The City of Tertinum

Out in the Citadel’s courtyard which has cobblestones riddling the ground, stand a carriage below a flight of stairs. Those stairs lead up to the main ballroom hall where the thrones of the Honored Tertin family reside.

In the middle of the courtyard stand four separate fountains of water in a circle with a cross walkway in between them. They sprout forth the azure-blue liquid that flows down from above the top rings. As the water overflows at the tops, it goes down into larger circles, then again when the water overflows it falls down to even bigger circles.

At the front of the Citadel, large double-doors stand wide open, and through the grand opening comes the strutting Malinda with fast walking legs. She has a frown upon her arch eyebrows as she goes down the staircase with careful steps, where she catches a prepared carriage with four horses in front of it while a middle-aged man holds them in place.

The horses are magnificent. They’re fitted with horse armor in a shiny black alloy while the heads of the horses have dark helmets with crimson plumages sticking out at the top.

It’s not a unique sight for Malinda, so she strolls to the carriage, to open the brown wooden door to get inside, which is decorated with golden embroidery. The rest of the carriage is also covered with gold on top of its wooden foundation, though not enough to cover it entirely.

She sits down on the leather seats, then covers the windows with drapes of crimson that hang down from above the sides so no one can see who’s privileged to be inside this luxurious golden carriage.

The Handmaiden doesn’t join her inside because she’s the chauffeur. She has been trained at an early age to learn everything that’s needed to be a handmaiden to someone like Malinda. She knows how to cook, how to ride a horse, how to handle horses fastened to a carriage, how to be a sparring partner, how to clean, how to act, how to dress, how to… everything.

She is also older, so she has had time to learn everything that’s needed; the handmaiden knows all of Malinda's daily routines, her personality, her hobbies, her likes, and dislikes, but today, something is amiss for the first time, she actually slapped her sister.

Malinda has been strange ever since she came home yesterday, late at night, almost at midnight.

The handmaiden was still waiting for her Miss to return so she could go to bed last night. She had waited for Malinda’s return immediately after the battle, for Malinda usually travels back with her brother and sister, but not this time, this time, she returned late as ever. Though now she knows why, she had met with someone, a man.

When did she have the time to fall in love with a man? The handmaiden has had her eye on her Miss. She knows where she goes every day, what she does every day, so this sudden man has honestly surprised this handmaiden who knows every single fragment of her Miss.

Malinda opens the carriage’s door.

“Go to where I instructed, and no words of complaint. He can talk to me how he wills, so just be silent when he speaks, understood?” Malinda asks as she peeks out, looking with stern eyes. With a click resounding, the door closes again. She didn’t even wait for her to respond.

How can a commoner talk casually with an Honored One? Is she serious? The handmaiden has mix feelings about this encounter that her Miss will have, but she waves her hand gently for the middle-aged stable-master to leave. A simple but perfected curtsy does the man as he turns around to leave, heading towards the large stable which is on the southwest side of the Citadel.

She climbs up to the driver’s seat.

As she holds the long reins, she does a whip-like action with her arms, making the horses’ metal shoes clank on the cobble at a slow pace forward. They strut half a circle around the courtyard, toward the Innermost Gate, which’s widely open with its raised portcullis and giant doors standing exposed.

The wheels of the carriage and the clanking hooves sound as she drives past the gate where city guards stand at their post on either side. The guards do a stance of salute in recognition while the handmaiden nods to return their good behavior. Yet they got no permission to walk through the gate, to step onto the ground of the Citadel.

The City of Tertinum, it’s divided into four layers.

The first outer layer is where the poor people, regular people, and somewhat wealthy people live. The second inner layer is where the nobles live, and some who has gotten permission. It is also where the location of the most expensive markets and stores. Nonetheless, in the first outer layer, there are even more shops and markets than there are in the second inner layer.

The third layer, ‘the Citadel’s outer grounds,’ is where the City’s army trains and where Xe’Reth’s squad will meet up in three days’ time. The city guards’ headquarter and the Department of Law and Order have their compounds also located there.

But the most important thing that lies in the third layer is the School of Law and Order. It’s where the most righteous people get their education from, though it has a strict policy which makes it highly difficult to enter. The great thing about it is, no matter how deep one’s pockets are, it doesn’t matter. Because the school doesn’t look at the wealth of its students that tries to apply, it looks at the people's ways.

