Nocturna

Nocturna sits where the land runs out. The Dew Sea pushes into the continent in a long, narrow inlet, the Bay, and at its head lies an archipelago of black basalt rocks, seven large islands and some thirty islets. The city grew on top of them. Seen from the road, the first thing you notice is the towers: thin, immensely tall, rising “like spears” from the islands.

They are made of glass. In a land where the only light was a brown “so worn it looked purple”, every chink counted, and Nocturna built in glass so as not to waste a thread of the little the sky gave. For a thousand years everyone called it black glass. On the afternoon of the Breaking, when real light struck the towers for the first time, they showed themselves “a violet so deep it looked like velvet”, and the light came out the other side in ribbons of colour.

In Nocturna time was counted not by bells but by mist tides: “thin mist”, “thick mist”. From the city, less than a day of moor lies between the shore of the Bay and the first grey hills of the Twilight Line.