Ishwari chisole
Winter arens(kingdom)
Weltharas continent (south)
Seven days until destruction of Aravan island
A stale bread and an apple was the only thing that kept people from grimacing their disapproval of the new king. No matter how disapproving or belligerent they might be, once you give them a distraction, they'll either forget about it or would ignore it by saying: "well our king is not that bad afterall."
Everyone was sitting, feeble and languid. Almost, all of the throne room, was covered with people in torn clothes, some wearing rugs or destitute farmers covering themselves with whatever they could find;a cheap skin of a cheap animal or a thrown out carpet with stains all around its surface.
Was situation always this dire in winter arens?
After the king's 'justice' he turned his back and promised them a swift return with meals that would feed everyone present here and everyone who were still hurling denigrating slurs, vilifying his personage furthur.
Ishwari was sitting among them, just looking at them. She wanted to help them, she wanted to go and hunt a deer but the main door was latched shut. She was beginning to suspect that the king would never return.
Doubtless that a king who scampered from a battle, would never return.
She still had no clue as to why she was summoned here. She was... Trying... Trying to gather some moonkels to purchase a double storey building in which she and her mother could live. Free from all this politics and scheming, conniving little lummoxs who proclaim themselves as kings or prince.
Ishwari chisole suddenly remembered how she used to count lowest moonkels in mud of the low quarter. A sudden gust of memories, accompanied by nostalgia and tragedy hit her.
Her childhood was a study in gray: the color of dishwater, of unbaked clay, of her father's lungs as the stone-dust took him. She grew up in the shadow of the Great Heights, where the double-storey manors of the merchants stood like silent, arrogant giants. To a child whose world was a single, leaking room, those upper floors were not mere architecture; they were a sanctuary where the damp could not reach, where her mother might finally stop coughing, and where the horizon belonged to them.
She would trace the outlines of those buildings in the frost of the windowpane, whispering a vow to the glass: One day, I will put the earth beneath your feet, and the sky just above your heads.
Poverty is a relentless tutor. Ishwari learned that a stomach can be fooled by water, but a heart cannot be fooled by hope. She took to the pits, trading the softness of her youth for the calloused weight of a mercenary's pike.
Her training was not born of noble aspiration but of a desperate, grinding necessity. She became a creature of iron and reflex, a warrior who moved with a grim, rhythmic grace. Yet, even as her reputation grew, the stench of the slums clung to her like a second skin. The high-born squires mocked the rust on her mail and the way she ate as if every meal were her last. They called her "The Gutter-Knight," a girl who swung a sword with the frantic strength of a starving dog.
She fought not for glory, nor for the king's coin, but for the phantom of a staircase—for the right to climb above the mire and breathe air that didn't taste of rot.
As the coin finally began to pool in her coffers, a sickness of the soul took root. Ishwari tried to drown the memories of the Low Quarter in the fineries she had once envied. She draped herself in silks that itched and drank wines that tasted of vinegar and regret.
She sought pleasure with a desperate, clinical intensity. She surrounded herself with the frantic heat of festivals and the heavy perfumes of the pleasure houses, trying to find a spark in the ash. But the joy was always a ghost, vanishing the moment she reached for it. She was a hedonist who could not feel, a woman standing in a garden of roses and smelling only the manure at the roots. The more she indulged, the more she felt the hollow space where her heart used to be, a void shaped exactly like the home she had yet to buy.
No matter what she did, she failed. She tried everything, every work that she could do but it was futile. Finally, slowly but surely, she was doing exceptionally well in being a hired sword for menial tasks, but as usual, the world had something against her, she got a summon from winter arens by king himself.
Failure was her only constant. She had exhausted every trade and every craft she could find, yet every endeavor ended in the same crushing futility.
It was only when she turned to the blade that the tide began to turn. Slowly but surely, she found her footing as a hired sword. She thrived in the grit of menial contracts and the simplicity of steel. However, the world seemingly held a grudge it wasn't ready to let go. Just as she achieved a sliver of stability, the King himself intervened. A royal summons arrived from Winter Arens, pulling her back into a world she had fought so hard to leave behind.
...
King bennet lV
Winter arens
This was the day. It finally came. The day he would finally talk to his people. Finally tell them what has been boiling under the gold drapes of kingdom all these years.
With swift alacrity, he rose from his multi-hued bed that covered almost entirety of the room. On far end of the room, squatted a circular tub, wreathing with smoke that curled upwards as if trying to escape through ballast coverd rooftop.
Damn it. First ghost king made a fool of me and then some other blunders in politics. Maybe, I am not, fit to rule this kingdom.
One after another doubts piled up in king bennet's mind. His past actions now made him feel weak and ineffectual.
Pushing his thoughts aside, he clapped his gloved hands, twice. Just a little later, a servant who wore linen in subdued colour entered, bowing his head, he asked, "what demands my king?"
"Drapes, it's time. Finally."
The servants moved to the tall windows, each taking a side of the heavy gold curtains. With a steady pull, they hauled the fabric back. The velvet was so thick it swallowed the sound of their footsteps, but the brass rings overhead gave a loud clack as they bunched together. Instantly, the dim room was flooded with a warm, yellow light, making the dust in the air look like floating sparks of gold.
Steady yourself. You can do this Bennet.