For their sponsor is the royal family.

Their conviction of particular beliefs matters to that school and its leaders, for they’re the instrument of law that smites down the criminals; the order that makes people believe in its traditional methods that have existed over the years since the Divine Queen purged the kingdom of its disgusting habits.

Even the poor can gain admittance, but, if the person who applies has only survival in mind, like those who only wants to get into the school for its benefits, their papers are severely dropped into the trash.

When people graduate from that school, they can willingly choose to join the Department of Law and Order—DLO for short—where the forces of justice are to be found at. The people that take down the ones who does illegal activities; they’re the investigators of the Kingdom, who stalks down the perpetrators of evil.

The Agents of the Divine Queen.

The high ranking Inquisitors who’re stationed at every major part of Ellenoria has sway over what goes on in the cities where they rule. They’re the only ones who practically have the same authority as an Honored One, except for the all-powerful royal family and the Divine Queen herself.

The last layer is where the Honored Tertin Family’s Citadel is located at.

The Citadel and its’ estates were once built upon a highland. That’s why the Citadel seems so tall compared to everything else. If a person wants to get to the Innermost Gate, that person needs to climb up the sloping street that starts at the Citadel’s outer grounds’ main gate.

Though it only tilts to a degree. Not enough for carriages to slide down, but sufficient enough for an overweight person to be completely out of breath when reaching the top.

While there’s only one method for mounts and carriages to go to the Citadel, people, however, can travel up the long stairs on either side of the sloping street where buildings belonging to the DLO and the city guard are, which are on either side of the road. It’s as if those two factions don’t seem to see eye to eye. Therefore, the buildings are on either side.

The whole city is a giant circle, but the first three layers have a design like crescent moons, and the Citadel, like a lying oval egg. If someone had a bird’s eye view, they could see the City’s wonders.

The City’s magnificent cathedral stands almost as high as the Citadel’s high walls. It’s sited at the inner layer where people go to seek enlightenment, and once every year they hold a ceremony for people to say the word of magic. To see if someone has the capacity to form that ancient word that can send them straight to nobility and beyond, but also to their own doom, for Magicians are controlled by the royal family.

The royal family bind the life of the one they found to an orb, and if it were to be destroyed, the one’s life who’s linked to the ball would instantly die; evaporate into nothingness.

It’s common knowledge, however. For reaching wealth and power, it’s a low price to pay. Though it will certainly be a burden to those who wish to be completely free, to not be in shackles only because of one word the person will say on the day of the search for Magicians.

Poor, rich, it doesn’t matter. As long as the person says the word, they’ll either have to comply… or be put to death by the decree of the royal family, because they can’t have heathens running amok among their citizens. No one really thinks that it is wrong to put those people to death who doesn’t comply with the Divine Queen’s rule…

Xe’Reth himself has been a follower of the Divine Queens. His mother is still fanatical about them, for they peer with their all-seeing eyes down upon the Kingdom from the Divine Sky. Though these last four years, he hasn’t cared for such beliefs. He still hears chants from his mother when she has been in her various delirious conditions, which in turn make him furious towards... his Goddesses…

Where are they?! They, who hold so much power?! Why can’t they bring a miracle and save his mother?!

He wonders that too many times… but yet no phenomenon have come to his mother's salvation.

The Goddess is the current reigning Queen herself. An embodiment of the Kingdom’s undying faith. Xe’Reth doesn’t know if she’s a Goddess or not, because no one meets her. Not even the Honored Ones themselves any more.

The Queen only makes an appearance once every year in the Capital City, far to the north, to set a new rule upon the Kingdom if she so wishes it, because the people would be stunned in obedience.

Is the Queen perhaps a Magician herself? Or is it the work of magic that makes people willing to serve… blindly?

Xe’Reth has been in his mind about that a lot of times since he has read quantity of different books, but even the books he had read were written as if the person was in such awe, only complimenting the current and the past Divine Queens.

The Citadel’s main wall is high, and it’s made so no cracks are visible, which makes it impossible to climb over. It’s made like that so buildings located in the Citadel’s outer grounds can be placed by the crescent formation of the fortification.

