Kingdom of Ranavar

Kingdom of Ranavar (I)

116th of Nemulum, 7 RI

Castle Umbreanu, Athal

Llywelyn Ranavar would be the first king of the new reality. That much he knew. It could be read in his eyes and in his gait, in that way he moved through the chaos after catastrophe. He was considerate, and precise. He wore stateliness like a cloak.

To his backdrop he heard the calls of the undulating masses, their distresses and their disarray. Their anxiety over this newfound isolation, this aetherbound existence, it was palpable. They were too fresh from the incomprehensible madness of the void, and many of their leaders had died even before whatever shattered reality they now lived amongst could take hold. They were a disoriented people, most of all, and so it fell to Llywelyn’s charge to soothe them.

He stood, waiting then in that antechamber so high in its ceilings that one worried that they might fall up into them, letting their distant murmurings wash over him.

“Are you quite sure of this?” His dear love Miacyne fretted through whispers at his side. “It’s not too late.”

“I am sure, darling.” He had been in love with his paramour long enough to know just how much reassurance was necessary. “All will be well, after this. We will trade peace for prosperity, with these people. As is right.”

“As is right.” Miacyne nodded, the repetition a seeming comfort to him as it so often was with matters such as these. He clasped his hands underneath the billowing sleeves of his gown, and though it gave a look of composure those hands of his were still being wrung under cover of the cloth.

Llywelyn kissed him then, a resolute sort of kiss, and pulled away to begin his stride forwards.

The grand doors of his castle craned open at his approach, bathing him in the light of the noonday sun and the pouring roar of those masses he had worked so very hard to assemble on that bracingly chilled day.

His family, high elven in blood, were in procession behind him for all to see. He held his shoulders back and glided across the causeway. In that moment Llywelyn was tailored to authority in every stitch of his clothing and every meaningful nod of his head.

Still, as he approached the dais, raised above them, a doubt flickered in the deep recesses of his mind. Theirs were many, and his were few. They were unruly, and yet he was making it his commission to rule them.

They assessed him at every step, these would be subjects. They scoured him for any sign of incapacity, any flinch of malignancy.

Then, he was there. He had walked out into the very center of them, and resting on a pillowed plinth was a crown of ivory and gold and plush red velvet. He pressed his fingers into the sides of that crown, and lifted it. He felt the air suck out of the place as he did, all eyes settling on him as he raised it above his head. He let it linger there, like a halo behind him, for a moment longer than was necessary. And then, he lowered it onto his head and was crowned.

The crowd in that moment was deafening, and yet when he raised his hand once more they fell to silence as if by magic.

“This day,” Llywelyn’s conviction projected out through the square, “Will be marked in history as the day our people were saved.”

The enrapture held, no matter the fact that Llywelyn’s family were not of these people.

“No longer will the echoes of the Evenfall dictate our misery.” He called to them in inspiration, “No longer will sibling fight sibling, nor neighbor be stranger. Let us come together, as one nation, as the Kingdom of Ranavar, to secure our place into the future of this new world.”

He paused a moment, and the cheers that went up in the absence of his voice told him that he had their hearts.

“I vow,” He continued, “on the honor of my noble family and on my position as king of this land old and new, to do what is right in all things, to ensure stability in this realm.”

With that decree Llywelyn walked off, cheers still roiling at his back, to reenter the privacy of the castle.

It was only Miacyne, then, who was there to read the slyness that shed from him.
Kingdom of Ranavar (II)

61st of Gnielm, 88 RI

Kesserine, Athal

Micai Ranavar would be an estimable warrior. That much he knew. As he walked up through the city, armored brightly and flanked on either side by a retinue of comrades, he tried not to be too distracted by the attention that it brought him.

Still though, his mind wandered over his legs. What must he look like, to them? He was tall, broad in stature, and possessed of all the lupine grace that was natural for a young high elf. The saber at his side was Dawnmaker, a blade that had passed to him through generations of noble hands. It had been used to save the Ranavars, in the ravages of the time before, so said his father.

All of this contributed to a general air about Micai, the way that greatness simply radiated off of him. The gasps of passers by, the kneeling salutes, all the glory, it did thrill him. He was their prince, and he would die for them.

Kesserine was a city of gates, six grand baileys in total, situated betwixt two impenetrable mountains which faded quickly into the aether around. It wasn’t until the fifth and final of his intended passes that Filauriel caught him.

“You’re late.” From someone else it might have come off as judgmental, but she said it as a statement of fact.

