Shadow Gorge E-Book

Marc Blankenhagen

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 574

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

It is a time of upheaval in Mírínor: the old king is dead and the new one has not yet been crowned. This period of uncertainty is not only being exploited by the old cliques in the state and church in their quest for power, but dark forces are also increasingly making their presence felt. The young novice Nayla, the priest Dairé, the farmer's daughter Lia, who is auditioning for the role of the new queen, and the former legionary Elric must each rise above themselves to save the kingdom from chaos and ruin.

Leseprobe

Raven Abyss; mornings

Raven Abyss- nothing more than an old, small church adorned the village center of the once strategically important post of the crown far to the south. The Mírosí culture was peeling away day by day from the more than hundred-year-old houses and the old observation tower. The paintings of a trading post that had been decaying for decades barely adorned the stone town hall, whose crumbling stones had only been held together roughly and coldly by wooden boards for years.

"Since the supplies for Raven Abyss have been cut off and yet also run out completely, we are falling apart more and more," Elric told the new priest Rowan Sinclair of the Lumen Ecclesia church, who had never set foot in the village himself, as he described the situation of Raven Abyss and its community. Rowan himself had lived all his life in the Drevanian trading city of Ezirholdor, which was close to the water and steeped in the culture of the Empire. Ezirholdor, a wealthy city on the shores of LakeEtimoftha, whose waters were even bluer and more glassy than the blue of the sky. The lake was dedicated to Alejandra Etimoftha, the daughter of the first emperor Paulveno.

But the days when there was an emperor were long gone. Elric himself only knew the imperial era from his parents' stories or from the images of a young boy he still carried in his head. The tale of the Paulvenian Empire, which from the northeast gorge valleys of Azynthorin here, across theMorqousMountains in the far east, to the sandy beaches and the Pearl Sea in the south near the imperial capital of Celestia; not forgetting the Baliur Marshes and the greatPaulvenoForest in the west of the continent and its legendary tales of a cursed necromancer who must have united evil dwarves who will claw your eyes out if you look at them too long.

"Are you sure you're up to this duty?"Elric asked the attentive preacher from the western city.

"You are still quite young for someone who is supposed to preach the word of God. How old are you?"Rowan stared soberly at the stone church floor, as if he really had to justify his young age.

"Nineteen," he replied."But I hope that's not of great importance, here at least."

"No, you're right, but I still think it's very daring of you to be so far away from home alone, without much experience of life."Rowan looked up at Elric and the two exchanged eye contact for the first time in minutes.

"You know I'm never alone."He grinned."I probably would never have ended up here on my own. In the end, it was the bishop from the capital who sent me here,"Rowan explained.

"Of course,"Elric blurted out. He could hardly have imagined that people would really come here because of the good air or the gray buildings.

"How long have you been living here?"the newcomer pressed on. Elric took a deep breath."As long as I can remember, probably my entire life."

"Too long," he added."I only left the village back then for my work."Rowan stared from the side.

"And as what? There was a lot more work here back then, when there was still a lot of trade between the East and the Southwest."

"I worked for the king of the time and for his henchmen and for theirs."He returned Rowan's inquiring gaze. "And that's all you need to know about it,"Elric told him sternly, but with a calm vein, as if a teacher were lecturing his pupils.

"What's stopping you from just leaving this place today? I mean, don't you want a change of scenery and some sun?"Rowan asked him.

"Why should I,"Elric began."Here I have everything I need, friends, my wife Aurora and the life's work of keeping this little pile of misery of a community alive. And you can't possibly show me a forest where hunting can be as satisfying as here, with all your Westland experiences."

The two walked over the threshold of the village's only remaining attraction and said goodbye to each other for now.

"Well, my dear brother, I hope to see you on Sunday. And may God be with you in everything you do,"Rowan almost preached.

"And may peace be with you,"Elric said goodbye and walked home along the cart-ridden path.

In some places, cobblestone paths could still be seen here and there, but the dirt and the wear and tear of time meant that they were no longer visible to unfamiliar eyes. On the way, he also looked upwards, far away, to see if ravens or birds were circling overhead. But not even that, simply nothing. Just the usual permanent gray sky, which was as good as cloudless and sunless. Even when he was a child, something like sunshine or warmth was a rarity, despite the rather wealthy inhabitants of the time. The weather that usually prevailed here could sometimes be seen in the gray, faded skin of the villagers, who almost had something cursed about them.

The gray sky, the fog and the cold, damp climate always had something cursed,Elric thought to himself as he passed the old observation tower. The tower, built back then to watch over the caravans and trade routes in and out of the gorge, was now only good for spotting the location of game in the nearby Azyn Forest. Nowadays there is hardly anyone left standing there.

Better for Elric. He carefully climbed up the old steps to the tower, careful not to catch the crumbling parts of the stairsand thus not to take any more stone from the tower. The old stone walls, on the other hand, were holding up relatively well despite the lack of maintenance; unlike the stairs, at least nothing was falling down or cracking in any way. The most tragic thing to be found on the walls were climbing plants fighting each other to see who could grow out into the cold air through the small slit in one of the stones.

Almost there,thought Elric to himself as he felt the growing breeze and noticed a hint of increased brightness in his eyes. The last step upwards had been taken. And regardless of everything else, was he unlucky or lucky today? He wasn't alone, but it wasn't a stranger he saw there either.

"Ryker,"Elric groaned."Elric." The well-built man in the leather coat smiled."What are you doing here?"Elric was pleased.

"Shouldn't you be stationed in Vornithor?"he added.

"Yes, I should, but I've been given leave until the coronation of the new king,"Ryker told him with a smile, trying not to hide his joy at seeing his old friend again after several years apart.

"Wait, the king is dead?"Elric interrupted the cheerfulreunion with wide eyes.

