Lake Aranea
A northern freshwater archive whose layers of ice record missing seasons.
The lake holds water in blue layers thick enough to reveal the shape of past winters. Foxgloveton fishers cut narrow windows rather than broad holes, preserving the records for Vessa Rusk. Some bands contain pollen from trees that cannot grow here.
After the Aranea Sounding, the fishers found warm water entering from below. It carries no silt and tastes faintly of cedar. The march could drain the lake to expose the source, but doing so would destroy its fisheries and send an unpredictable flood downstream. A breathing shape moves beneath the oldest clear ice; the Glassback Stag legend may have borrowed its antlers from something aquatic.
Surveyors found warm water beneath old ice and collected the jar now examined in Garnetrun.
A shy northern grazer whose translucent antler tips reveal seasonal mineral deposits.
Stewardship of winters that cannot be abolished
A far-northern channel whose seasonal shore makes borders impossible to draw honestly.
A vast northern march holding the winter that other kingdoms chose not to endure.
Eight realms have survived an unnatural winter. Their rescue may have been built on a theft.