“I know it,” He motioned his guards to walk on ahead, leaving him a private moment with his lady paramour, “The Wraith’s Road needed my attention.”

Filauriel pursed her lips at that.

“Do you disagree?” Micai led them out from under the gate, through an open market in the direction of a grand amphitheater.

“The kingdom has aspects other than it’s wartorn border.” Filauriel rehashed that argument of theirs. “King Miacyne says-”

Micai scoffed, immediate and interrupting. “The king consort lives too much in his own head. He spends his days lost in the castle, writing all his life away in those blasted letters.”

“He thinks those are important.” Filauriel was gentle in her reproach, “If they keep him happy, keep his mind off the horrors he’s seen, what’s the trouble?”

“The trouble is that no soul will ever read them! He burns them all to crisp, so what was the point in the first place?” Micai passed loudly through and into the halls of the amphitheater, weaving now through small crowds scholars and merchants, patrons and soldiers, courtiers to his family all.

When it became clear that Filauriel was not intending to respond to his outburst, he took a deep breath. “My pater isn’t the point. I’m sorry I interrupted you.”

“Thank you for your apology.” Filauriel squeezed his arm comfortingly. “I just wish for you to think on your place in this kingdom.”

“My place as the prince of this kingdom is as a protector. Do you not agree that the orcish uprising is a threat to our people?” Micai pressed once more.

“Of course it is.” Filauriel headed up a set of spiraling stairs. “I’m not telling you to abandon military pursuits. I only meant for you to consider that one day you will be prince no longer. That you will be king, and that a king makes for a poor man-at-arms. There are other skills to statecraft, skills that attending events such as these will hone for you.”

“I’ve considered that.” Micai made what final adjustments to his appearance that he intended. “Father will abdicate, we’ve discussed it on more than one occasion. He’ll hand over the throne when the time is right, and I will have many long years to absorb his wisdom as an advisor. The joy of these elvish lifespans is that I will always have more time to learn what I need.”

Filauriel was silent at that.

“I see what you are saying. I am here, after all, even if it is not when I was meant to be.” Micai acceded, cresting up to the corner just around which he knew he would find his responsibility. He paused there, just long enough to lean down and tenderly kiss his beloved. “I know you have my best interest at heart, and I have much love for you on that account. All will be well.”

“I know you, and I love you too.” Filauriel whispered to him as they stepped out into the light of the amphitheater together.

It was a crowded affair, the half-crescent sitting boxes packed with all manner of movers and shakers from Ranavar and beyond. Micai could tell that, in his tardy approach, searching eyes were pulled to him. He had been noticed, and noted.

It mattered little to him. He was of a state that he was proud to be seen, it served only to focus him.

Surveying the invited parties back, Micai found that the vast majority of seats were swashed by people from there in Kesserine, elves and half-elves and the like. Some portion went also to the human folk of the outlands, from the Escarpment of Verdalin all the way up and through the demiplanes which made up the strange and harsh Alkniss Isles. Mingled amongst them were orcs and goblins, defectors from the wastelands who had proven their loyalty to the monarchal cause. In one box his uncles and aunts sat, tightly clustered, grumbling to each other conspiratorially.

His father Llywelyn had taken the foremost podium, a pillar of kingly goodwill. He paused his speech and nodded to his son and to his daughter-by-marriage, acknowledging their presence, before turning back to the matter at hand.

In front of him, central to the entire proceeding, stood four figures. One was an human man, posh in his doublet and bracers and slouch hat, strung by bow and strength of arm. Next to him there was a wiry elf in a capelet, a jut of black hair atop his head, looking for all the world like he had never sat still in his life. On the other side there was a lass who seemed to have some orcish blood, armored in holy vestments of the Stria Intranscendent. Finally, there was a severe gnomish woman, a witch by the look of her, togged all in red with a wide-brimmed pointed hat atop her head. In all, they had the look of those that had some hunger for the world.

“In the pursuit,” Llywelyn continued, “of a reunified cosmos, there must be those who are brave enough of heart to venture out to the aether and beyond. Those who are quick enough of hand to evade those outside the borders of the civilized worlds who would seek to hold us back. Those who are wise enough of will to balm against the trials of such endeavors. And, perhaps most importantly, those who are keen enough of mind to understand what has been seen in all those long travels to come.”

Llywelyn paused a moment, letting the weighty remarks linger in the minds of his audience.