"Yes, the good Veldor, second of his name,"he mocked, "kicked the bucket about two weeks ago at the age of fifty."

"Probably better this way,"he added impassively.

"Nobody liked the pimp and his whores anyway."

"And do they already know who will be the new heir to the Paulvenian empire?"asked Elric, as if he wanted to lead Ryker into a political discussion that neither of them really wanted to get into.

"Well,"he began."He has two sons, the older of whom is a bastard and the other a twenty-year-old with temper tantrums who, despite being the younger, will be the new king because of his heritage of a legitimate marriage."

He continued to speak like an apprentice to his master, careful to tell everything correctly and to leave nothing out.

"As the Drevarian culture demands, the new queen must now be chosen from among the people. And now the selection process is taking place on Vornithor to determine which of the women who have volunteered will become queen."

"Just like at the cattle market again,"Elric added.

Nodding, Ryker scoffed:"But what you get at the cattle market is much more bearable."

The fog lifted. At last they could see more than the white bank of mist that had previously obscured the view of the forest and the mountains in front of them. And then suddenly a herd of deer ran from the nearby farmers' fields into the forest. As if they were already being chased by someone or something.

"Do you see that?"said Elric, pointing at the running deer pack.

"I'm taking one of them home with me today."

"Have fun then, I'm sure it'll be something, the way you can shoot a bow,"Ryker teased him.

"Then won't you come with me and give me a lesson in aiming and hitting?"Elric countered, knowing that Ryker was a master with the sword, but just as lousy as he was with the bow.

"I don't want to take all the fun away from you,"he joked."I'll watch your failure from up here."

"All right, but don't be jealous afterwards when everyone's gone."

Elric walked back to the crumbling steps he had come up, step by step he walked more and more towards the darkness. The first cone of light reappeared and he was soon back down again. Before he could step out into the daylight, however, he heard a loud flapping of wings next to him and then a crash right next to his ear.

"Shit, what was that,"he groaned, looking to his right where the noise was coming from.

"A raven!"he said emphatically to make it clear in his voice that there really was a bird stuck in one of the narrow gaps in the tower stones. Its beak was bent by the narrowness of the slit and its black head, pressed as it was into the gap, fitted almost perfectly to the stones.

Elric decided to stare at the raven a little longer, as if it was really still able to move.

He must be dead then,he thought to himself after seeing the white eyes of the popularly known bringer of bad luck.

But he was wrong, as he was about to avert his eyes from the animal, it began to croak. Elric recoiled in fright and fell to the ground on the steps. He gazed at the raven spellbound and could not take his eyes off it, no matter how hard he tried.

His milky white, grayed eyes began to turn black. Suddenly, the raven really did manage to wiggle one of its wings, which was so damaged that you could almost see the bone, out of the gap in which it was stuck and flap it around wildly.

A few seconds later, the second torn wing followed. Then suddenly, like an arrow, the raven shot just past Elric and slammed its beak onto the opposite wall of the tower. Elric only took a quick glance at the bird to see if this whole spook was over.

The raven's eyes had turned milky white again."Thank God, it's over,"he said, as if he had just had to carry two logs at once. He stood up as the cawing of the creature began again from one moment to the next.

No, not again,the thought flashed through his mind and he crushed the raven under his boot before thecould make any more sounds. At last Elric managed to run out of the tower and make his way to his house to fetch his hunting gear.

Ezirholdor; at noon

"Nayla, are you coming?"the woman in the habit called out to her.

"We're already too late,"she added.

"And I don't want to keep the mother waiting any longer, you know how she reacts when we're late, especially now that she's said it's so important."

Nayla still ignored her words, staring at one of Ezirholdor's gate entrances, which was diagonally concealed by a wall a few meters long for the woman in the Order's robes. Hundreds of people, soldiers and merchants from all corners of the realm passed through the sandstone gate every day.

The woman with the robe now hurriedly turned to Nayla, who had so far fended off all the woman's attempts to shake her out of her half-trance. She approached her with hurried steps and, focusing only on Nayla, asked:"Are you all right?"

"Look, Jula," said Nayla, frightened, having apparently only just heard her friend.

Following Nayla's eyes, Jula turned her gaze diagonally up to the rampart above the gate.

"Good heavens,"she groaned and crossed herself with her right hand.

The thing that Nayla was looking at the whole time was nothing less than a man hung up with his belly open, in which the first maggots had already made their temporary home by rotting away. Then there were the pecked-out eyes, which were probably the work of some birds.

At that moment, a soldier guard ran across the rampart. He had some straw in her left hand and walked purposefully with long strides towards the hanging body. But unlike what Novice Nayla had hoped, the man did not come to bring that body down from up there, but instead took the straw in his hand and pressed it as round balls into the almost empty eye sockets of the face so that the birds on the rampart would not disturb him in his task of watching over the crowd.

The hanged man himself was well dressed by the standards of the part of the city where he was hanging. His green robe was stained only by his own blood and a few gray and black feathers. His shoes were made of leather and partly animal fur and tapered at the front. Above his neck was a wooden shield."Long live the king"was written on it in red paint.

"Come on, let's go,"Jula said in a loud voice. She grabbed Nayla's shaky hand and simply pulled her along.

The two continued to walk through the dirt-covered streets of the lower city, paved with dark gray octagonal tiles, where it was typical to find prostituted souls on almost every corner among the criminal and dangerous black marketers. Prostitution in general had become increasingly important economically in Ezirholdor in recent decades.

The earnings of some clients fed entire family dynasties and, given the strict requirements of the sacrist church, also brought in good bribes for some inspectors and city guards. The brothels, which were virtually invisible to the outside eye and usually disguised as houses or smithies, were lined up two and three abreast.

