A great library, tall and wide, dominated the skyline of Hilomnos. 

The rest of the city's dense urban silhouette was itself a sight to behold. But looming over all the beachfront piers and cliffside terraces was the palatial construction of its library, complete with ornate columns and minarets and crenelations befitting such a presence. So high were its marble walls, that when the sun lowered each afternoon, the towering architecture of the library would provide the rest of heat-soaked Hilomnos an early sunset in its shade.

And its splendor was no hollow promise: within its mazes were stored nearly the collect written knowledge of all Setet. Archives and records, religious texts, and all forms of artistic literature. Even certain stone-scrawled Phraint texts were kept there, however inscrutable to human scholars. One with an affinity for reading could quite easily become lost in the sprawling halls of books upon books, in a sense both figurative and literal.

Responsible for the library's impressive collection were first and foremost the vigorous efforts of a long tradition of Seteti monarchs with an appreciation for the value of written knowledge. Perhaps most significant to its growth, though, was Maxadin I's original decree that every caravan and merchant ship passing through the port city could volunteer all carried books or scrolls in lieu of trade duties. The scholars of the library would copy such texts and return their originals to the traders free of charge, if the traders were so inclined to stay long enough for the process of copying to be completed. But most of the time, merchants were happy to be quickly on their way, leaving the library with the originals. Over the course of hundreds of years, and various other monarchs' supplementary efforts, the great library at Hilomnos became almost swollen with various writings, many of them in their original bindings.

And through this tradition, the monarchy had always had a special relationship with the institution. Although open to the common folk and host to a campus for scholarly instruction, the library at Hilomnos was intermittently closed to public access whenever a member of the royal family visited to seek the counsel of what in time came to be known as the 'wisest vizier' of the court. Not all rulers of Setet's dynasties visited often or even at all, but many of the realm's better-remembered emperors and empresses sought such counsel frequently.

That day — the 3rd of winter, 1853 — was one such day, where a member of the royal family sought an audience with the 'wisest vizier.' Only four human souls occupied the vast and quiet halls of the great library that day, as opposed to the hundreds that might be accessing its knowledge on any other.

One was the head librarian, who was kept within even on such occasions for the convenience of the royal person's visit. Two others were the imperial Guards who acted as a minimum personal detachment separate from the much larger retinue waiting outdoors. 

But the last soul within the halls of the great library that day was not the Emperor Alexandrikon III. On the 3rd of winter, 1853, the Emperor of Setet was quite engaged in Atum-Ra with duties of governance, in light of the recent natural disaster. 

Neither was that soul the Emperor's heir apparent, the stately princess Octavia, who had become more and more involved in her duties of regency and governance in the Emperor's later years.

The final soul in the great library of Hilomnos that winter's morning was the princess Aurelia, youngest of three children to Octavia. 

That morning, the princess Aurelia was deliberately avoiding what her tutor had assigned her to study, and was instead reading Legends Past the Phraintlands, and quite enjoying it, alongside a mug of warm liquid chocolate spiced with cinnamon.

At thirteen minutes past eleven that morning, she turned the page of her book, and took a sip from her mug. 

Some chocolate remained on her upper lip when she put the drink back down, and she wiped it off with the sleeve of her dress.

At fourteen minutes past eleven — far from the happenings of the world as she was, nestled deep in the halls of the library of Hilomnos — 

The succession of the crown passed to her, and she inherited the throne of the Empire of Setet.

She was two months away from her tenth birthday.