Though of course, people need another pass to come into the Citadel’s outer grounds. All the soldiers of the city’s army, the workers of different factions; investigators, servants, city-guards, and the various other people who’ve been given a pass can come into the outer grounds.

Madelyn herself has given all of her underlings that are in her squad a license to come and go how they like. So they can train their archery in the field where all of the soldiers, city-guards, and occasionally those that originates from the school are training. It’s a privilege to mere commoners, like Xe’Reth.

Madelyn, though, has a reserved area, for she’s indeed an Honored Lady, who has sway over the City. But she doesn’t care for politics. She actually lets her brother’s wife handle her own economy, her riches which she inherited when the former rulers died.

She’s a rich… spoiled girl…

A girl who’s currently sitting on a stone bench in a garden that surrounds her with toppling emerald hedges, which only have one exit. It's an area of seclusion where she can rub her reddened cheek in peace. She has cried but stopped a couple of minutes ago since she isn’t a crybaby, she is…

“Aww… This is going to leave a mark! Curse you, sister, you didn’t need to hit me so hard!” she moans, looking into a hand mirror while frowning, which her mouth-gaping handmaiden holds.

“Mistress… We should go see my father and get you some ointment for the swelling,” the handmaiden suggests while holding the mirror as carefully as she can, crouching, for it has glittering jewels surrounding the oval-shaped silver frame.

She will get into so much trouble if she drops it.

“Madelyn… there you are…!” Celyssa exclaims while waving an embroidered fan at her face which has stitches of ball-dressed women conversing with each other. “You really need to stop hiding here in this damned labyrinth. You’re making me work more than I already need.”

Both Madelyn and her handmaiden turns their heads simultaneously to see Celyssa there with a scowling woman behind her that has arms crossed while she taps the ground with one foot. She’s dressed in exactly the same uniform as Madelyn’s handmaiden, rather, it looks as if the woman is an older version of the girl.

The woman next to Celyssa points her finger straight at the ground without uttering a single word while having the sternest look she can possibly have. Madelyn’s handmaiden jumps up from her crouching position as she gives the expensive hand mirror to her Miss, then hurries with head low and eyes not even daring to gaze into her mother’s wild flaring eyes.

The two of them leaves Madelyn and Celyssa to be alone so they can talk things through, about what happened in the dining hall. As they disappear through the exit, Celyssa sits down beside Madelyn on the stone bench, giving out a puff of air as she whips her fan, so it forms into a short stick.

“Madelyn… Is what Malinda said, true?” she asks while inspecting the swelled up cheek, holding Madelyn's chin so she doesn’t move her head. “Well…?”

“…” Madelyn jerks her head away from Celyssa while she pouts with her lips. “What does it matter…? It was only a commoner that I played with. He should be glad that I don’t relieve him from his duties as a member of my squad.”

“Hmm… Is that so? Well, should I let you handle your team's work from now on then?” Celyssa asks as she too averts her head in a childlike manner, to gaze at the flowers of different colors. “Though… You would need to spend all your free time with those piles of paper that arrive at my study... every single day.”

“What…?! No… No please, I… I won’t do it again, I promise… I just… I…” she grimaces in shock as her mouth curves down while her azure eyes widen at Celyssa’s turned head. “I… I only teased him a little bit because I wanted him to spend more time with me… Even just a bit more time, because he always leaves in such a hurry…”

“So this is what it all was about?” Celyssa realizes, turning back her head to look into Malinda’s eyes with a smile on her lips. “You did say something about falling in love with someone in the dining hall like your sister, didn’t you? But I would’ve never thought that you would stoop to such childish behavior.”

“I… I am an Honored One, and he’s—.”

“No, you’re a Stupid One for acting in such a manner unfit for your status,” Celyssa snaps as she frowns in a rather loving way. “Dear Queens of the ages, look upon this lamb that has fallen from your graces. Her mind has turned into that of a child’s. She—."

“—I get it! Look who’s the one that’s teasing now…” Madelyn too snaps, then begins to stare at herself in the hand mirror while gaining a sad scowl upon her beautiful yet half scarlet face. “But, it is hard you know… confronting one’s own fears.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Celyssa replies as she snatches the hand mirror to look at herself too. “I never confessed my love, it was just chosen for me. Sigh, but I did fall in love with your brother after we were introduced to each other. Back then he wasn’t the man he’s now. He was unhappy most of the time.”