“It is in this pursuit, and under the charge of my kingship over this fair country which I have vowed to protect, that I have gathered you all here today.” Llywelyn motioned then to the four gathered in front of him. “Please, kneel.”

The assembled adventurers took their knee, one by one. Fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard.

“You will arise, and in so rising you will be granted the commission of a new league of explorers. It will be your purpose to survey and secure the length and breadth of all places, domestic and foreign. You will have the sanction of the crown to walk freely in all lands and to conduct yourself as you see fit. You will do so with a sense for justice in fair principle, just as in turn the crown has authority over the direction of you all as its subjects. You will be a hand, to reach through the veil that our reality has fallen under. I, King Llywlyn Ranavar, declare it so.”

The first members of the Athalial Explorer’s League rose then in official commission, the crowd cheered, and all of its significance slipped past Micai as though it would not come to be some great diminishment of his place in the world. He would not see it so, for he would be dead on the battlefield well before these seeds would come to fruit. In that way, at least, his glory was preserved.
Kingdom of Ranavar (III)

49th of Gnielm, 157 RI

High Arborway, Athal

Filauriel would be off the throne, soon. That much she knew. In the interim, she paced atop the long whitestone rampart which demarcated the near edge of the kingdom which she had been thrust into rulership over. It formed a road, of sorts, a wide and open boulevard for the marching of troops. They were high above the ground there, high enough that they didn’t really even need to see the swamp below. Instead, the midpoint of the wall was clutched all around by the canopy; vermillion trees roiling like clouds all out from stark white trunks.

At her side was Imryll, keeping pace with her, ever the dutiful child.

“They will come,” Filauriel thumbed the ornate fabric of her robes in attempt to keep her hands from betraying apprehension, “The heraldic horns will come, and they will be the last.”

“There have been times when they have not, in the past.” Imryll replied solemnly. “Father lost his life here, on this demiplane. The victory calls did not come on that day.”

Hearing it said aloud weakened Filauriel’s resolve. It still stabbed at her, the degree to which the scarlet leaves had matched the color of Micai’s blood when his body had been hoisted up the wall. It had been a great battle, in his long war against the orcish horde. She was glad that the last of it’s engagements was occurring far past the aether. She would not wish for it to end here, where he had.

“Your father was a good man.” Filauriel felt the wind blow past in strained measure. “His death was a tragedy. Fate had a cruel way with him, I suppose.”

Imryll was quiet a moment, clearly contemplative. “The Stria teaches that the fate we are dealt is often the fate we follow. That fate and the world and the self are not so separate as we might think, and that all things that come to be will come to end as well.”

Sermons of a foreign faith brought Filauriel little comfort, but still she summoned a forbearing smile. Imryll was young, by elven standards, but it was well known that they held all the temperament of a prudent leader. “You are wise beyond your years, child of mine. No matter when the time is right, you-”

BAROOOOOOOooooooooo Baroooo Barooooooooooo

Just then, a great low and tempestuous blare cut her power of articulation flat. The sound of a horn’s blare, echoing from far off and down below the wall near the edge of the aether.

And just like that, the wait was over. The battle was won, the war ended. Peace had been achieved, at last, and the weight that Filauriel had carried since she had been forced from queen consort to queen regent could finally lift.

She hugged Imryll, hugged them tightly. When she released she found that she had begun to shed tears, sparking as they splashed against the spotless marble walkway.

“I am glad, too, mother.” Imryll continued to squeeze her hand comfortingly. “Are you alright?”

“Yes.” She felt it to be true. “Yes I am quite well. I was only going to say that, now that the time is right, you’re going to make a great monarch. I know that you will follow a kinder fate now than those who wore the crown before you.”

Imryll nodded, gazing out over the ramparts. After a moment he asked, “Why did father start this war? Really?”

“Oh.” Filauriel took a solemn look, feeling this last responsibility to the truth coming over her. “I don’t think he knew what to do with himself, when it came to be his time. That was the pain of it, time.”

Imryll listened intently, absorbing as much as they could as Filauriel continued. “Llywelyn, your grandfather. You never met him, but he was truly a king. Such a force to him. To look at him, he seemed as though he would rule for a millennia. His death was unexpected, your father was not prepared for it. He had meant to spend many years with your grandfather to advise him. But, that was not the way things were to be. He knew only war, by that point, and so that is all the throne brought out of him.”

“I see.” Imryll intoned simply, truly. “I see. That’s why you’ve insisted on holding the throne in my stead, for so long as you have. That I might not have my beginnings marked by that legacy of bloodshed.”

