The Vale of Umbra — a land the sun visits only briefly, and never stays for.
The Vale of Umbra is a long, narrow valley folded between two ranges of black mountains. Dawn arrives each morning as a rumor — a thinning of the dark, a grey suggestion — and by midmorning the mist has closed over it again. The Vale's people long ago stopped measuring days by the sun. They measure them by candles: a "candle" is both a unit of time (roughly an hour) and the literal object burned to mark it. To say "I'll see you in three candles" is to promise, and to light the candles yourself.
The moon, however, is punctual. It rises enormous over the eastern peaks and the Vale turns its face up to it the way other lands turn to the sun. Moonlight here is not romantic decoration; it is the working light of the world — bright enough to read by on clear nights, and the Vale's scribes and watchmen plan their labor around its phases.
The first candle after full dark, when every household lights its lamps at once. In the villages below the manor, the lighting is staggered house by house down the street, so a wave of gold runs the length of the valley. Travelers time their arrivals to watch it.
An oath sworn with an unlit candle held between the swearer's hands. If the oath is broken, the candle is lit and left to burn down in the village square — a public, patient shaming that ends only when the wax is gone.
On the longest night of the year, neighbors trade small dark gifts — ink, black tea, smoked glass — each wrapped in grey paper. The rule: nothing that glows, nothing that reflects. Dawn, such as it is, is for sleeping.
The Vale's old families — the nocturnes, of whom Lucien is the last of his line in the valley — are creatures shaped by the long dark. In this site's imagining they are strong, quick, and tireless at night; they fade and grow vague in direct daylight, which is one reason the Vale's gloom suits them. They are bound by courtesy as much as by any magic: a nocturne who is invited in must behave as a guest, and a guest who is thanked must leave before the third candle. Lucien keeps these rules the way other people keep promises — which is to say, absolutely, and at cost.
The Velvet Manor — Lucien's home, and the heart of the Vale's stories.
The villages of the lower Vale, the black mountains, and the moonlit roads between them appear throughout the tales.
The glossary collects the Vale's terms — vesper, candlefast, moonwine, and more.