“He was?” Madelyn asks as she grasps ahold of the mirror, to seize it from Celyssa’s hand, to look at her own red cheek.

“He was…” Celyssa says, frowning at Madelyn for stealing the mirror as she was in the middle of looking at a wrinkle that’s between her eyebrows. “You were too young to remember. Though I got to know the reason why he was so saddened a couple of years later. It was because he had someone he earnestly loved before me.”

“Back then when he was only a commander of the middle gate while his father was the General. He fell in love with a girl that was the same age as him… But right when he had the courage to confess his love to her, she just disappeared out of nowhere, leaving him completely heartbroken. Though only a month later came the woman who sits here now beside you, to brighten up his sullen life.”

“What was her name?” Madelyn asks with flickering eyes and an open mouth.

Celyssa sighs in dismay as she covers her face in shame, “He never even had the courage to ask her. Much less talk to her. He was such an innocent brute back then… And now? Dear Divine, he’s such a cuddle bear and so outgoing. It makes me want to punch him sometimes…—…What?”

Madelyn places her hand on her sister-in-law’s shoulder and looks innocently at her, “You have it rough, don’t you?”

Celyssa also puts her hand on her sister-in-law’s shoulder while giving her a sigh, “At least I don’t come crying and moaning when I can’t handle simple paperwork. So, how about you start helping me around my study?”

Madelyn retreats with her hand and tilts her head forward, pleading her heart out, “Please, I won’t tease anyone anymore… So please forgive me… Sister-in-law? Celyssa…?”

“Should I forgive you? Yes, I’ll forgive you, for now. But next time something like this happens, you can say goodbye to your extensive free time,” She responds as her whole face relax and turn into a gentle expression as she sees the swelled up strawberry, named Madelyn. “Come, let us go to the Citadel’s healer to see if we can ease the swelling a bit. And on the way, you can explain how you would gain the love of the one you teased by acting so childishly. What’re you waiting for, get up.”

They vanish through the garden’s exit, leaving only the lavish mirror there on the stone bench…

As Malinda’s handmaiden drives the horses on the cobblestoned street of the inner layer, the amount of people making way is truly amazing since it shows how important and how easily it is to recognize whose carriage it belongs to, for some at least.

The handmaiden nods at the different people who makes gestures to express their respect to whoever sits inside the golden embroidered carriage. Though many know that it’s Malinda Tertin, because her handmaiden is recognizable by those who has lived in this city for a longer period of time.

She drives the terrifying horses of sun-gleaming armor toward the gate that lead out into the outer layer. But, as she’s about to reach the entrance, a young girl hails her in with waving arms, a girl who’s in her late teenage years. The girl has a tight uniform in the colors of the School of Law and Order, its main dye, blue and rims of black, rather, it’s like men’s clothes.

The handmaiden frowns as she sees the girl… No one she knows, but she jerks the reins nevertheless, to let the girl speak her mind. As she stops the horses of terror, she asks with a slight demanding tone, “What business do you have with one of the City’s figureheads?”

“Ah… forgive me handmaiden of the Honored Malinda. But I couldn’t let this opportunity be missed,” the girl says with a gracious curtsy. But her gaze wanders off to the door of the carriage as if she’s waiting for Malinda to step out, though no Malinda comes. “Is the Honored Lady inside?”

“Who asks? Be quick about it, for we’ve business to attend to,” she responds, voice stricter as she looks with her orange-red eyes. Like a blazing fire, which is like her braided hair that’s tied to form an upper bun.

“Forgive my impudence, but I’m here about my father’s arrest, which the Honored Malinda issued. Because no one is letting me see him nor are they saying anything about his offense, he’s—,” she asks, however, the sudden opening of the carriage’s door, stops her voice in an instant.

Malinda peeks out to see the girl in uniform that has interrupted her from coming closer to Xe’Reth. She had heard what the girl said, and that’s the very reason why she comes out of the carriage. Malinda’s feet thuds on the cobble as she lands, scanning the girl with her now venomous eyes…

She seems to be well-off; she’s attractive, but not the most beautiful, rather dull for Malinda’s attention at this moment.

The people gawk as Malinda stands there all casual. They begin to speak to each other, or more like silent whispering to a nearby stranger to give away this oppressive atmosphere from their chests, because this girl that Malinda now walks toward, stopped an Honored One without any fear of the price.

