More than ten ships floated in the calmer waves of Russet. Some of them one masted, some two, and only one three-masted. The three-masted ship was a majestic one with snow-white sails and green and gold paint all over its wooden body. At its bow was a figurehead in the shape of a golden lion wreathed in flames. It was a creature of myths and legends, the Voros. Its imposing figure also waved on the flag of the ship. It was also the flag of this queendom.

Legend has it when the queen Shaela Arnet had been a little child, she found an injured voros cub, and nursed it back to health. Then the injured creature’s mother had appeared to take it away. And in gratitude, she blessed the young girl with divinity. Some believed the story, and some didn’t. They only thought of it as a hoax spread to elevate the queen’s prestige. But from what Erhan knew, the story probably contained a certain amount of truth.

Han’s boat was scheduled for the fifth pier of a row of piers along the stone docks. Erhan plodded down the plank to the dock carefully leaning on the shoulder of one of the sailors, looking like an old decrepit man. Markreath at his waist was quite heavy and dragged him down a lot. Making him limp from time to time. He looked around at the sturdy men and sailors working all over the docks, loading and unloading crates, barrels and sacks either on the ships or in one of the warehouses along the riverside.

Beyond them stood a stone wall as high as eight or nine yards. Battlements decorated its top and soldiers wearing shining steel armour patrolled stood scattered or patrolled along its length. The tips of their spears reflected sunlight on the eyes of anyone daring enough to look up. Two tall towers stood on each side of the giant gatehouse. Inside them, four ballistae stood facing each of the sides. Ready to unload their fury upon any potential threat.

“Wow, this is some sight!” Arban came and stood beside Erhan, he looked up and said, “how grand. The spears can even attack my eyes from way over there.”

Erhan let go of the sailor and stood leaning on his staff. The last time he had seen these walls, they hadn’t been so impressive. Cracks and holes and all kinds of signs of war had covered them. This place wasn’t even a part of a kingdom then. It had been a free city where ordinary men, pirates sailors all gathered. A place of utter chaos. It was a place he had come to track down a criminal. All those days had long passed and it was only a fond memory now. But he didn’t mind. He preferred this sort of this peaceful air of order.

“I have an ambition you know,” Arban’s voice was so quiet even the sailor standing beside Erhan couldn’t hear him. “When I grow up I’ll conquer the heart of the queen and marry her.”

Erhan drew in a sharp breath. His head whirled around to stare at the boy standing beside him with a wistful expression.

Arban slowly turned his head to look at Erhan. “No need to be surprised. The queen is very beautiful you know?” his eyes became dreamy again. “I saw her when she was travelling around the queendom after her coronation. So marrying her… It’s not me alone who thinks of that.”

Erhan didn’t know what to say. Yes, maybe every adolescent boy has such dreams, but saying them aloud… well, lese-majesty is a thing in this queendom. And they are also standing before the gates of queen’s own city, Valar.

“I heard the kings of the other three kingdoms also want her. That’s why they jointly launched two wars one after another.” Arbans mouth curved down in distaste. “They only stopped because of the plague. Shameless people. I’ll add them to the list of heads I’ll cho— hey, where are you going? Wait for me.” he trotted after Erhan who had started limping forward as soon as he mentioned the plague.

The people scattered in front of Erhan instinctively looked away as soon as they saw his eyes. Those dull green eyes devoid of any emotions on a bloodless pale face chilled them to their bones. If the sun wasn’t shining overhead, they would be sure they were seeing a ghost or one of those Bloodcraves. Though those eyes weren’t red, their chilling gaze was more fearful.

Erhan reached the huge opened gates of the city. People walking or on horses, along with Carts and carriages full of trade goods constantly passed in and out through their opening wide enough for five carriages side by side. Five guardsmen wearing sturdy full plate armour and holding long poleaxes looked over the pedestrians with hawklike gazes. They didn’t stop any of them, but their presence was enough of a deterrent to any unsavoury folk.

Some of their eyes fell on Erhan and halted a bit. But then they moved on again. Erhan joined the parade of people and stepped on the square blocks of black stone-paved on the city streets. The street travelled between two elevated strips of soft grass and flowery plants such as roses, daffodils, marigolds. Occasional maple, maidenhair or cherry trees cast soothing sheds on pedestrians. they e city lay upon a hill with well-decorated stone houses and cathedrals, each with a neat garden laying in perfect order along periodic elevations. They lay strategically, making the city easy to defend, but hard to attack, yet still, they enhanced the beauty of the whole city. A mixture of practicality and extravagance.

Erhan appreciated the view for a while before looking at the highest point of the city. There lay the most impressive structure of the whole city. The royal palace. A round white marble construction with tall golden spires all around it. The road climbed the hill to a golden gate along the white wall covering the palace.

