Stranger Shore

Prologue

In a realm untrod by human feet, somewhere far beyond the clouds and deep within the earth, three women sat around a glass-topped table and determined the fate of nations. Their forms were uncertain, constantly changing such that, in this second, one's skin seemed bone-white and then it was clay-red, or another's hair was long and sleek for a moment just to be a dark cloud of coils in the next, or the third's eyes changed from icy blue to amber-gold in a blink- but though their forms changed, their essence never altered and was as real and as infinite as the star-strewn sky or the tumultuous sea.By each were piles of gemstones: mossy heaps of small emeralds like water-smoothed pebbles, glittering pools of tear-drop sapphires that ranged from aquamarine to indigo, and heavy blood-red rubies the size of a raven's egg. Yet somehow the plain dice spread around the table, carved from bone and wood and stone, seemed weightier, more valuable, than the sparkling jewels....