They don’t rush in the morning. They carefully prepare themselves, wear the expensive riding clothes that they have not worn the whole journey, brush their horses thoroughly and make sure they look healthy and rested. It takes a while to convince Rakan to not go to the palace in his dragon form. It wouldn’t be proper if he appeared naked in front of the Queen. They attract quite a few looks when they get on their horses. After all, Rakan has made a point to open his shirt enough so that his Kyusei Mark can be seen and is smiling wide, as if he was unaware of the wide-eyed looks of the men that had drunk with him yesterday.

The way to the palace is not short, they don’t rush either. It is not in the middle of the city but situated in the outskirts, close enough so that the communication is fast but far enough so that it is not surrounded by peopleand noise and it can have big gardens surrounding it.

There are people waiting outside when they arrive. It looks like every person from the court has come out to see the Kyusei for themselves. They had sent a running boy earlier so they knew of their arrival and had everything ready. All of them look around but the queen is nowhere to be seen. The moment they step down from their horses they are taken by the staff to the royal stables. They start walking towards the palace, a man approaching them from the door. He doesn’t look like a footman, probably a counsellor of the queen or someone close. The moment he is in front of them he pauses and bows before them.

“Welcome to Prunezia, Kyusei. Please, accompany me to meet the Queen, your help will be guided to their rooms” the man says.

“They are not the help” Liv can’t stop herself from correcting him, they all look at her surprised and she is nervous, but stands with what she says “they are our companions and friends, and will be treated as such”

When the man sees that no one is going to add anything more, ant hey just look at him expectantly he finally answers “of course, they will be treated as best as possible” he makes a signal with his hands and a footman approaches, kindly guiding Victoria and Gabriel inside, they shoot Liv a smile before going.

The man starts moving now and they follow behind him. He guides them inside, the hall is amazing, the ceiling tall and floor wide, it’s kept perfectly clean and every wall is decorated, even the ceiling has a beautiful painting on it. They have all been to places like these before, it’s the common traditional architecture of the west, but they have never seen it to this extent, taken to the extreme.

They have to go through different rooms, all decorated in a way that makes you feel like you can’t even touch a table in case you’ll somehow break it. It’s a beautiful palace, the one that a nation that hasn’t been in a war itself in years and hasn’t had the need to defend itself has. Prunezia is a big country, powerful, the last wars that it has fought had been to keep or obtain territory, not affecting the main kingdom. Hexia is the only menace that has approached its borders in a very long time.

They finally stop before a door, two soldiers at its sides. The man that was guiding them, that still hasn’t presented himself, stands in front of the door. He doesn’t knock on it, but rather kind of scratches it, the next second the door opens from inside. They enter a sitting room, it’s big and decorated in the same fashion as the other ones, mirrors in the walls to make it appear even bigger. The Queen is sitting in a sofa, Kylem has never even seen a picture of her but it must be her, there are a few others in the room but no one else is sitting. She is a middle-aged woman, her eyes are cold when she looks at them, arrogance in her face.

They had been warned about her not liking Marked but Kylem thinks they have a big chance of her helping them. Her country and power are in danger for one, she has agreed to meet and house them and the council and the most subtle reason, she is receiving them in her personal sitting room. Kylem is the only Kyusei that has been truly taught about the different customs of western royalties. Prunezia’s is the most difficult of them all but an important part of it is how the more important a guest is, the closer to the royal bedroom they are received. If she really hated them, she would have received them in the throne room. At one point in Prunezia’s history, the most important courtiers would be allowed to help the King or Queen dress in the morning. Kylem is glad this Queen is more reserved and didn’t continue the tradition.

“I am Kylem, Kyusei of Night” he is the first one to step forward and introduce himself with a slight bow of his head, “they are Lífdagar, Kyusei of Life, Meira, Kyusei of Light and Tirakan, the dragon Kyusei” they bow their heads when Kylem says each of their names, “we are thankful that you welcomed us in your palace and let us stay.”

“I hope everything will be to your taste. You’ve already met Lord Louis Lafaye, my advisor, he will show you to your rooms, so you can get settled and rest. Please inform him If there is anything you would like.” Just like that, she dismisses them with a shake of her hand and turns back towards her lap dog.

Their rooms are in the same floor as the Queen’s but right on the other side of the palace. That means it takes them a while to reach them. They cross paths with a lot of members of the court on their way there, they look at them and whisper. They will be expected to partake in court life, Kylem is not looking forward to it. He can’t handle the falsity, the interest relations, socializing. Rakan does like it, but Kylem is not sure he will be able to follow the strange protocol of the prunetzian court. Liv is too shy for it, she’ll probably try to sneak out to the gardens the moment they are left alone. Meira… she is still a bit of a mystery. She may enjoy it or hate it. Kylem hopes she’ll enjoy it.

The doors to their rooms look the same as the ones that they have passed. One wouldn’t really know they are special if it weren’t for their marks carved on top of each of the doors. They are also the only five doors around, away from the other rooms. The man points to each of the rooms to indicate them to which room they have to go, not that it’s necessary once they have seen the carvings. This is not a Kare, so that means the rooms don’t lock themselves and they have already been prepared for them.