But like the future of all people, the future of the pimps was uncertain after the coronation of the new king. Until now, both sides, the crown and the establishments, had benefited. The crown guaranteed the brothels security and freedom of workfor the prostitutes. And in return, the crown levied taxes and duties on the wealthy brothel owners.

After a few minutes, they walked towards the next gate, this time without a dead body sticking out over the rampart. They had now arrived at the city's markets, which lined up to their left and right. Although Ezirholdor no longer had the splendor of the imperial era, there were still goods, merchants and people from all parts of the shrunken empire.

On one corner was a man who had difficulty selling his spices because of the high prices, next to him a poor woman who was apparently trying to hawk fake silver bracelets to wealthier women. The next stall that Nayla and Jula passed was an ordinary vegetable stall, as could have been found anywhere in the empire. Yet here, too, everyone traded as well as they could for a reduced price.

Nayla and Jula now walked purposefully to the right into a small side alley, which they often used to avoid running into all the beggars and poor people at the next intersection. The small alley was narrow and often soiled with feces, but they felt it was safer to push themselves and their clothes through the shit for a short time instead of being robbed by drunken beggars, as sorry as they felt for them, or being robbed because of their good nature.

Back on the cobblestone path, they now only had to pass the crowds to reach a round marketplace where, in the midst of the many silk and wool stores, there was a four-hundred-foot-high cathedral that, with its three towers at the eastern beginning and western end, could call itself the highest structure in the entire empire.

The towers made of sandstone and gray stone and the entire nave of the church, which was shaped like an oval pyramid, had already been under construction for one hundred and eleven years and were nearing completion. Benet Etimoftha had initiated the plan andthe construction of theRegnum Coelestis. He himself was the third emperor of the Paulvenian Empire and the second grandson of Paulveno Etimoftha.

The twelve-foot-high entrance gates of the building were made of polished black marble and the large oak doors depicted the imperial line of the Paulvenian emperors in miniature. At the far left of the gate was the image of a man, presumably representing the first Emperor Paulveno Etimoftha, who founded, held and expanded his empire through war conquests and skillful diplomacy.

Next in line was his son Rovan Etimoftha, known for his large family tree and his thirteen

Children. He had six sons:

Paulveno the Second, Benet, Asrael, Aramael, Maèl and Sarazel Etimoftha.

And seven daughters:

Amara, Alba, Éva, Sylva, Sibyll, Josetta and Ravenna Etimoftha.

The third in the bloodline was Rovan's second son Benet, as his first son Paulveno renounced due to his leprosy and joined the Order of the Nymphara, an order where the sickest yet most God-fearing nobles and warriors from all parts of the world came together to spend their final years in the service of God.

Under Benet, theRegnum Coelestis, known almost throughout the entire Mírínorian world, was planned and built. The fourth of the line was Marel, Benet's first-born son. He was the emperor with the shortest reign, at just three years. Marel was known for his gentle and calm disposition, which some say was the reason why his brother Meric stabbed him to death.

Under Meric, who succeeded his childless brother Marel, the empire fell into an economic recession due to recurring peasant uprisings against the high taxes. This prompted Meric to grant the wealthy brothel owners political influence within the Imperial Circle in return for money.

Unlike his son Kesar, Meric had never deliberately oppressed his people or wished to be feared, despite the many uprisings he violently suppressed. Kesar Etimoftha, on the other hand, was to many an oppressor who truly wanted to earn the name.

"The only way to control your empire is to make the little people fear me more than any enemy!"

In addition to many executions, which he carried out by axe, fire or hanging, throughout his life he also waged war against the Paulvenians, a fighting organization founded in his time, to which various mercenaries, monk warriors, fighters and underground nobles at court belonged and whose aim was to protect the Paulvenian Empire from figures such as Kesar.

However, after eight years of resistance and rebellion, the Paulveners were charged with high treason and the long end of all Paulveners in the torture or execution chamber. But just as quickly as the end of the Paulvener was approaching, the end of Kesar was also imminent. He died just three weeks after the execution of the last Paulvener, with a blade from that faction in his throat. Some say that it was the spirit of a Paulvener that killed him. Some were a little less superstitious and suspected one of his bodyguards or whoever else.

Better times were to come. Fran Etimoftha, first of his name, ascended the throne two weeks after the death of his hated father. He led the country out of its crises and made life in the empire a littlebetter for everyone. Under him, the trading city of Ezirholdor with its large harbors and docks was expanded, making it one of the larger economic centers of modern-day Mírínor alongside the capitalCelestia. His reign ended when he passed away peacefully at the ripe old age of seventy-one, just as his empire had grown throughout the decades of his rule.

His son Paulveno the Fourth ascended the throne. He was dissatisfied with the autonomy laws his father had passed, which gave the various peoples of the Paulvenian empire and their own culture the right to exist under his rule. So Paulveno decided to give each people - the Silvari, who were often accused of making a pact with the devil for their beauty, the Sedúren, the southern fishing and trading people who now cultivated their own kingdom beyond Lake Etimoftha, and the Macopes, who lived in the south-west of the Paulvenian Empire and were known in particular for their architecture made of sandstone, the same stone that made the majority of the port city of Ezirholdor - to take away their autonomy and their right to their own culture, which those peoples had cultivated for centuries.

The Silvari,the Sedúren and the Macopes were to accept and live the culture of Mírínor. Thus, under Paulveno, violent attempts were made to bring the Drevanian culture to those parts of the Paulvenian world that had other customs, traditions or languages, even if the religion of Sacrism woven around everything already somehow united the entire empire.

In the end, it was clear to two of the peoples that before they were wiped out, they would rather replace themselves as two separate sovereign states in the great summer revolution. The Macopes proclaimed theMauzuneKingdom and the Sedúren the first Zevilian Republic.A genocide was committed against the Silvari and the entireSilvari nation, which had numbered two million at the time of the conqueror Paulveno, was reduced to zero at the end of the Paulvenian Empire.