Breath released from Filauriel’s chest. Imryll had understood. They were ready, beyond any doubt.

Having spilled out, in that too-perfect sunlight, Filauriel felt herself overcome by a sudden fatigue. “Yes. Yes, exactly. And I bore it gladly, knowing that that is why your rule will be the best of the name of Ranavar.”
Kingdom of Ranavar (IV)

163rd of Nemulum, 214 RI

Castle Umbreanu, Athal

Imryll would be the one to keep the flow of life in the Kingdom of Ranavar at peace. That much, they knew. Their way about it was not straightforward. Divinely granted responsibility was not meant to be. But, even still, it was made most arduous in court. The raised voices, the dissenting opinions, the lack of respect for anything but the indulgent self. It was grueling, to maintain the balance that was necessary of them through that tangled antagonism.

Despite this, it was their prerogative to do as they saw fit. It had been made that way by order of their birth, certainly, but to their core they were sure that it was the path of harmony that the three most holy deities of the Stria Intranscendent had empowered them to follow. They would not shirk that investiture.

So, they sat back and listened as Resyra addressed the council of advisors. Their half-sister carried herself proudly, decked in the practical fineries that had come to fashion in association with the Athalial Explorer’s League, filling the space despite her smaller stature. “I’ve not come here to argue, niece.”

“Then you would do well to watch your tone.” Jilwalyn growled back in response. She was a thickheaded young woman, broad and stocky by her half-human lineage, the daughter of a distant cousin. During her time at court, Imryll had found her to be blunt with her tongue and quick to anger. “That you have failed to comply with the monarch’s decree in any sort of timely manner is an embarrassment to your organization.”

“Well, that is some part of the reason for which it was I that was sent, to treat on the League’s behalf.” Resyra explained in measured pace.

Imryll, ever observant, gleaned that there was some weight veiled behind the words.

“I mean, really,” Jilwalyn continued as though Resyra hadn’t said anything at all, “What about this could you people be mucking up to this degree? The order was to disband your waystations in territories that have been made civilized. All your people need to do is pack it up, and they can’t even do that right! If these places have already been explored, then whose moronic idea was it to send more explorers there?”

“Well, that is the way of it.” Resyra turned, and though she was responding to Jilwalyn she was facing the throne directly as she said it. “There has been no failure. The Athalial League will not be complying with the wishes of the crown, in this instance.”

The audience chamber broke into chaos.

Imryll processed what had been revealed, just watching the ripples spread out. Jilwalyn was yelling, unheard, turning back and forth between Resyra and the crowd which had formed to hold her back. Resyra stood flanked by allies of the League. Imryll wished that Filauriel was still present, but their mother had left early in the day to attend to matters of her own.

In the midst of that crowd, their eye caught Halavor. He had a lithe beauty to him, feline, draped in long robes of the stria. He and Imryll had not been courting for long, but their shared devotion to the faith had brought them onto each other’s paths. All Halavor did was look back at their monarch, his hand reaching meaningfully to his holy symbol.

“Order.” Imryll spoke, not loudly or forcefully, but with a keen direction as they reached for their own holy symbol.

The courtiers continued their squabbles, and so Imryll stood and raised their amulet ahead of them.

“I called for order in this place!” Imryll’s hand holding the divine implement glowed in sacred light, and their voice reverberated out in thaumaturgy. There were none that did not hear. All through the court, like a wave, voices fell silent and attention was compelled to the throne. It was magic, the channeling of divinity, wielded in conjunction with the authority that the crown conferred.

They did not falter until all were silent. “Sister. Speak, and know that you and those you represent are heard.”

“You have my thanks, sibling.” Resyra shuddered off the magic that was holding her. “The provosts of the Athalial Explorer’s League have conferred, and determined that they will retain their land holdings on all the worlds of Athal despite the Kingdom’s request that they be ceded.”

Jilwalyn gritted her teeth, surrounded by a furious contingent of nobles, but she could not break from the compulsion to keep the peace.

“By what right have you come to this decision?” Imryll took a step closer, down from the throne.

“By the League’s founding commission, your highness.” Resyra cleared her throat, “Our organization was granted the wherewithal to walk freely in all lands, and to conduct ourselves as we see fit. Those were the words of our grandfather, that great man who lead our kingdom out of the ruin of the Evenfall. We would hold to them.”