They have to wait till the seamstresses come to get their measurements so they can make them clothes appropriate for the court, the Queen had insisted on it, or so Lord Lafaye says, then they are free to do as they please until dinner time. As they haven’t brought their own help, they will be provided with it to get ready for the dinner.

The man leaves them after explaining that and Kylem is already dreading the days to come. He goes into his room. It’s big, as expected, with one side of it decorated as a sitting room. It has a door, hopefully it leads to a bathroom. Overall, it looks like a normal room, but after seeing the frescos on the ceilings, he doubts the other rooms have night skies painted on them. It’s beautiful, and he lies down on the floor to look at it. Whoever made it, must have spent a lot of time studying the sky for most of the stars are in their correct place, all the constellations. A winter’s sky.

His moment of solitude doesn’t last long. It’s only a few minutes before he hears movement outside of his door and stands up, knowing what’s coming. Sure enough, a few seconds later the door to his room opens and a curious Meira comes in, looking around the room.

“Yours is smaller too!” she exclaims “come to my room, you may know who the woman in the picture of my room is”

She exits the room and Kylem goes after her, Rakan and Liv are outside too.

Meira leads them to her room but Kylem pauses before reaching it, he looks at his left, at the open door that leads to a dark room.

“You went into his room?” he asks.

“I wanted to check all the rooms, sorry” Meira says before finally getting into her room. Kylem doesn’t say anything else, he just reaches inside and closes the door before he follows her.

They all stare at the painting. It’s on top of a fireplace and almost life sized. It shows a woman, young, pretty, she is wearing old-fashioned clothes, and there, in the skin above her dress, the start of her Kyusei mark can be seen.

“She is her majesty the Queen Anne of Prunezia, one of your pre incarnations” he says to Meira “she married a king of Prunezia like 200 years ago, so he was known as the Sun King.”

“Are you saying that I’m related to the royal family? I knew people here liked me more because of one of my previous incarnations but I didn’t know she was a queen.” Meira says, she has a smile on her face.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Oh, just, it’s funny isn’t it? How she doesn’t like Marked but is related to one of the most important ones.”

“I didn’t know we were allowed to marry” Rakan says “isn’t it too complicated?”

“I guess it is if you marry a King, but otherwise? Why wouldn’t we be allowed to marry?” Liv asks.

“I just never thought about it.”

“The members of the High Council are descendants of the Kyusei that stablished the Council.”

“Yeah I know but… I don’t know that was then and now is now… I told you I never thought about it.”

There’s a knock on the door. “Come in” Meira calls out. The door opens, a woman on the other side of the door.

“Daru” she says as a greeting, bowing deeply “I was sent to take your measurements”

“Oh right, you can come in”

The woman looks up for the first time then, she seems shocked to see the other Kyusei inside the room as well and bows again.

“Daru, the other seamstresses are waiting for you at your doors.”

“Thank you for telling us, we’ll go now” Kylem says, he grabs Rakan and drags him out of the room, Liv following behind them.

“Do you need me to undress?” Meira asks once the door is closed. The woman straightens again after the bow she had maintained while the others went through the door next to her.

“If you don’t mind, Daru”

Meira starts undressing while the woman takes out her measuring tape and notebook. She goes to Meira and starts measuring after bowing slightly to her again. Her arms, height, chest.

“Will you be making all of my clothes?” Meira asks.

“Oh no, it would be impossible Daru, it would be too much work”

“I don’t really need much”

“We are to make for each of you appropriate clothes for the day, afternoon and evening, as well as for any public appearance that may happen and the clothes for the party, Kyusei”

“The party?”

“The one that will be held in 10 days”

Meira doesn’t ask more, she doesn’t think it will be of much use anyway. “Isn’t it too troublesome making all those clothes for all of us?”

“Oh, on the contrary, everyone at the sewing room feels honoured about being able to make clothes for you, Daru” She looks happy. Meira nods.

“Kylem” she tries. No answer. Yet. “Kylem Kylem Kylem”

“What” comes the answer. Meira feels the others in the link too. Curious.

“Do we know something about a party?”

“A party?” Liv asks.

“They didn’t tell us anything. But I’ve heard my seamstress thinking about it” Kylem answers.

“We are discussing a war and they decide that a party is a good idea?”

“Prunetzia’s customs are strange but we can’t protest. For them we are important people, and when important people come, a party is held to make social connections, to honour the people invited in a way”

“We are going to have to be formal?” Rakan asks, almost whining.

“We are going to be formal all the time if you haven’t realised” Kylem says. Meira can almost see Rakan pouting at that. The image makes her laugh, the seamstress looks at her confused, but she won’t say anything. She is finishing, closing her notebook and rolling her measuring tape. She thanks Meira and bows again before exiting the room.

“We should go to take part of court life” Kylem tells them “It will please them”

“Okay” Meira answers “I’ll get dressed and go; it can be fun. Who’s coming?”

“I think I’ll… go check the garden, our surroundings” Liv says.

“Yes! I’ll go with her, see if there’s anything weird” Rakan adds.

“I’ll go with you” Kylems tells her “You may need my help”