In the end, Paulveno the Fourth saw the collapse of an empire that was almost two hundred years old. With only half of the land mass left and a loss of around a third of the entire population, the new Mírínor was proclaimed. A kingdom title that was just that under the empire at the time. Paulveno the Fourth abdicated after the collapse and foundation of the new kingdom, five months after being crowned king. His son Veldor Etimoftha took over the affairs of the realm at the age of thirty-one and was crowned the first native-born king of Mírínor a week after his father's abdication. He too had recently died and the new king was not crowned.

Now Nayla also entered the monastery.

"Come on now,"Jula called out impatiently.

"I don't want her to put us on cleaning duty again just because you're staring at a door like a fool."

"Excuse me... I'm just always captivated by the stories and the people of the past."

"Yes, but not now, all right?"Jula almost nagged with

her voice, which is always so calm.

Nayla just nodded her head, as if she was ashamed of stressing out her sister and superior. As always, Jula led Nayla through the winding corridors of the cathedral. There was never much to see here; apart from a few torches to provide light and warmth, there were rarely any pictures hanging on the walls of the barren, stone corridors. These usually depicted a certain important event in the life of Jesus or just elderly ladies who were being honored for their sacrifice and work in the monastery.

Now Jula frantically opened one of the two wooden doors decorated with wood carvings, which led into the nave and thechambers and study of the nuns and the superior general behind it.

In the angular but round-looking main room, above the protruding altar, which was made of white-colored sandstone and bore the inscription

"Gelvenstew narvoso Paulvex seen sevorius Retto Jesa in derexa Machtorium"

was decorated with a large dome designed with mosaic glass.

Although Nayla had long been accustomed to the sight of the large, round dome decorated with colored glass, she always magically stopped for a moment in the middle of the oval nave to look at the sun stretching far and high, reflected in the purple, green and white mosaic glass.

The mosaic was arranged to form a picture of three people: one was pointing her hand forward, while the other two next to her were pointing at what appeared to be something in front of them. Who the figures were or what they were pointing at was unknown, even Jula and the other nuns at the monastery were clueless.

"Really now."Jula groaned audibly through the echo of the room.

"You could really be an architect, as much as you seem to be interested in architecture."

"... excuse me... you know how I am,"Nayla replied to her sister's sarcastic remark.

"It's okay ... if we have to clean the floor later, I'll just watch you do it,"Jula said with an ironic smile.

Now they walked along another corridor. The walls were covered with light yellow tiles and mosaic pictures of icons. After that, however - unlike Nayla had always expected - they did not go straight ahead through a large archway, which in this case would have led to the abbey of the monks' workr, butern continued to the right through an inconspicuous wooden door in the corner at the end of the corridor.

Jula opened the wooden door, visibly nervous, and entered the round abbey room of Superior General Leandra.

"Mother, we are here as you ordered."Jula cleared her throat, exhausted.

"Yes, I can see that ... and only eleven minutes late,"said the Superior General sternly, but in a calm voice, as she looked at her pocket watch.

"Were you stopped?"she wanted to know in a probing voice.

Before Jula could come up with a halfway decent excuse that wouldn't directly blame Nayla for showing up late, Nayla intervened with her own words.

"The beggars stopped us again, and the builders said we had to take a detour ... forgive us."

"Beggars ... yes?"said Leandra skeptically.

"It's high time the soldiers took care of these people and stopped chasing after small secret societies unnecessarily,"she mocked.

"Of course,"Nayla replied out of nervousness.

"So ... you're probably wondering what prompted me to ask you to come to me on such a beautiful day, aren't you?"the Superior General asked enigmatically.

Neither Jula nor Nayla really wanted to answer this question, which wasn't really a question at all. The only thing Nayla did was nod once with her head bowed.

"So,"she began,"the reason you're here is that I need you for a secret mission... nothing big, I just need you to go to Valandria Faelnor Monastery for me. Can you manage that?"

"The old monastery next to the Paulveno forest?"Jula said, her eyes wide.

"Yes,"replied the Superior General."You will be traveling west. The reason you will be there on my behalf is that rumor has it that a dark, oppressive and malevolent presence has been heard by Matron Hérra within the monastery walls... and you are to go and spend a few weeks there."

Jula and Nayla had to swallow. A dark, malevolent presence - as if they were exorcists who were now supposed to drive a demon out of a monastery. But that wasn't exactly what they were. Nayla, who was still in training, and Jula, who barely knew Latin or the learned theological language of Scar, had no idea about possession and knew nothing more than theLord's Prayer. But the Superior General wasn't finished yet.

"You will act at your own discretion and only return when you have enough evidence for or against a visitation of the monastery as you see fit!"she demanded, opening an old book that was lying on the desk in front of her, which was made of ash wood. She looked at Jula and Nayla. Neither of them looked impressed, or at least not enthusiastic about their mission.

"Something is bothering you, my children. Go ahead and say it, the Lord has given you a mouth for that,"she said, as if she could see into the heads of her counterparts.

"With all due respect, Mother,"Jula began to elaborate, "Nayla is still in the phase of learning and holding the rank of novice. I don't think she would be ready to go to the place of an obsession just yet."

The Superior General stared at Nayla, not realizing at first that she was expecting an affirmative nod or a shake of the head to the contrary. Nayla nodded, hoping to agree with Jula that she didn't want to go near this monastery just because of the stories of the cursed forest and its inhabitants.

"And yet you only talk about her,"the Superior General began to assess Jula."If it's a big problem for Nayla, you can go on your own."

Jula only threw her wide eyes at her in response and began to stare at her like a statue that had become as hard as a rock, as if her green eyes were trying to drive the thought of traveling out of the superior general's mind.

