After three days of uneventful yet grueling travel, the sparse cliffs of Soravale gave way to the towering black cedars of the Tellekane Forest once more. We would skirt the boundary for only a little while before we crossed into Elysia at the tip of the northern corner that butted up against Tenovia and Soravale.
I became more nervous the closer to home we drove. After all our methods of travel during the last few months, this ornate carriage with its plush cobalt seating and royal crest carved onto the side should have been relaxing.
Instead, the walls of the coach seemed to shrink in on me. Elysia loomed as an uncertain, treacherous presence that took up most of the air. I struggled to sit still or sleep. I couldn’t seem to catch a full breath.
I hardly saw Taelon over the journey. He stayed near the front of the caravan and led his men. Often, when the convoy stopped for supper, I found him road-weary but focused. This leg of our journey weighed on him more than it had when we were with his Rebel Army. Now that I had made my identity known, the threat to my safety drove us forward.
Another four days in the carriage and the landscape began to change once again. The forests thinned and the black oaks all but disappeared, replaced with the piney, needle-covered fir trees of the Diamond Mountains.
Scooting to the edge of my seat, I pulled back the window coverings to see the shadowy peaks of the greatest mountains in the realm. They seemed to be calling me home.
Home. The word whispered over my skin and pulsed in my blood.
“Oliver,” I squeaked. “There! You can see Elysia!”
Oliver opened one eye and stared at the window. “Gray,” he grunted. “I simply see gray.”
I smiled at the window. “You see the distant mountains and it is overcast, but I can assure you, Elysia is not gray. It sparkles like the Light. The mountains are so filled with diamonds that when the sun shines on them during midday it hurts your eyes to stare at them. And the villages! The people believe if you use the rock of the land, it will bring you good luck, so in between the stones and wood of the houses are gems and diamonds that bring color and life to the land. There is not a prettier kingdom in the realm. I can promise you that.”
Oliver reluctantly opened both eyes and slid across from me so we could share the same window. “It is overcast,” he allowed.
But there was doubt in his voice, too. Doubt that spread through the cabin like a plague. We drove through a village close to the Elysian border. I wanted to blame Soravale for the neglect it showed its people and towns, but I couldn’t.
I didn’t believe Hugo or Taelon would knowingly let their villages fall into such disrepair. But there was no denying that something grave had overcome this place.
Unlike in Tenovia, the village hadn’t burned to the ground. It was more like the color had been leached from it. The houses were drab. Windows were broken and roofs unpatched. I saw not a soul as we passed through. No heads peeked from windows. No doors were thrown open as the royal caravan rumbled by. It was as though the village had been abandoned. Or the villagers were hiding from us.
Neither scenario made sense. Border towns were often the richest because they had the best of both kingdoms nearby. This village sat in close proximity to three. It had easy access to the fishing industry in Soravale, the timber from Tenovia, and the wealth of Elysia.
“What happened here?” Oliver asked.
“This is not right,” I agreed.
Oliver shook his head. His eyebrows scrunched together over his nose. “Do you think war?”
“But war with whom?” I watched agape as we drove by fields that were nothing but mud and weeds. In midsummer, the crops should have been well on their way to harvest.
We continued to watch as the landscape grew more desolate. Fields covered with ravens stretched for miles. A few of the birds lifted their heads to watch us pass by. Their beady eyes fixated on us without a hint of fear.
A shiver slithered through me. I knew better than to think they were watching us. Although their heads turned as we moved forward.
“Did you see that?” I asked Oliver.
“Is that the wall?” His gaze was fixed forward. He hadn’t paid any attention to the birds.
“That is the wall,” I answered. “Or it’s supposed to be.”
“What do you mean?”
I ignored Oliver’s question and stared at the stretching barrier that used to gleam as bright and shining as any of our mountains. Time had dimmed the stark beauty of the stones that built it ages ago, but it had never looked quite so dim, quite so lackluster.
This wall had been a symbol of both past and present for thousands of years. Before the kingdoms were united, the realm was ravaged by war. This wall had protected Elysia from total annihilation.
My ancestor, King Allister Allisand, had built the fortification. It had taken thirty grueling years of constant labor while war raged all around. He chose the hardest rock known, found deep within the mountains. The stones were said to be unbreakable.
When it was finished, the wall stood strong and thick, declaring to all other kingdoms that Elysia would not be invaded, would never give in to the demands of lesser kingdoms.
And so, when the eight other kingdoms realized they would never cross into Elysia, they would never have our diamonds or the center seat of the realm, the highest pinnacle of power, they began to negotiate peace.
Allister was recognized as the wisest, most powerful king in the realm and given a place of honor among the newly allied. The nine kingdoms would be united, from Blackthorne
