...A bard tuned his lute in a hall where wars had been decided and empires had fallen to ruin. The stones had absorbed centuries of human suffering and triumph. When he played, the notes did not erase that pain but transformed it, giving it shape and meaning. For three hours, listeners wept and laughed and understood truths they had never found words for. When silence returned, something had shifted in the hall itself. The ancient stones seemed lighter. Milil had passed through this place, as he always did wherever mortals dared to create beauty in the shadow of ugliness....