"So not so heroic after all ... too bad,"Leandra added in response to Julia's look, which she broke off with a downward tilt of her head.

"Well then,"she continued,"get ready. We leave bright and early tomorrow morning. You will be traveling with Ramon, he will be responsible for your safety."

Nayla swallowed. What did she mean by security? The old trade routes leading east and west were guarded. Skirmishes or raids on caravans or merchants were rare at best, especially now that the old king was dead and the new one was being crowned, all the soldiers and their generals were on alert. No one would so obviously attack one of the empire's busiest routes.

Nayla quickly dismissed the idea. Surely one of the caravan guards would only be given to them for emergencies. Surely it was nothing more than a formality.

"As far as food is concerned, you will be taken care of in the monastery. But what I ask of you is that no one goes into the Paulveno Forest on the basis of the frothing rumors," the Superior General said sternly at the end of her exposition.

Nayla and Jula had heard of the legends and tales of the Paulveno Forest, but they didn't think that the headmistress meant the tales and stories of the evil dwarves and the cursed necromancer.Or maybe she did, Nayla thought, and had to probe deeper.

"Why not?"she asked with trepidation in her voice. Leandra swiveled her head in surprise. She rarely asked questions like why, why, why. Most nuns or novices simply did what they were told to do without wanting additional knowledge about certain assignments or even secret missions. However, Leandra also liked it a little when her students were eager to learn, which was why she made an exception this time and didn't throw the usual"just do what I told you"at her.

"I'm sure you and the other sisters haven't heard about it yet, fortunately," the Superior General began to say, resting her hands on her desk.

"Our spies, the eyes and ears of our Order and those of our King, may Jesus bless him, have told us of events in the west, especially in the Arial around the forest of our Eternal Emperor Paulveno. An 'association' of soldiers and peasants is said to be up to mischief, there is talk of an uprising, but no one knows for sure."

Nayla turned her head and looked in panic at Jula, who responded to her mother's confession with a summarizing"So rebels?".

"Rebels, conspirators, insurgents, heretics, heathens, abominations,"Leandra barked across the room.

"You can call them whatever you like. What I do know is that they want to destroy our entire order and destroy the true Sacristani faith with their new Satanism. It is therefore important for you to stick with Ramon if anything threatening should happen. I must also ask you not to tell anyone else what you have heard here. This information is only intended for high-ranking members of the Order, soldiers, generals and members of the royal family. Have you understood that!"

Leandra looked at the two of them with her eyebrows pressed together as tightly as possible, as if the distortion of her expression helped to emphasize her demand for secrecy.

"Of course,"Jula replied, followed a few milliseconds later by Nayla in a hoarse voice.

"Good."The Superior General began to relax her face again and closed her book, which lay in front of her. The book had a striking black cover and a striped decoration that stood out on the spine.

"Then get ready, tomorrow's the day."

"Of course, Mother,"Jula said, turning to the oak door that led out of Leandra's chambers and opening it.

Meanwhile, Nayla let her eyes wander through the round abbey room of the superior general. The room had several large bookshelves lined up along the mosaic-decorated walls. Like the library, which was located next to the crypt in the former dungeons, the shelves were full of books. However, the books were not organized, unlike those in the crypt.

Some of the Latin writings of St. Cesare stood next to frayed ecclesiastical theology books whose bindings had fallen apart. Apocrypha were not carefully placed between panes of glass or precious stones to preserve and protect them legibly, but lay collected in paper bindings that could simply be torn apart.

And then there were two books that stood out because of their covers. Similar to the book Leandra had on her table, these writings also had black covers. Flower-like patterns were visible on one of the spines. Stems that shot upwards and had a flower head on top that looked like a sun or a moon or maybe just a circle growing out of it.

The cover of the second book appeared to depict a dragon, which seemed to be holding something in its mouth, itwas thin, long and had a bulge in the middle. A branch perhaps, a snake or a human,Nayla thought to herself, squinting her eyes to perhaps get a better look at the spine of the book from a distance, but no chance, the shelf was too far away.

Jula stepped out of the room of the Superior General, who slowly sat down at her table. Nayla only now realized that Jula had left her. Almost panicking, she left the abbey room and hurried after Jula, who apparently thought that Nayla was walking right behind her.

"What do you think?"she said to herself, waiting for an answer from Nayla, who wasn't right behind her, but was still hurrying after her. So Jula turned to investigate the silent nothingness behind her.

"I'm already here..."Nayla called out in a parched voice and with empty lungs.

"Mother Maria, why are you running so fast..."And she joined Jula in the corridor.

"Have you been looking at all the pictures around us again?"Jula reacted almost sarcastically to Nayla's heavy breathing.

"Yeah... something like that,"Nayla replied here, catching herself breathing normally again as a small smirk escaped Jula's mouth.

"So, what do you think ... about the job,"Jula asked Nayla, untangling her rosary in her hands.

"I don't know, with everything she's told us. Should we really be doing this? ... And who is this Ramon anyway, can we trust him?"Nayla began to pour out her thoughts about the mission.

"I don't like it either, I have to be honest with you. This is also my first time acting on my own convictions in any way as a representative of our monastery. What if I make a mistake? Suppose the monastery is possessed and I go and say 'no it's not possessed' - or the other way around, I cause an unnecessary exorcism.What then?"Jula gesticulated uncontrollably with her hands. Nayla had a bad feeling that she was going to catch another one just because Jula's hands were flapping from left to right.

"Jula, Jula, Jula!"Nayla insisted, trying to grab Jula's hands and get them under control. When her hands no longer threatened to polish anyone's face, Nayla continued to speak.

"Come down here. I mean, you don't have to make the decision whether to be possessed or not on your own. You have me and ..."Nayla paused for a moment and stepped in front of Jula.