Erhan lowered his eyes. He can appreciate the view later. Now he had to think of accommodations. Han had given him a total of six crowns as thanks for saving their life, drastically improving his monetary conditions, so an inn wouldn’t be a problem. However, it had been such a long time since his last visit, and the whole city had completely changed. So he had to put in some effort to become familiar with things. An inn should be easy to find, since they are usually in conspicuous places, but he would prefer a quieter place.

“Hey, why are you trying to move so quickly?” Arban caught up with him. He looked Erhan up and down and said, “You look so weak. What if you break down and scatter on the road from limping so fast?”

Erhan turned to look at him and said, “I already brought you to the capital as per the agreement, so we should go our separate ways now.”

“That’s cold,” Arban pretended to shrink. “And I even planned to help you, seeing how weak and sickly you are.”

Erhan tilted his head, raising his brows with a look of interest. “Oh really,” he said, “what kind of help?”

“Look, I know Han gave you tons of money for saving them,” he glanced at Erhan from the corner of his eye, “but seeing as you seem like the niggardly type and wouldn’t want to spend a shell of it, I was thinking of being generous and take you to my Uncle’s house.”

“That is indeed generous of you,” Erhan said with a serious voice, “but I think I’d like to experience being spendthrift for once.”

“Oh, then you’d definitely want my help,” Arban puffed his chest out. “Trust me, I know exactly how and where to spend your money.”

“I see,” Erhan nodded in understanding. “But don’t worry. I am also an experienced spender. I haven’t lived longer than you for nothing.”

“Exactly!” Arban clapped. “You are as old as my grandfather. And mother always told me to help the elderly.” he gave a dramatic sigh. “You’re so old and weak, I definitely can’t leave you alone. You’d need people to take care of you. Feed you good food, help you walk and all that… you’d even need someone to change your litter.” he stared earnestly at Erhan. “Yeah, I definitely can’t leave you alone.”

Maybe the kid wasn’t that bad was what Erhan was thinking, but after listening to the part about ‘litter’, he raised his staff and smacked it down on Arban’s head.

Arban deftly avoided the blow with only a sidestep. His blue eyes sparkled with suppressed mirth as he asked, “so? Will you come with me?”

Erhan stared at the pavement and exhaled. His condition was far worse than he thought. Even a kid managed to avoid his strike. Though Arban’s was quite irksome, he was right about one thing. In this condition, it would be difficult for Erhan to nurse himself back to health alone. And due to the changes in the city, he wasn’t too confident in his chances of finding acquaintances he could rely on.

He looked up at Arban. “I’ll rely on you then.”

Arban grinned. “Sure, leave it to me.” he came forward to help Erhan walk. “Just, do you know where my uncle’s house is?

---

Finding Arban’s uncle's house was quite easy. The Ficrous smithy was one of the establishments that helped curb the unrest after the queen’s coronation by supplying necessities such as food, weapons and transportation to the queens camp. The queen gave them a badge of pride, a proof of her appreciation. And so, many people knew the smithy and pointed out the way to Erhan after asking around a bit.

On the way to the smithy, Erhan noticed many peculiarities throughout the city. Many people scattered amongst the pedestrians were… quite odd. They didn’t seem to belong to the ordinary city folk going about their daily lives and sometimes received peculiar glances from them, just like Erhan and Arban were receiving. They were not people of this city, and most of them carried weapons, wore armours and grouped here and there. While that in itself wasn’t so strange, after all, being the capital, it was entirely plausible for outsiders to come into the city, but their numbers seemed more than usual.

The security of the city was also tight. Patrolmen wearing scale armour travelled in groups of five at every corner of the streets. Their kite-shaped hide shields held the motif of voros, and they carried long spears with red tassels on the neck. Their vigilant eyes always hovered on the outsiders, watching for any signs of trouble. Maybe all of this commotion was due to the quest of the queen.

After crossing two streets and a bunch of houses, Erhan arrived at a square where the smithy was. The area was full of various related workshops. Most of the other smithies around the square, especially the small ones sold weapons, armours and regular tools together. However. the Ficrous smithy specialized in bladed weapons. That was their bread and butter and that was all they sold.

It was a huge three-storied black stone building with an Iron plate depicting an embossed sign of a flower made of twelve swords hanging over a set of open doors. At the upper right corner of the plate, a small golden crown glittered. The badge of pride. The place was quite crowded, especially by the outsiders carrying weapons and armour.

“So crowded,” Arban looked at the shop in front of the smithy with interest. “Nothing like our shop at Garola. Uncle’s famous huh?”

“Yes, but it’d be difficult to meet your uncle there,” Erhan said.

Arban looked at him and asked, “Why?”

“Do your uncle’s employees know your face?”

Arban tapped his chin as he looked up at the blue sky in thought. “I don’t think so,” he said after a while. “I haven’t been to the city and haven’t met them, but that shouldn’t be that much of a problem. If I just introduced myself—”

“Which wouldn’t work because they might think you’re lying,” Erhan said. He used to be famous too once. Many people tried to meet him by introducing themselves as his relatives. “If you have a token your uncle would recognize, then…”

“A token, huh…” Arban scratched his head as his eyes slowly wandered to his waist. He unfastened the sheathed short sword from his belt and passed it to Erhan. “Here, this should work.”