“I have read the speech, same as you.” Imryll was quick to their response. “King Llywelyn also declared that the crown would have authority over the direction of the Explorer’s League, as its subjects.”

“This is true.” Resyra seemed almost apologetic, “We have come to find that component of subjection misaligned with the remittance that the League has provided to the nation of Ranavar.”

“This is treason!” Jilwalyn finally managed to gasp out.

Resyra did not look away from their sibling, and all eyes followed theirs. “That charge is for the monarch to assert.”

A long moment passed between them in silence.

“Are you sure this is the course of action you wish to take, sister? Is there no means to persuade you and yours short of violence?” Imryll’s question carried with it a sense of finality. It would not be asked again.

“I am.” Resyra held resolute, in spite of the implications on both sides. “War between the League and the Kingdom would be the only means of compelling our side to capitulation.”

The world pulled taught, out of shape from the way that Imryll knew it should be. They sighed, feeling the burden of their station more than they ever had before.

“In that case,” Imryll released, “the Kingdom of Ranavar rescinds its command that the Athalial Explorer’s League disband their waystations. By my right as monarch I declare it so.”

Like a floodgate burst, the present company erupted into tense discussion once more.

Resyra showed the relief of a worry that they had hidden well. They approached the throne, to speak privately. “The League thanks you for your wise decision, your highness.”

“You’ve given me little choice, sister.” Imryll exhibited a level of anger that was rare for them. “To threaten war, in this place that I have made holy? I will not have it.”

“It was you who threatened war.” Resyra recounted. “Your father would have been proud.”

Imryll bottled up what shame they felt over that. “You should leave. And I don’t think I need to decree that you should not return.”

“It’ll be no matter.” Resyra held in their hurt. “The League intends to vacate it’s guildhalls in Kesserine. We will raise a citadel in some corner of the nation that we have won for you, and I will ensure that that place is remote enough that you and I will have no cause to see one another.”

She left then, and Imryll kept to the court. They held, and they maintained, and they kept, but in the end holding was not action enough to hold on to their precious peace.
Kingdom of Ranavar (V)

198th of Gnielm, 98 EA

Castle Umbreanu, Athal

Imelda would be better off walking out into the aether than she would be standing for the indignities of the paysan. That much, she knew. More than anything, it burned her that she had been kept out of the inner circle. As though the loss of two-thirds of the kingdom was some paltry affair, or else something she could not be trusted to handle.

She had known for some time that there was something afoot, the way that council chambers had suddenly become blocked to her, but she wrote it off as punishment on the part of her parents for her last outburst in court. That had been a particularly delectable bit of drama, accusing that duke of adultery, but it hardly warranted this.

So she stormed across the scepteresque towers of her family’s ancestral castle, the castle she would one day inherit, and she burst into the bureau of the monarch in all fits of rage.

“Don’t!” She shouted to fill the space, even before she could really tell what point the dealings had progressed to.

The scene she walked into was a tired one, one that Imryll had been playing out in small part for much of their long reign. Emissaries from the Athalial Explorer’s League flanked them, three in total. They were in negotiation, had been for many hours, and it was clear from posture alone that they knew they held the upper hand. They were as vultures, or else wolves prepared to lap out the marrow of a bone.

“Daughter,” Imryll had a resigned tiredness to them, “You know not of what goes on here.”

“Hells below knows I do!” Imelda cursed just to see her parent wince.

The three representatives looked to each other with a faint amusement.

Imryll turned to them, and with an infuriating politeness asked, “Would you excuse me a moment with my daughter. Please, avail yourselves of some vittles, I’ll have a meal brought up.”

The League members nodded, smirked, stood, and exited. Imryll and Imelda were left alone.

“How could you?” Imelda laced as much accusation as she could into the question.

“How could I what?” Imryll sighed, setting the crown from their head onto the desk. “I still don’t know what it is you think I’m doing?”

“You’re going to give the kingdom away!” Imelda launched so quickly into her tirade that she found she was in need of breath, but she kept at it without, “I know the whole of it, I know that they’ve come to steal it from us. What, they think that they’re fit to rule? Just because they can open a portal or two? What a load of poppycock. They’re here to take everything that is our family’s by right, and make it theirs. Has it already happened? Have you already made the decree, or signed the paper, or whatever it is that’s going to happen? Have- have-”

She began to panic, to feel her anger slipping past itself in her mind. And then, her vision was forced to tunnel and all she could perceive was a singular, simple line.

