The Reforged Trilogy: Book 1 — Crucible of Stars
Prologue
Into the Stars
“One need not be asleep to dream.”
– Arcadian proverb
When life first contemplated leaving the sea, they believed that distance was the greatest of all barriers. The line of the shore, etched in gold by sunlight cutting through the thin, toxic atmosphere, seemed so very far away. Certainly not worth the effort required to crawl toward it on limbs so poorly evolved for land.
So life remained in the sea for another million years, never straying too far from its spawning ground and fearing what lay beyond. Only when food became too scarce and mates too hard to find did the young creatures of the worlds finally venture out of the water. As eons passed, fins and flagella gave way to limbs of all sizes, numbers and uses. But as life spread across the land, food and resources grew scarce once more.
And so billions of eyes turned up toward the stars. When life first contemplated the skies, they believed that distance was the greatest of all barriers.
They were wrong.