Erhan took the weapon with some doubt in her eyes. “Your uncle made this sword, but he also made many more. The employees wouldn’t be convinced with just that.”

Arban shook his head. “That’s not it,” he said, pointing at the red Ficrous sword flower gilded near the top of the scabbard. There was a silver triangle in the middle of the flower. “This is the sign the master of Ficrous house puts on special works. It works as a token I guess.”

“Hmm,” Erhan examined the triangular insignia properly. “Markreath doesn’t have this,” he said under his breath.

“What?” Arban asked.

“Nothing,” he handed the sword back to Arban. “Let’s try with this then.”

Pushing through the people gathered at the door to the shop wasn’t an easy task, especially for Arban who carried the injured Erhan. After stepping inside, he couldn’t help but stare everywhere in amazement. Swords, spears, axes various weapons stood inside display cases made of glass-like expensive jewellery. Light flooding in from the frosted glass window glittered against their naked steel bodies. Most of them were highly decorated with pearls and jewels at their hilt. Many people gathered around the blades, discussing and talking with green tunic wearing employees. Quite extravagant. Nothing like the tiny little farming tool shop in Garola.

“Stop dazing around and ask someone,” Erhan prompted Arban. He was quite tired and wanted a good rest.

“Oh yeah,” Arban said. He was a bit nervous due to the mood of the shop. Looking here and there, he spotted a grey-haired old man behind the mahogany counter. The man had long, bushy sideburns reaching halfway down his cheek. Arban left Erhan to stand alone and walked towards him.

“Welcome,” the man dipped his head spotting him. “Which blade have you chosen, young sir?”

Arban didn’t say anything and held up his sword.

The man was agitated, “you are not supposed to take them out of the—” he stopped, looking at the sword more carefully. He took it from Arban’s hand and said, “Oh, it’s an old one. Are you here to repair it?” he took out the blade. “It’s not damaged, in fact, you haven’t used it at all. Umm… did master Ficrous make it? It looks like his work.” his brows scrunched as he leaned forward. “Ok, young man, what exactly do you want?”

Looking quite a bit awkward, Arban silently pointed at the Ficrous sign on the scabbard.

The man squinted his eyes as he held the scabbard up. He took a magnifying glass from a drawer underneath the counter and scrutinized the design. His eyes widened in surprise as he said, “the speciality sign.” he looked up at Arban and said, “Who might you be, sir?”

Arban took a deep breath and said, “I am Uncle’s nephew.”

“Uncle’s nephew…” the man repeated. Like that explains everything. He looked beyond Arban to look at the bent and sickly looking Erhan. Was that man the boy’s uncle? Was the sword his? But god! His left hand looked like a pillar.

Erhan coughed, trying not to laugh. Arban was kind of a genius. At least, his mouth was. He slowly made his way towards the aged man. He gave little dip of his head and said, “he is Arban Ficrous, nephew of—” he turned towards Arban, “what’s your uncle’s name again?”

Arban rubbed his hand over his face. Yeah, that was what was wrong with his introduction. His uncle’s name. “It’s Morgan,” he said, “Morgan Ficrous.”

“OH!” the man’s brows raised to the roof in surprise as his voice drew the attention of everyone in the shop.

A heavyweight man with an average height ambled over. “What happened?” he asked, sending the walrus moustache on his round grimy face aflutter.

The grey-haired old man gestured at Arban and said, “This- this young man claims to be the master’s nephew.”

The other man frowned. “Are you looking for trouble?” he asked Arban.

“No no, you misunderstood.” the old man hurriedly stopped him. He pointed at the design on the scabbard. “I think he really is. I heard master has a nephew at his hometown.”

The moustached man also had the same reaction, looking at the insignia. “Excuse me, are you sir Arban Ficrous?”

“Well,” Arban shrugged, “I'm not anyone else.”

His claim raised a tide of discussions in the shop that had turned a little quieter a while ago.

That was an odd way to answer a question. The moustached man turned towards Erhan. Was this master’s brother then? He looked so pale. And that… bandage. Was he injured perhaps? Was that why they had come to the capital? To cure him?

He was just about to ask when Arban’s voice came. “By the way, that’s not my father. Just an old man I’m taking care of.” as an afterthought he said as if to himself. “ although he doesn’t look it, should I start calling him Grandfather?” shaking his head he looked at the moustached man. “You are calling my uncle, right?”

“Oh, that’s right,” the man stopped thinking about how weird the nephew of their master seemed. “Master doesn’t work at the shop now. He works at the queen's smithy as one of the respected bladesmaker. So it’d be difficult to meet him at this hour, but I can lead you to his house. The mistress would be glad to see you.”

“Mistress?” Arban tilted his head. “Oh yeah, aunt! I have an aunt,” he said, nodding, “well, what are we waiting for then?”