"She'll be delighted, I am sure," mutters Lynna, with a knowing look. "She's already planning your wedding."
"She's not the only one."
Gold-diggers. The bane of my life. At least Lynna isn't subtle about the fact that she likes me for my money but doesn't want the marriage. She's my friend, I'm hers. I buy her whatever she wants, she helps me cope with my pain. It's a good system we have going. And the best thing about her? It’s never been love. It’ll never be love. I vowed over the tombstones of my family that I’ll never utter those words to someone again, and I don’t intend to.
She gives me a warm smile, her eyes glittering with soft humour. "Have a good two weeks, Your Majesty.”
I raise a finger in goodbye, lost in thought. I watch her delicate frame vanish through the tall arched doorway. Dark ivy crawls up the pale stone, slithering over shelves of ancient books and expensive wine. Sconces illuminate the walls, softly lit by my own Evergreen magic. Birds flit in and out of the windows, vanishing behind the leafy green canopy that carpets the vaulted ceiling of my bedroom. If I am forced to live in the palace and not the forest, I am making it a blend of the two.
Whistling splinters the quiet peace, echoing through the door that Lynna left open, and a blonde head pokes its way around the door. I groan into my hands. Just a moment of peace. Just one. It’s all I ever long for.
"You didn't get much sleep last night," says Ellatar, bursting into my room with the grace of a bull in a china shop. "I heard you two from the staff halls."
I toss the knife at my bodyguard's head, watching it land in the warped wood of the door behind him, half an inch from the sun-kissed blonde waves of his hair. He lets out a satisfyingly high-pitched shriek, throwing it back and swearing in frustration when I catch it. "I'm sure throwing a knife at the King is considered treason, Ellatar."
He holds out two tanned arms, his wrists pressed together. "So cuff me, my lord."
"Gods above, rid me of my stupid staff," I mutter, under my breath.
"Don't pretend you aren't into all of that. Are you certain that you don't need another hour of sleep?"
A rough sigh escapes my lips. "The last time I slept well, Ellatar, sabre-toothed tigers and sorceresses still roamed the woods." I sit up in bed, running a hand through my hair and putting it into a trademark messy bun. In my eight hundred years of life, I've never been one for sleep. Not even as a baby, my mother used to tell me.
Under Ellatar's impatient gaze, I quickly dress into some leather hunting gear and swipe a sword from my weapon room, ready to train for a few hours. Today, like every day, I will begin my morning in the palace training courtyard with Ellatar, Cetresar, and Frian; the three Royal Guards who command my army with me. They've been with me for centuries.
Ascan, my personal assistant and the Head of the Palace Staff stops me in the hallway to run me through my schedule for the morning. It's dryer than the Desert Kingdom in August and I brace myself for yet another mind-numbing day. This is how they all go. It would be soul destroying, if I still had one left to destroy.
I have a busy month ahead. The annual gathering of the Five Kingdoms' Kings and Queens is happening next week, and as the most powerful of the rulers, I am always the host. I mentally run over the plans for this as I fight guard after guard in the training ground. When they all look positively dejected, I lie down on a wooden bench, pushing iron weights above my chest until I can hardly breathe.
It's a routine. A monotonous sequence I repeat day after day. I switch to lunges before lifting bags of sand until sweat drips down my face. I push myself harder, trying to drown out the pain in my chest with pain in my muscles.
It didn't work yesterday. It doesn't work today. It won't work tomorrow. But like the despondent fool I am, I'll wake up and try.
A strong pain relief potion and an ice bath do little to help either, but I keep myself busy and sit down in my study. I plan for each of the guests’ arrivals, writing all of them a rare personal letter to follow up on their invitations from the month prior.
Our world, Yterras, is split into five distinct kingdoms, the landscape battered and reforged by centuries of war and disagreements. We now find ourselves settled into some sort of equilibrium. My kingdom is the largest, situated in the east of Yterras.
To my north is the Mountain Kingdom, and Forgoen, its capital. To my west lies the River Kingdom, and to the west of that is the Golden Kingdom, or the Kingdom of Fields and Plains. Above that lies Aquinellia, the Capital of the Kingdom of the Sea.
Below the Forest Kingdom, which I have ruled for seven centuries, lies what is now called the Cataclysmic Flats, a huge expanse of barren wasteland. The enemy dwells there, breeding spies, wolves, and mutated trolls that they release into my forest to kill my people. The prisoners they take from our kingdoms are brainwashed and reforged into the most heinous of people. But the South has been quiet for a while now. Too quiet.
First, I write to Ocealia, Queen of the Seas, who like Lynna and Frian, is one of few people left on this earth as old as me. Her people live along the coastline and in the sea, her capital city nestled in the shallows of the Ocean. The water steers around it thanks to some clever magic from her grandfather, the God of the Sea.
Ocealia has long been my closest ally, and like mine, most of her population are Evergreen; immortal and possessing a form of energy that mortals consider magic. I too am Evergreen, for the most part.
I write to Hela and Holn, the Queen and King of the Mountains. I have a long-standing alliance with the Mountain Folk, and I'm not careless enough to lay waste to it, but it is true to say that they antagonize me as much as I do them. They and their people are all mortal humans, most of them dying before they reach their eightieth birthday.
I address a third envelope to Kelen and Lana, the young King and Queen of the Rivers. I haven't known them long, but I do know that I neither like nor trust them. They are mortal too, aged in their twenties, and they believe themselves to be far wiser than they are, happy to ignore my counsel even though I have seen their entire lifetime forty times over. They're always scheming to inveigle money out of someone. Their people live on islands amongst the winding estuaries of the Yterras River, making most of their money from their skill in building.
The fourth and final letter I send to King Espan, the King of Fields and Plains. As the leader of the Golden Kingdom, he has the second-biggest realm to manage. For an Evergreen so young—not yet two hundred years old—he has a very level head on his shoulders, and I hope for Yterras' sake that he has a long reign. His father had been an imbecile.
Espan's people are largely Evergreen, with a few mortals residing amongst them. His territory consists of an impressive capital city named Rinnia, and a number of towns and villages scattered across fertile farmlands irrigated by the rivers to the east. His people grow a lot of crops and are responsible for feeding many of the other kingdoms.
I sign the final letter, my hand cramping.
I anticipate your arrival in two weeks,
Rexxan Obsidian Tsellyx Rellyn Hallenian,