When she came to, she was faced with Imryll’s holy symbol. She felt herself calmed, though in the deep recesses of her mind she was unsettled for having been compelled into such a state. She tried to speak, but her tongue felt all gummy.

“Breathe, daughter.” Imryll put a hand on her shoulder. “Nothing has happened yet, but things are more complicated than you are making them out to be. Are you ready to hear?”

Imelda’s rage had simmered down to the stewing sort of sulk that had become her neutral state of being. “Yes. I will listen.”

“Good. That is a prudent quality in a queen-to-be.” Imryll smoothed back his hair. “The League is not here to take any land, but the state of affairs in planes beyond Kesserine is not well. Incidences of resistance to the authority of the crown are growing in number, in frequency, and in severity. There have been growing sentiments towards republicanism amongst the populace, and each day that goes on under our rule there brings them closer to flat out revolt.”

“Any you refuse to act on this treason directly?” Imelda spat, “You’d put us in debt to the Athalial League rather than trusting our vassals?”

Imryll began to look agitated themself. “In what manner should I direct these allies of ours, in your view? March them down the streets of their own towns, have them slaughter their neighbors?”

Imelda did not back down. “It would be their honorbound duty, if it were ordered of them by their monarch.”

“You’d bring the people to war against themselves?” Imryll blanched.

“When I become queen, if the integrity of the kingdom was at stake, then yes, I would do what was necessary to ensure the kingdom stayed together.” Imelda straightened herself up. “Our land is our power, there is no means by which we could afford to lose any of it.”

“If that is the case, daughter,” Imryll took the tone of one who had become hallow, “Then I will sit the throne until my dying day, that you might be kept from that power for as long as possible. I only hope that in the intervening years you will come to see the way of peace.”

It was true that the kingdom was not lost on that day, nor was it lost all at once, but it was lost. Plane-wide parcels of land were ceded to the Athalial League who, with little interest in practical governance, left the people’s fates to themselves.

Imryll kept their promise, holding their role as monarch for as many breaths as they could take. By the time that Imelda ascended and was crowned, her heart had been poisoned by the spite of many long years under the belief that a certain future had been taken away from her.
Kingdom of Ranavar (VI)

154th of Gnielm, 174 CE

Sunfathom Gate, Athal

Grigor would never be king. That much, he knew. He was young, too young to be feeling the weight of the world as he did. He figured that it would only be more so if he were to sit the throne, and so despite its grand allure he was glad that he had older siblings to take that place.

“What you’re doing is atrocious!” Sophia spat across the deck of the sailing ship. She was never afraid to speak her mind, not even to their mother. Radu, her twin, kept his quiet but stepped up next to her in show of support.

“These are measures of austerity.” Imelda sat up from her chaise longue. “These taxes, they are for the good of the realm! And I won’t hear any other word about it, not from any insolent uppity daughters of mine, so mark me.”

“The good of the realm?” Radu inserted himself into the argument. “You call the people of Kesserine starving while we yacht around the planes the good of the realm?”

“You put a shadow on the house of Ranavar.” Sophia quipped in quickly, her poise never faltering as her focus was wedged intently on her mother. “You make me ashamed to share that name.”

The whole of the ship passed quickly into shadow as it pierced through the aetherline. All around, wards sparked to life to create a shell against that magical fog.

To Grigor’s young mind, there was no more terrifying thought than that fog bearing down on them all. It was the ocean, sunken down all around them, held at bay by forces he did not understand. He ran to his mother, tugging at her skirts as she got up.

“Not now, boy.” She batted him away, sending him cowering towards the railing of the deck.

“Don’t talk to him like that.” Radu defended his brother, drawing focus back on himself and his sister. “You’ve got no right.”

“I’ve got whatever right I’d care for,” The argument continued, “I am the queen, you miserable wretch. I have known the world a fair century over you. You may think you have seen, think yourselves grown now, think you know the way of the world, the way of some perverse justice, but you’re nothing more than a short sighted softhearted little brat, just as you were when you were a babe.”

Covering his ears, Grigor’s heart quailed as he found himself unable to stop from looking out over the siding. There in the depths of the aether the fog shifted at the approach of a behemoth, a dreadnought. Its shape was obscured, as was all else in the dark of that haze, but clear as anything Grigor knew it was there.

“Mama!” He cried, feeling a fear more potent than any he had ever experienced.

“I said not now!” She dismissed him with barely a look.