"And God. We'll survive anything with that, even the terrible headmistress."

"Nayla!"Jula replied sternly to her not-so-much-younger pupil.

"Like what? I'm not supposed to lie,"she joked next to her.

"Well, maybe you're right,"Jula grinned, making her way with Nayla to the nuns' rooms in the other building.

Vornithor; in the afternoon

When are we finally going to start?" thought Lia, repeating her brother's last few answers to possible questions she might be asked by some of the king's advisors. Somewhere between these rehearsed answers and reactions to questions like"What do you think makes a good ruler?"or"What do you think the duties of a ruler are?",

In addition to her Macopian mother tongue, she also mixed in some quickly memorized Latin, which she had to learn from her brother Perez in order to maintain the appearance of a native ofMírínorand to be allowed to take part in this competition for the future wife of the king.

Knowing Latin, obviously being a young woman of childbearing age and not having the tanned skin of aSedúrinwere already exclusion criteria that Lia could fulfill if she didn't mess up her Latin.

Suddenly, while she was still deep in thought, the large entrance door to the throne room opened. As if out of the blue, a woman almost fell to her feet. The soldier behind her seemed to have given her a strong push.Who is this,Lia wondered.

The woman who fell at her feet was about her age, maybe a little younger, maybe a little older, who could say for sure. She was wearing a green robe with white sleeves, classic for peasant women when they really wanted to dress up for a big occasion. At that moment, Lia was wearing a knee-length robe, also green, which was fastened to her shoulders by the various knots she had made.

Behind the soldier, who stood in fully mounted armor behind the woman who had fallen to the ground, another woman came running out of the throne room. She was followed by two men who also wore the silver armor of aMírinorianknight, but whose faces were not concealed by a helmet.

"Sir Jelwek," the older woman behind the fully armored soldier began to speak,"I think our dear Lyra has forgotten where the exit is, let alone how to walk properly... Could you take her out so I don't have to look at this pile of misery of country bumpkins anymore!"

The coarse man in front of Lia grabbed the hair of the woman lying on the ground, whose name was apparently Lyra, and then pulled her up by it. When she screamed in pain and the man had finally pulled her up, he grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the archway, where two guards were already standing to open the castle gate for them.

Now the older lady who had previously given the order to throw the woman out approached. She was probably in her mid to late fifties and had a rather cold and indifferent aura, which Lia immediately sensed.

"And you, come with me,"she threw at Lia disinterestedly as a side note and made her way back into the throne room.

Lia was still upset after what had happened to the other woman, who had probably been in there before. What could she have done wrong? Had she lied, had she answered a question incorrectly? And most importantly, what could she do herself so that she wouldn't be thrown out of the castle by her hair?

As she was lost in her thoughts, one of the knights next to her became impatient. His mistress was already back in the throne room and Lia was still sitting on a spruce bench like a frightened toddler.

"Didn't you hear her? You should go in!"he ordered in a loud voice, taking her arm and pulling her off the bench where she was still sitting onto her two legs and dragging her into the hall.

"Ahh ... let go ... I can go myself!"Lia nagged at him unsuccessfully. Another knight standing behind her responded to her demand with an indifferent"Then next time just do as you're told and then we won't have to hurt you".

A few seconds later, the other knight dropped her in front of a chair and a table in the middle of the hall on the left. The castle hall itself was huge and, like the castle itself, was made of slate stone. Despite its size and the transparent round windows, which were decorated with golden amber glass, it had an oppressive air about it.

Unlike in the seat of government of the emperors and kings in the Etimoftha Palace in Celestia, the ceiling was not decorated with cultural paintings by sculptors and painters. Nor were thereany pictures of icons or rulers lining the corridors or in the many halls, as was the case there. It was all just dark stone, illuminated by the gray rays of the sun through the clouds during the day and occasionally made visible by torches or lanterns in the evening.

Lia got up from the floor, stood up and took a seat on the chair she had been thrown in front of. Sitting opposite her, presumably already waiting, was the elderly lady, who blew out a sigh at her. In front of her was a piece of parchment, to the right of it a dark blue quill with an eggshell white shaft, which became closer to a dark grey color the closer it got to the end of the quill, the coil. Further to the right was a small, white inkwell with ink spattered around the edges.

"So, I ask, you answer. Understood?"said the older lady, looking coolly at Lia. Lia answered her with a slight nod of her head and tried to sit up as straight as possible in her chair.

"Name?"the woman began to question Lia, staring at the parchment.

"Lia is my first name ... and Píras is my surname," she replied, nervous that she had forgotten her practiced Latin somewhere on the floor.

"Píras ... that's not Mírínorian, is it?"the woman in front of her analyzed, lifting her head and putting her quill aside.

Nervous and hoping that her ethnic origin would not be a criterion for exclusion, Lia, who most people on the street consider to be moderately white, replied:"No, that's not it."The woman in front of her now looked at her with an even more disapproving expression.

"Is it sedúrish, perhaps?"She sized her up with narrowed eyes.

Lia's breath caught, as she was aware that Sedúren were never eligible for such a position and were considered subhuman by order of the royal summons, whichwas why they were not allowed to appear in that competition. After all, anyone who killed a Sedúren would not be punished, but would receive a one-off payment of eight hundred Paulvan thalers, enough to buy a whole suit of armor back then, enough to feed a family of four for just three sunrises today.

"No, your ... honor ... is not,"she whispered, almost dry-mouthed.

"Mhh ... well ..."she commented on Lia's still inadequate assertion that she did not belong to the people who had committed serious treason against the royal family.

The woman lowered her head again to turn her pen back to the sheet of parchment. Lia's mouth had become drier and drier in the few minutes since she had sat in the chair, she was sweating despite the mild summer in the west. Across from her, she saw a cup, most likely that of the wealthy-looking woman in front of her.Maybe I'll get a cup of water too, if I just ask nicely.

