“Just as soon as our House’s wondrous vistas of possibility opened up before me, dear one, I found my spirit inexplicably enervated. Legendary tomes that beckoned to me since my first blush of adolescence have lost their luster, revealing themselves as desiccated, retrograde texts best returned to the dusts of time. Blessed scrolls have proven reactionary and un-illuminating; rarefied incunabula, fusty and yawn-inducing. Most distressingly, even the Translator’s Almanac, that transcendent tool that has helped me steer so many during their moments of need, has provided no solace.”

When I recovered, I tried to peel a berenton myself. The skin of the fruit seemed to harden wherever my fingers landed, showed sharp scales everywhere I moved my thumb, made a bloody mess of my hand. When at last I wrestled the flesh out, it tasted of nothing at all. The flavor of a berenton is determined entirely by its surroundings. Alas, in Rialynas I came to find that I was the same.