For long dark centuries, legend spoke of a Prince born to save the world... and now that Prince is dead. Those stories, collected by my father in the last days of the old kings, tell the tale of that late prince: Alexi of the Vale. As he journeyed north in secret, pursued by forces unknown and unknowable, he put to paper the hopes and fears of another world in its own words... strange as they may be. This is no tale for the fainthearted. The stout and true... may they read, and understand.