"Could I have some water, please?"she asked in a high-pitched voice.

Not looking up from the parchment to see if any of her servants were nearby, she shouted"Water!"staring at the parchment and put her quill aside.

A lad, perhaps fifteen, standing on the other side of the hall with two other men, moved towards Lia's table with a jug, placed a cup there and poured water into it with a dark wooden jug.

"Thank you,"said Lia, which the boy accepted with a brief nod of his head.

"Very well ... let's get on with it then,"the woman in front of her ordered, while Lia took a large sip.

"Age?"she let out, bored.

"I'm eighteen ... Your Honor ..."she replied, unsure of how to address the woman in front of her.

"Ehmm ... what is your title ... or how may I address you, if you don't mind me asking?"

Unsure whether the question had gotten through to the lady opposite her, she tried to start again before she was interrupted by her.

"First of all, all you need to know about me is that I have the power to ruin your life, and secondly," she nagged at Lia, "you will not talk, say or do anything unless you are allowed to. Understood?!"

Lia only answered her with a nod and a subsequent lowering of her head.

"Can you write?"the woman continued to ask her in an indifferent tone.

"Yes,"Lia answered purposefully. The next questions were also easy to answer with a yes or no.

"Can you read?"she asked, staring at her parchment.

"Yes, I love reading, Your ..."she added, before being interrupted by that disinterested voice opposite.

"Do you know Latin?"Lia swallowed. For her, the individual words she had learned would be enough to pass as"speaking Latin", perhaps unlike for the woman. She, however, seemed completely uninterested in other skills and focused mainly on her quill and parchment. Hopefully only basic knowledge would suffice. So far, she hadn't really been interested in what Lia had to contribute to the interrogation.

"Yes,"she said in a shaky voice.

"Good, then you can translate this."The older lady pulled out an even smaller sheet of parchment from underneath her sheet. It was a small scrap that could easily be passed on to spies as a secret message. She pushed the small scrap of paper with her fingers towards Lia, who was now even more agitated than she already was.

She took the scrap and began to read for herself:

Vivat Mírínor, Patria magni Paulveni

"Of course,"Lia whispered to herself as she realized what simple phrase was written on the parchment. It was nothing less than"Long live Mírínor, land of the great Paulveno",better known as the motto of the soldiers and the fleet of Mírínor. She knew this from her father, who had been a sailor for that fleet for half his life until his death.

"I'm waiting,"the woman opposite her sneered, secretly hoping to reduce the number of her candidates. Lia looked up at her directly for the first time and replied with satisfaction in her eyes:"Long live Mírínor, land of the great Paulveno ... among other things, that is also the motto of our fleet and that of the army."

The woman in front of her sat up straight after Lia's correct translation and leaned against the wooden back of her chair.

"And what then of this ... Dominari et servire non solum necessariis, sed etiam utilibus rebus pertinent, et multa pariter ab initio suo ita sunt distincta, ut alterum ad dominandum, alterum ad serviendum destinatum sit."

"Um..."Lia lost the position of victory she had just built up and it changed to one of horror as the woman in front of her began to speak Latin to her. The only thing she understood,were words like "necessariis", which meant something like "necessary". She could understand individual slurs such as "sit" for "is" or "et" for "and". The rest, however, sounded so incomprehensible that she didn't even know whether the sentence was an invitation to a conversation or some kind of malicious comment.

"No idea? Mmh," mocked the woman. Lia didn't move. Now she had been found out and would probably end up just like the girl before her, dragged out by her hair by guardsand returned to her brother as a disappointment.

"I knew it!"she commented on Lia's silence.

"Ruling and serving are not only among the things that are necessary, but also among the things that are useful. Ever heard of it? ... Probably not."

The woman sat up straight again andnow turned her gaze to the door of the throne room and the two knights standing next to it.

"Then we don't have to continue, good to know,"she said and put her pen back in the inkwell. At that moment, Lia felt the presence of two soldiers approaching and noticed the table shake as the lady in front of her stood up with a jerk.

She was delivered, no matter what came next, she saw herself back in the small farmhouse of her deceased parents and her brother, who would probably sell her in anger and frustration on some women's market so that he could pay the farm taxes for the next few months or weeks.

The idea of being sold for the money of an old brothel owner and his ten concubines was such a horror to her that she tried once again to pull out all the stops, even if she didn't know whether it would do any good at all.

"I can speak Makopian!"she shouted. The woman, whose noble robe was now revealed, turned to her attentively and stopped.

"Góróyürsun, sàz äün da tac igin Faydaíylím ... ricándö," she begged in Makopian, saying,"You see, I am useful to the crown ... please."

The woman, who now raised her fist and gave a confirming look to the footsteps behind Lia, who were no longer approaching her, could not speak Makopian, but understood the language, which was rarely found, very well.

"Then tell me, Makopin ... are you a tainted whore or a pure virgin?"

"Sáz köfé (I am pure),"Lia replied in a mixture of frustration and anger.

"And who are your parents?",the woman in front of her now nagged again.

"Namlyn ólmayan insanylar, byri síradan big ciftcís, dégerily gürürlü byr dänizcién, filonuza katılıyór! (People without names, one a normal peasant woman, the other a proud sailor in your fleet)."

"Good ... I think we've heard enough. Guards!"she shouted, glancing behind Lia, and from one moment to the next a man grabbed her arm, another fixed her right shoulder and grabbed her there.

"You know where to go."And she nodded to them sympathetically.

"Let go of me!"Lia shouted irritably, trying to tear herself away from the knights' rough grips as they dragged her out of the great hall.

"Damn it, don't touch me!"She thrashed around until one of the men in armor took his hand, grabbed her hair with it, pulled it, and yanked her head back.