If you really want to be a king, you need to start acting like one.
As he made his way through tall windows, he stepped out towards battlements. His hands checking every crack or crevice that abutted parapets and the ramparts. Adjoining on the right side was a windswept balcony in which kings would stand to give an order for battle or sometimes used for haranguing about laws and economy.
As he looked below, the valley floor has vanished, replaced by an ocean of metal and blood. Thousands of soldier, a nameless tide of spears and banners, in between them;common folks and farmers stretched into the heavy distance where the mountains threatened to meet the vortex of clouds. Swirling mists danced around valley, above the clean air, saker falcon and red throated middletail flew, fanning out their wings as if yearning for freedom.
Among the chatters and abuses, king bennet raised his head, his back now straight as a spear. With a deep sigh, he raised his gloved hand and shouted, "silence!"
"My people, soldiers, friends. From this high wall, I have seen your faces, weary from conflict and shadowed by the fear of famine. I know the sacrifices you have made for this kingdom." King Bennet said, a warm smile bathing across his clear face.
"I come before you not just as your king, but as a man who understands your hunger. And it is because I understand that I am pleased to tell you this: relief has arrived. Our storehouses, once so critically low, are now filled with grain and cured meats, enough to see us through the harshest winter and beyond. Let no family go to bed hungry tonight."
Some smiled, some clapped and some still made faces, by grimacing they openly showed discontent towards their king.
"But food is not our only sustenance. Strength in numbers is just as vital. That is why I have traveled to the east weltharas and met with King Fedrac of the Silver Peaks. We have forged an alliance, written in blood and sealed with honor. He is not just our neighbor; he is now our brother in arms. Together, our armies will be a force that few will dare to challenge. Together, we are secure."
Those who were grimacing still remained somewhat dissatisfied, their recalcitrance now annoyed king bennet. Too soon.
"Eat until you are full. Sleep without the shadow of the sword over you neck!" He raised his fist high, the gold of his crown catching the torchlight that crowned the cornices, a twelve feet wall made of granite behind his back. "For tonight we feast as brothers, and Tommorow, we... Stand as an empire reborn!"
A roar erupted from the valley floor—a raw, guttural sound of relief that shook the very stones beneath king Bennet's boots. Men clashed their swords against their shields, the rhythmic ring of metal drowning out the wind.
The roar of the crowd died instantly. The rhythmic clashing of shields collapsed into a suffocating and brittle silence. A sharp and jarring crack of stone against gold echoed across the battlements as the king's head snapped to the side from the impact. There was a sudden lightness on his brow followed by the hollow clatter of the crown bouncing off the stone floor behind him.
A thin trail of warmth trickled down his temple. The blood was dark and vivid against his pale skin. Below the balcony the sea of soldiers parted to reveal a single man standing in the clearing. His clothes were tattered and caked with the grey mud of the lowlands. His arm remained extended with his fingers trembling from a cocktail of adrenaline and pure loathing.
The farmer shouted that the man on the wall would never be his king. He cried out that he had not forgotten the Winter Arens conflict with ghost king. He claimed he saw the frost fire of the Ghost King's breath and watched his brothers turn to statues of ice while the king turned his horse and spurred it into the mist.
The man stepped forward and ignored the spears of the guards leveling at his throat. He asked if the king thought a few wagons of grain and a foreign king's favor could wash the cowardice from his soul. He reminded everyone of how the king had whimpered away like a dog while his people bled into the snow.
The silence that followed was heavier than the lost crown. king Bennet did not reach for the gold on the floor or signal the archers to fire. He felt the eyes of king Fedrac's vanguard shifting toward him with unreadable expressions. His own soldiers stood frozen as the hunger in their bellies was replaced by the bitter taste of a memory the king had tried to bury under parchment and treaties.
He gripped the edge of the rampart until his knuckles turned white. The stone was cold but the farmer's gaze was colder. Every word spoken was a jagged piece of the truth the king lived with every night in the dark. He looked down at the man while the blood reached his jawline. In that moment the King vanished and left only the man who had fled the field.
"I... Remember that day. Unfortunately for me, it was never easy to forget. The wind that day did not just howl but... Screamed."
He stepped away from the ledge and picked up his crown. It was dented and the gold was fouled by the dust of the battlements. He did not put it back on his head. He simply held it in his hand and felt its useless weight.
He looked back over the edge. "My beloved farmer, you are right. I admit that I ran. I am a coward, A king who abandoned his sword when his... His people needed him the most.
This is why I ask not for repetence but... Rectification. On the morrow, king fedrac and I, will attack ghost king gelvato."
Word of sumaka through eyes of lore keeper —
It is said that winter arens was made purely out of magic. Several thousand years ago, a king sacrificed his sword that he received as boon from god Rehsan. The god who received Rehsan's sword was filled with ecstasy. He was a child god, but after receiving this prized possession, he transformed into an ancient god.
This sword made him corrupted, filled his pure heart with malice. And then one day, he attacked king Rehsan, trying to gain more power. He succeeded at that and the king received his rewards for sacrificing the sword.
The power was known as: breath of kingdom.
With one breath, one can make kingdom of his desired imagination. So, it is rumoured that winter arens was a product of that king's breath.
Does the current king have that same power? If yes, then does he know it?