Grigor stood up off his haunches and ran, ran as fast as he could. He looked back over his shoulder, and just as he did he saw the opening of a single, massive eye. It was gray on gray on the backdrop of the aether, barely recognizable, but again it was undeniably present. It was seeing. It was seeking.

As it opened there was a sudden sucking sensation, as all the wards across the deck of the ship simultaneously failed.

The aether leapt in, reaching with tendrils of deep madness to batter the royal family Ranavar. There were screams, and the groaning of the ship as licks of wood and metal disintegrated.

Grigor’s vision was clouded, as was all else, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he needed to be shielded from whatever that eye saw. He stumbled through the rapidly condensing landscape, feeling less and less sure with every step of what was left and what was right and what was him and what was the world, until suddenly he could see the outline of his mother.

That view anchored him to hope, some shred of hope. He ran to her, ran an impossible distance. He felt his legs give out, and then cease to be, and so he crawled, and the crawling was just enough to bring him into sight of another. He felt Sophia’s hands on his back, hoisting him up. She was clung onto Radu, and together they hugged their younger brother to them with all of their might.

In the distance, no closer than she was before, Imelda was sucked out into the fog. She ceased to be in that moment. Her acrid touch would never be felt again.

The behemoth was gone. Maybe it had never been there in the first place. In that silvery indetermination, Grigor was sure of his siblings, and nothing else.
Kingdom of Ranavar (VII)

109th of Nemulum, 198 EA

Castle Umbreanu, Athal

Grigor would go mad before long. That much, he knew. He felt himself drawn in all tangle of directions, constantly pulled this way and that. There was something to the deep recesses of his mind, something that sifted through the world on some strange and unknowable insight.

He took that knack stoically, as one of many he had developed in the aftermath of that fateful day in the aether.

It was a constant and resentful feeling, like an itch left unscratched. It was the certainty that he had forgotten something, or that there was something he was missing, that he needed to find it even though he had no idea what it even was. It was like there was some other person occupying Grigor’s consciousness, some otherworldly seeker.

Over the years that had passed, while Sophia and Radu rose reluctantly to the throne and came to know their own sorceries, Grigor had been driven into intermittent mania. He would ignore the seeker, until it would be ignored no longer, and then he would tear the castle apart.

His stints in searching were frantically directed. He’d confine himself to a room, and then turn every bit of furniture, every painting, every stone in the walls if he could. Sometimes he would find things, small treasures that had been lost or inscriptions that nobody else knew about.

He thought that those minor discoveries would abate the seeker, but they seemed only to drive the compulsion on further.

Radu had found him in that state once, in the ruins of a parlor, inched up against a loose sconce blasting out vain aetheric pulses to see if there were any secret magics to its function. It had not been the first time Grigor had felt the hand of one of his siblings breaking him from that stupor, but it was the one that mattered.

“You’re looking too closely, brother.”

The words had been like a lantern to Grigor, like a spark of lightning. He put himself away, composed himself in that moment to assure his brother that he was well, and he held off until the time was right.

Days later, he had not been noticed as he slipped out of the council chambers. He was one of many, and though he had grown into a man of many skills statecraft was one he engaged in only sparingly.

Instead, he now allowed himself to wander somewhat aimlessly. He was moving through tall towers adorned in tapestries, display rooms of antiquities, banquet halls left cold and empty. He strove to take in all of his surroundings at once, to feel the sensations of the stones passing under his feet and the light hitting his eyes and the sound of his breath up against the breaths of everyone who had ever walked this castle.

He lent himself over to the seeker, and was guided.

When he came to, in the dissipating last of aetheric fog which he had not realized was wafting off of him, he found himself in a nook of a stairwell. There was a cutout from the wall, wood-lined, leaving one side open to a window which snuck between the various towers to catch a rare view of the knolls below. A fresh breeze wafted in through it. It was the perfect sort of space to tuck oneself away, and to write.

There, behind where Gregor’s head was resting, a board creaked out a cry that it was loose. He reached behind him slowly, reverently. Prying it up, an envelope fell out into his hand.

He let out a soft gasp, as for the first time in years that feeling that the seeker had put into him was satisfied.

In his hands then there was a small ink-penned letter. It had been written by one Miacyne Ranavar, consort to king Llywelyn Ranavar in generations long past, and what secrets it contained would spell the eventual fate of the Ranavar family’s line.
Kingdom of Ranavar (VIII)

199th of Nemulum, 199 CE

Castle Umbreanu, Athal

“Are you sure of this?” Grigor turned to his siblings, “There are other ways, less public. We don’t know how they’re going to react.”

