Aldric, the Flame Lord's son, walked alone through the royal gardens of Virelia, his steps slow but deliberate, his gaze drifting over the carefully cultivated beauty that surrounded him without truly seeing any of it.
The gardens of Valkoron were… impressive.
That much he could admit.
It came as a quiet surprise to him. Virelia was known across the realms as a land of storms—winds that howled through mountains, skies that rarely rested, thunder that could split the horizon without warning.
In his mind, such a place had no patience for softness, no room for delicate things like petals and perfume. He had expected jagged cliffs, restless skies, a kind of harsh, unyielding wilderness and perhaps sparse vegetation that clung stubbornly to survival.
But instead, he found this....Tall hedges trimmed so evenly they looked almost unnatural, as though shaped not by shears but by magic.