Almost unnoticed, the woman she had just been interrogated by followed her. She was visibly carrying two books in her hand, I don't know what they were, they were small and had a woolly-looking cover.

"Ahhh... damn... you're hurting me,"Lia shrieked through the empty, sprawling, slate corridors of the castle.

"You know ... you didn't have to fight back. My guards don't do anything unless they're given a reason to ... unlike your people, they are obedient and loyal and listen to their mistress's orders,"the lady paced behind them.

"Then tell him to stop... please,"she whimpered as the knights dragged her up some stairs to a tower and a small tear rolled out of her eye.

"Kaév," said the woman addressed in a clear voice. Now the head of one of the knights turned to face his mistress, who nodded in acknowledgement. He carefully let go of Lia's hair, giving her full control of her head again. She straightened her head.

"Thank you,"she addressed the strange woman who was following her.

"For what, that's the question."She grinned."At the end of the tower, there should still be room,"she instructed her soldiers in a military tone as they climbed the stairs of the tower and stepped back into a long corridor with little light.

When they reached the end of the corridor, one of the soldiers finally let go of Lia and opened the door with a jerk to a macho-looking storeroom containing a simple bed with white sheets and pillows, a small, cluttered side table and a window decorated with white glass.

The other soldier gave her a jerk, let her go and dropped her onto the cold stone floor in that room.

"You can have these,"the woman in the elegant dress said to her and threw the two books she was holding at Lia, who was lying on the floor.

"Take your time and try to learn at least some Latin. You will only leave this room when you are asked to, food will be brought to you. We will meet again tomorrow after sunrise for your disciplines!"

Before Lia could really listen to her and collect herself on the floor, the knights locked the room behind them and left Lia to herself. Still taken by surprise and astonished at what had just happened, she sat down on the carelessly prepared bed and realized that she was neither standing outside the castle gates nor in a cell. On the contrary, she was still in the fortress, in a room where she had light while the sun was still shining and didn't have to sleep on the floor.

Still aching from the man's grip on her hair, she turned her head and neck, hoping to get rid of the pain she was in.

Suddenly she noticed the books lying on the floor in front of her. I wonder what they are,she thought to herself and carefully picked them up.

Sacristical Biblia iuxta Jezare

was written on the first book, it was a little thicker, but still only slightly larger than Lia's hand. It had a yellow-gold cover and on the front cover was a drawing of a cross. The nameJezarewas written in a kind of banner at the bottom of the edge. The author was regarded by many as a saint.

It was the Latin form of the official ecclesiastical script of the Sacramental Assembly. She herself owned a copy of it, but in her native Macopean language, which wouldn't do her any good as it was in her home.

And what is this?"she thought and picked up the second, much thinner book.

"Historia magni Alejandra Etimoftha, imperatoris filia"

was written on it. It had a white and woolly, almost furry spine, as if a white rabbit had been plucked for it. The author was a certain Jean Révio, known to have been the husband and lover of the emperor's daughter. Apparently, this book was also about her, Princess Alejandra Etimoftha.

Lia began to browse a little, text after text and ... drawings of a woman with pinned-up hair and a slender body, a face with full cheekbones and a fiery gaze.That must be her,Lia thought to herself when she saw a drawing of that woman wearing a formal crown and a large, magnificent dress.

She closed the book and put it next to her along with the other one. She remembered what the lady had told her: something about disciplines or exams. She wondered what kind of disciplines she should take if the woman had her way.Perhaps some kind of behavioral test, she thought. But what else?

However, before her head started to hurt again, she left her thoughts and worries and tried to breathe in and out deeply.

"I can do this,"she told herself."Father, let me manage,"she began to say before praying in her own language.

"Rés benjamy olsun ... éwy et Jesú Chrístje ..."

Celestia; in the afternoon

"And I've won again,"Juhan boasted, clearing the table of coins with his arm.

"Come on..."Luan began, tired of Juhan's winning streak, and threw his cards onto the old stone tabletop they were playing on. Those plaques were scattered throughout the capital to present a brief history of each historical location.

"You've got to be kidding me. How lucky can a person be?"And he ran his hands over his face, which was already marked by the darkness of the alley they had been sitting in for hours.

"Since you're still not broke,"Juhan began to joke,"probably not enough."

Luan's gaze wandered along the alley where they were sitting, outside to the magnificent-looking fountain that had been built in the middle of a crowd of people. Behind the fountain was a statue of a warrior, his sword raised victoriously. Directly behind him, almost running into his back, stood the image of a woman,who was hiding in fear behind the man with the sword.

The image of the man, whose statue stretched seven feet high, was erected during the reign of Kesar the First. It was intended as a memorial to the civil war against the Paulvener Order, which had risen up against Kesar and his father Meric at the time. From today's perspective, many soldiers, including Luan and Juhan themselves, have mixed feelings about this part of their history.

On the one hand, they could hardly imagine life without their monarchy. The crown itself, no matter how brutal or evil the rulers were, was always committed to the welfare of the Mírínorian people and their protectors. The man depicted was supposed to represent a knight named Gabil, officially"the protector of Celestia", even if Silvarians or Sedúren called him the"Butcher of Tauséss", the city on the Franian Isles off Ezirholdor, which was considered the front line between Paulvenians and Mírínors at the time. The former tried to bunker down in the surrounded city. After weeks of siege, a major attack is said to have been launched for the peace of Mírínor, in which almost all the inhabitants and defenders of the city died.

Here, however, the stories of the peoples differed. It was taught in Mírínorian schools and monasteries that the Paulvener, the Sedúren and Silvari, who were also in the city, did not want to leave the metropolis of eight thousand inhabitants and had hostages themselves in the form of soldiers, merchants and residents, whom they killed every day that came and hung above the city gates and its walls.