“This is the way.” Sophia had pinned herself up, looking more like a queen than she ever had before.

“There is a need to set things to rights.” Radu, equally adorned in sharp fashion, agreed.

“Right then.” Grigor clutched the letter in his hands, and he pushed open the grand doors of the audience chamber to allow the queen and king to pass into the light.

To his backdrop he heard the calls of the undulating masses, their distresses and their disarray. Their anxiety over the insecurity they had lived in for so long, this existence bound to the crown, it was palpable. They were long in the tooth, and many of their leaders had fled from the hollow stagnation they now lived under. They were a disoriented people, most of all, and so it had fallen to Grigor’s charge to impart on them some truth.

“My fellow countrymen!” Sophia called, and the crowd listened. “On this eve of the dawning of a new century we have come to you with glad tidings.”

“Today,” Radu began, circling his sister, “We stand before you not as rulers, but as humble servants of the realm.”

“For centuries,” Sophia picked the thread, “the belief in our divine right to rule has been deeply ingrained in the fabric of our society. We were taught from birth that the Ranavar bloodline was chosen above all others, man and god and destiny alike, to lead with wisdom and benevolence. However, recent revelations have shattered this illusion, revealing a truth that cannot be ignored.”

Watching the crowd, Grigor felt their collective energy like a wave. He realized then that they were not disarrayed, not some hopeless rabble. He could watch the way they grouped and gathered, the way that they gravitated towards some and away from others. He understood now.

He took a confident step forwards across the dais, clearing his throat as he did. He raised the letter that had been sought to him, that all might see.

“I read now from the pen of Miacyne Ranavar, consort and partner to our founding King Llywelyn Ranavar.” Grigor began to read the letter in earnest with a voice of pride.

“It is with a heavy heart and a clear mind that I have drafted this letter, over the course of my lifetime. It is one that I have written and rewritten every day, knowing beyond all doubt that its prose must be perfect, for if it falls short grave consequences may befall us all. Now though, on my dying day, I still do not believe that I have found exactly how to get it out and so you must forgive me my lack of charm as I hope you reader will forgive us all.”

“There are no kings in Ranavar. There never were, in the time of the Evenfall or in any other. Before this world, our families were common soldiers in the wars of gods we can no longer recall. We deserted, fled to the abandoned Castle Umbreanu to live out what we thought would be the final days. When we emerged into the new prime material planes, the only survivors in a castle magically restored to magnificence, there were those in our family who thought it an opportunity to weave a tale of who and what our family was.”

“I will say it now, as it should have been said from the start. The divine right is nothing more than a charade, a deception orchestrated by Llywelyn to solidify his grasp on power. The very foundation upon which our reign was built is false, a mockery of justice and truth.”

“I loved Llywelyn, I loved him more than life itself, and for that love and his legacy I have been silent all these years. But I have driven myself mad with the secrecy he put on us all.”

“To my son, Micai, who I hope one day will find this. We cannot, in good conscience, continue to sit thrones built upon lies and deceit. The people of this kingdom deserve better – they deserve leaders who are honest, transparent, and accountable to their will.”

“Signed, Miacyne Ranavar.”

The revelation had stunned the crowd to silence.

Radu and Sophia stepped up to either side of Grigor, pillars of support.

“On this knowledge,” Sophia squeezed her brother’s hand, “We hereby abdicate the throne and renounce any claims to authority over this kingdom. In doing so, we pave the way for a new era of governance, one where the voice of the people reigns supreme.”

Radu took the next call, as the crowd started up again. “We understand that this transition will not be without challenges. There will be uncertainties and obstacles along the way. But we have faith in the resilience and strength of our people. Together, we shall forge a brighter future, one built upon principles of justice, equality, and freedom.”

With that, they began to step down. They joined the crowd, and pushed through it, ready to break free from the bonds they had been put under since long before their birth. They would leave the name Ranavar behind, cloaking themselves instead the moniker Umbreanu after the castle that had kept the truth for them. They would move out towards adventure, leaving Kesserine and the High Arborway to the people’s eye. It would be well.

Grigor’s mind raced, in those final steps, amazed that it had all come to pass. He searched, and searched, and searched for something to say as he made that exit alongside his siblings. All filled up with a buzzing energy, he felt himself burst out. “Long live the people, long live the kingdom!”

And at last that call to the truth of the Kingdom of Ranavar was carried on, the seed of a budding new world.