The summer sun streamed through the open window of the tower, motes of dust swirling in the bare hint of a breeze. At the desk, a queen shook the sand from a finished letter. A mother lifted it to her lips and whispered a prayer before the queen consigned it to an envelope. With a pool of brilliant blue wax and the imprint of a signet ring, it was sealed.

In another city far away, the same summer sun shone on a pair of small figures riding in a dusty arena, sabres drawn. Standing at the centre of the circle they described, a man in black shouted instructions. The one figure cursed at him in return, while the other only grimly tried to follow them.

Held at length by the high vaults of a library ceiling, the sun pooled its light around the desk of a scholar in that same city as he meticulously translated a text. Left to write, pause, dip, pause; right to left, pause, dip, pause. The still of the library was disturbed only by the scratching of his pen and the rustling of pages as he turned between the half dozen open volumes on the desk.

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From lower in the sky, the sun spilled over a king and his generals gathered around a map. Above highlands painted with the brush of a sprawling city, it painted lime-washed houses in gold and stained sandstone huts a deeper hue. From a different sky altogether, it cast jagged shadows through the peaks and ravines of a ruined mountainscape.

The same summer sun sank across all these scenes, robing the world in night to prepare for what might follow.