The people of the Citadel believed that each person’s heart was given to them by their God, the shamir who came from the Boundless below and around them. This not only made life possible, but enabled each person to, in living, learn its shape. The Meonen of the Citadel, the soothsayer and practitioner of the hidden, used to say that their hearts were, in fact, pomegranate seeds. Each heart was a piece of a larger whole, as with pomegranates, from whence they all came. Their time in life was an opportunity to come to know themselves before returning again.

It was a lovely thought, and the people cherished this small story from the Meonen. That is, until the Mote of the cavern ran red, and made the life around it bitter and sweet – only bitter and sweet. It was not alive, but something else that the residents had never seen. This was because pure soul, the nectar of countless pomegranates, had flooded their home and become an entity all its own. It didn’t know its shape.