Dedication

For Deborah,
who carried this world inside her for twenty years,
writing it into life one page at a time,
by hand, with patience and love
that only a true storyteller knows.

You built kingdoms from ink and imagination. You gave voice to dragons and runesmiths, to sprites on the wind and bards who sang in taverns by firelight. You filled notebooks with maps of places only you could see, and now the rest of us can walk those paths beside you.

This story is yours. Every word of it. It always will be.

Shared freely, in loving memory