Prologue

A n excerpt from: Cesse: Changes Through the Years (a sequel to A Brief History)

Before Cesse civilized the West and North, things were, some might venture to say, barbaric. In those times, all sorts of beasts ruled the earth – and collided with each other. Foxes and bears and wolves and tigers – and something much worse, something that could only walk in nightmares and moonlight – clashed and fought, drawing blood and killing when their clans met.

But such conflict could not last forever. The wolves felt the call of the North and went to build their ice palace in the snow, isolating themselves from the rest of beast-kind. They turned their backs on any who were not like them, worshiping their Wolf Mother and forgetting the other three deities their people claimed founded the continent, as prayer to their one god would better close their ears to their past.

The foxes went West and built walls and made kings. Always known for their intelligence, their desire for the trait only increased as they wiped themselves clean of bloodshed, desperate to leave it all behind.

As for the rest? History has yet to say, for the remaining animal-kind and the monsters that linger in this land have yet to acknowledge the weight that Cesse holds in a beast's mind. They have yet to acknowledge that the animal and its insatiable desire for lust and for violence can be tamed by sixty-four squares, a dominant, and a submissive.

But rumor speaks to the creatures that went South, to the kingdom Balivartia.

South, to the home of a fallen Sevell's greatest failure. To the kingdom of his greatest enemies, the ones who took his family and his faith in himself.

To the land of the demon princes.