the northeast field