Her mother died after 28 hours of hard labor and Salina Stallworth came into Mernac with the help of a talented Menk midwife and only by the grace of the Mother of Life. Being an only child and the heir apparent (even though female) of all of Greater Permia, combined with the loss of her mother at birth, placed a tremendous burden of guilt and responsibilityt upon Salina from the time she was but a small child. She carried this burden well and none but those closest to her knew it existed, but the driving fear of whether or not she is worthy of becoming Queen of Permia seems to dictate all her daily actions. The nights: The nights were often filled with horrid nightmares where she was always somehow responsible for the death of her mother. As she matured these nightmares lessened in intensity but always remained. She also became aware that some of the details in the dreams that haunted, the ones that were unrelated to her mother, would come to pass. She knew that somehow she had tapped into the spirit world and they were the cause of these premonitions. For any other girl, the factors in her life (and dreams) would have driven them insane - but Princess Salina was lucky enough to have a strong harmonizing factor. Her balancing force had always been her cousin, and closest friend, Vanessa. Born only months apart, the two grew up together running carelessly through and around the nobility court in Castle Goldmont, the capitol of Permia. Vanessa always seemed to know what to do when the responsibilities of being a princess, or the nightmares of her mother got the better of Princess Salina. Being as close as they were, the two young girls had wanted to, and did in fact, attend school to master the elemental arts of Tember which was something quite common for children of nobility with some level of magic force to do. Though Salina