Does this teenage girl honestly think she can do whatever she wants only because she’s a member of the SLO—the School of Law and Order?

The girl, proud with her head holding high, and her face, dead-set on her goals: the release of her father from prison.

“So, you’re the daughter of that… man?” Malinda sneers as she comes up to her with such superiority in everything; clothes, the way she moves with such a breathtaking air about her, and her voice, like acid itself, melting away anything that comes in contact with it. “Ask what you will of me, but you're better off without such a slob of a father.”

From so little words, the girl’s proud surface shatters with such damage. The girl’s legs begin to shake as she looks up at the looming Malinda because the girl is way shorter than the Honored maiden in front of her.

The girl isn’t a noble, only a commoner. So seeing the real deal in front of herself pounds her heart faster than usual since she’s indeed about to speak to someone who’s of such height in society compared to her. She only saw the carriage and recognized the driver as she was about to head to school, for she wasn’t allowed to see her father, so the only thing she could do… is to get help from her teacher.

As she has now taken the dive to stop and speak to Malinda, she's dumbfounded to the max.

“I, well, why… Why did you send my father to prison? N-No one has told me,” she squeaks out with such nervousness while fiddling with her fingers, but the girl’s heart sinks deeper as that frown on Malinda’s flawless face, tells the displease of this conversation.

“You came to me with this? You foolish girl, I put your father in prison because he badmouthed… my lover, and that’s the worst thing he could’ve done. He degraded him with such…” Malinda clenches her teeth while her upper lip twitches, glaring with such a grimace at this girl… This girl that has come from that fat pig. “That was the reason your father was sent to prison, and he’ll stay there for a long time. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Honored Malinda!” the girl screams as she can’t hold back her feelings from Malinda’s haughty personality. In the process, gasps and murmurs declare from the gathered up crowd. “You can’t just throw someone in prison for doing something as petty as badmouthing! The law isn’t for you to bend! It’s there for stability! You can’t just toss it to the side as you please; you call yourself an Honored One?! You’ve gone too far! I demand you to release my father… Otherwise… Otherwise, I’ll put a ticket out for your cruelness to the highest board of the City!”

Malinda raises an arch eyebrow in slight surprise, “Do that. Do that and see how far you’ll come with your insignificant moaning. You think you’ll have any sway over the DLO? Please… You’re but a leaf that falls from a tree when autumn comes, many in number yet harmless to the tree. You threaten me? You say you’ll complain? Do as you like, but next time you come and interrupt me with such a thing, go through the right channels. You’re not above others only because you come from the SLO.”

"And you think you are?!" she retorts. "My father may have a loose mouth... but... but he isn't an evil man! My dad is my only parent! Please... he'll repent for his actions, but please release him!"

“Who do you think pays the wages of your father’s work, huh? Our family does because we are in charge of the city guard; we pay them, we clothe them, we’ve made that branch so they can watch over our family's City; to safeguard our citizens and catch those who has committed a crime, much alike the DLO. Yet your father bends those rules we’ve set upon him? Now, if you don’t mind me leaving your righteous presence, I’ll take my leave,” Malinda mocks as she spins around, then heaves herself into her carriage once more and taps the inside of it, for her handmaiden to continue onward.

“Girl, you’ve just made your biggest mistake of your life, goodbye,” the handmaiden says with a sad scowl on her expression as she does her whip-like action for the horses to charge forward.

“Who does that girl think she is? Yelling at an Honored One, and so openly too.”

“Seriously, this girl will probably be kicked out from the SLO so they won’t be affiliated with such a person, to not gain the loathe from the Honored Tertin family.”

“Poor girl doesn’t even know her own undoing. Her family will probably cease to exist in this city as of today.”

As the girl hear the crowd of people that talks openly about her, she becomes restless. She actually argued with an Honored One without restraint. Malinda is one of the rulers of this City, the Second-In-Command of the middle gate; Malinda is kind to those she likes, but can be cruel to those she dislikes, and neutral to those she doesn’t know.

The uniformed girl then runs away from the crowd. Otherwise, she’ll become too emotional for her own good. She heads toward the Citadel’s outer grounds, to the SLO where her teacher is currently stationed at.

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