The Marechal Chronicles: Volume V, The Tower of the Alchemist by Aimélie Aames

considering the words, then he had it.
    “The Tears of the Goddess Lys,” he whispered as if he worried that someone might hear and say something to him in a way that would close the cover of the book until the next time he might steal a few moments to himself.
    The rest of the text was written in common tongue, and interspersed between sections there were richly colored illuminations with the occasional inscription beneath.
    The pages crinkled as he turned them and a world long since past was revealed to Bellamere's eyes. And for a time he could believe that all of it had been real and that there really was a Boar who hunted young lovers at the height of each spring.
     
    A goddess walked the lands of elder days and all that she beheld was a delight to her eyes.  The rain bathed her as she walked ever onward and the winds dried her as she continued her trek without end.
    For she had decided see to the entire world and to take its measure. But in her heart of hearts, there where she feared to look despite her great power, a secret desire had blossomed.
    Lys came to barren, dry lands. She passed through regions blanketed in forests so dark and so green it was like the fall of night when she walked among them even though the sun shined down without a cloud in the sky.  The goddess came upon harsh, frigid places only to rejoice in the sight of bears and wolves hunting at night, or at the snow foxes as they cavorted under cold skies and on fine grains of ice that covered everything and shifted like the sands of the desert.
    All the world over, Lys traveled, and the secret held so deeply inside her bosom grew and grew until she found herself one day high upon a mountain, the land spreading out in all directions to the edges of the seas, and she knew that she had seen all there was to see.  Only then did she dare to turn her gaze inward to regard that which had become unbearable to her after her long travels.
    It was as if a cold wind had found her at last upon the mountain in that moment, and Lys wept. 
    For all her majesty and power, for all her magic that was no more effort than a thought is for a common mortal, Lys grew terribly sad at the truth that followed her no matter where she went, like a shadow that no sun could efface. For Lys discovered she could not flee loneliness.
    She remained upon that mountain, and when her sorrow spent itself for a time, she descended to a valley where the trees grew thick, the mountain streams ran clear, and where meadows opened wide to reveal bright flowers of many colors.
    This was the place that the goddess chose to call her home.  Her magic rose around her and the mountain became like a castle, its insides formed into great halls and corridors, rooms uncounted with wells of light cunningly placed so that all within was brightly lit with daylight. At night, undying fires burned in countless hearths to fill the abode of a goddess with a warmth she could pretend might be something like love.
    And still, she was alone.
    So it was that she sang to the four winds which carried her song to the far corners of the world, and there where there were beasts unlike any other the winds carried the song of the goddess and her offer of a place where none of them would ever know lack again.  A place where men would not penetrate and where peace would be theirs in exchange for their company.
    Great, feathered worms flew to her call, their bright wings carrying them down from far clouds in answer to her song.  And the men who saw them named them dragons, for their breath was a hoarfrost so terrible it burnt like fire.
    The riddlers of distant deserts came as well.  Their bodies were chimera of lions and of women, and they desired nothing more than to no longer feel the gnawing hunger that never ceased in their bellies.  For the valley of Lys promised a place where they could riddle amongst themselves until time unending.
    Dark and terrible horses came too, these same capable of running along unseen