The novels set in Fedran all start with a quote at the beginning of the chapter. Originally, this was a way of giving the reader some information about the world without having a ham-fisted “as everyone in the room knows, these two kingdoms…” type of plot exposition.
Along the way, they have become a way of showing political views and a glimpse of the culture of the world. Some of the quotes are a hint of the chapter’s contents while others are to explain common narrative elements, such as [distances]/measurements/.
An example of the quotes can be found in the [sample chapters]https://sand-and-blood.fedran.com/chapter-01/ of Sand and Blood.
It only takes a second for everything to change.