Chapter 1

[Patras, Patrae-Vasíleio]

[8:00 AM, May 3rd, 300 ANB]

The rising dawn casts its light upon the glistening royal palace and the ancient ruins surrounding it. The city of Patras is beginning to wake up to a new day. The stone streets are scarcely populated. The hustle and bustle of the nearby port is loud enough to echo through the empty corridors. Over time, windows open as the city comes alive.

Lucas Grey emerges from a small bakery, fresh breakfast pastry in hand. The main street is ahead of him, a wide patchwork of cobblestone connecting the port in the northwest to the palace southeast into the center of the city. Lucas turns to his right and puts a hand onto his bicycle, parked just by the door. Ahead of him is that masterpiece of a structure. The golden rays of the morning sun reflect off of its polished marble surface. He mounts his cycle, pushes off, and begins pedalling towards the grand castle.

The distant sound of a galloping horse from behind comes to his attention. Along with it, the rumble of what sounds like metal wheels rolling along the cobblestone surface of the street. Lucas twists at his waist to see a horse with a man on its back. The sides of a cart protrude from the left and right of the front profile. The horse approaches with considerable speed. Lucas turns forward again and drifts to his right.

“On your left.” The voice of the man on horseback calls out to Lucas just before the horse passes him by. They are far enough away that the cart pulled behind the horse rumbles a few feet from his wheels.

Lucas watches the horse pull ahead with its shimmering brown coat and waving black mane. His eyes catch the gleam of its unique brass horseshoes. Evidently, this man takes good care of his horse, a trait that Lucas respects. Further, in a city with such pride in displaying its coat of arms on a banner wherever it can, even on their horses, seeing someone not sporting this symbol of allegiance is refreshing.

Turning off of the main road, Lucas approaches the southwest wall of the palace grounds. From this angle, the sun becomes blocked as the distance between him and the palace shortens. When he arrives, Lucas applies the brakes to his cycle and dismounts before it comes to a complete stop. The way he approaches the door, with purpose and with haste, puts the guard stationed there into a more defensive way of standing.

“I have an audience appointment.” Lucas explains. He consumes the last bite of his breakfast and pulls a rolled up paper out of his satchel. He grips one end and lets the other fall, unrolling the parchment. All the while, his walking speed remains constant.

When Lucas gets close enough, he hands the paper to the guard, who examines it. With a nod, he opens the door and steps aside. “Right through here. Continue down the hall until the next door. Enter and wait in that room. You will be called when they’re ready.”

In the time the guard delivers his instructions, Lucas has already parked and locked his cycle next to a post a few paces from the palace wall. He returns, takes the parchment, and rolls it back up.

“Thank you.” He resumes his fast pace through the door and into a torch-lit hallway. The door closes behind him.

This structure is in the courtyard, built as a tunnel to connect the outside with the waiting room within the castle itself. The floor is carpeted in purple-dyed wool. Yellow banners bearing the royal coat of arms hang from metal bars along the walls. The emblems, etched in a more reflective thread, shine in the torch light. Lucas passes them with his eyes to the ground, a slight frown on his face up until the door at the end of the hallway. He flips up both the banner to his left and right, letting them rest with their faces hidden from view.

With the aid of the torch flames, Lucas locates the handle in front of him and opens the door into the next room. As he looks around, the frown he sported in the hallway worsens in annoyance. A quick count tells him nine or ten people are already seated along the wall.

“So much for getting here early.” While his thoughts are internal, Lucas’s face serves to express that which he does not say. He takes a seat along the same wall as the other citizens. As is customary, they are in order of arrival. Lucas finds himself seated farthest from the door at the other end of the room.

This room, like the hallway before it, is carpeted in purple and adorned along its walls with golden coats of arms. A more robust lighting system exists here, with hazed glass sheltering large candles in the ceiling. Reflective surfaces above the torches send all of this light into the spacious room. Even so, windows of stained glass provide something with which to engage the eyes.

But not for Lucas. The artful windows are crafts of the Crown, depicting past kings and queens of Patrae. He averts his eyes from these as well as the golden banners, watching the door instead. This is when he hears distant footsteps approaching from the next room. They reach the door before it opens slowly towards the waiting citizens. A head emerges from behind, a woman with long brown hair. She looks around.

“Good morning.” She reveals a sheet of parchment paper and peers at it with concentration. “Curtis Towe?”

The man seated closest to the door raises his hand and stands up.

“This way.” The head submerges back into the room behind the door and the man who was called does the same.

Lucas watches until the door shuts. He crosses his arms and gets comfortable. “I’m prepared to wait.”

For nearly an hour, Lucas waits as names are called and people enter the next room. None of them come out through the same door, implying that they exit the palace by some other route. Shortly before each new entrant is called, a soldier clad in silver armor enters through another door across the room and enters the audience chamber. This pattern occurs without fail multiple times.

All of these controlled procedures and formalities are things Lucas has come prepared to put up with. He pulls a thin string of twine from his satchel, attached to a larger spool which remains inside. With a small, scalpel-like knife, he cuts a few long segments. Through the waiting period, he occupies himself by tying varied knots and thinking of new ways to interweave the twine.

Lucas’s attention is beckoned by a break in the usual rhythm of passing soldiers and the calling of names. After an armor-clad man - with darker skin, noticeably different from the soldier who has repeatedly passed through this room - enters the audience chamber, the brown-haired woman fails to appear for nearly ten minutes. Lucas takes note of the man’s gait, how fast paced and worried his manner of walking is. He also notices slight hesitation as the man reaches for the door handle and enters the chamber.

This leaves one citizen between Lucas and that unseen room. In time, they too are called and Lucas remains in the room alone. Another ten minutes pass before the same soldier walks through the room and into the chamber looking more flustered than before. Less than a minute later, he comes back and looks at Lucas.

“Lucas Grey?” His voice conveys haste.

“That’s me.” Lucas slowly rises from his seat, satchel in hand. His being called into the audience chamber is far different from the previous citizens. His approach is slow and controlled as he is forced to proceed with caution.

The soldier continues into the chamber, followed by Lucas who opens the door slowly and takes a moment to look around the room before entering fully. The room is smaller than Lucas expected it to be. The door is in the center of a thirty-foot-long wall, with the walls to his left and right being nearly half of this length. Across from him is a row of five elevated seats behind a decorated half wall. The seats are occupied by men and women draped in dark purple garments brandishing the royal coat of arms and brimmed with gold tassels along their sleeves. Two men and three women, all of them aged over sixty by Lucas’s guess. Their gray hair is uncut but well kept in elaborately tied presentations. Streaks of black or brown from earlier years show through.

The path before him is carpeted by a purple of a deeper shade and flanked on both sides by rows of empty seats. This pathway is four feet wide and its end is five feet away from the half wall and the robed dignitaries. Two soldiers stand at either side of the carpet’s end. The one with darker skin stands at attention on the right side of the room next to another door. Lucas reasons that this must be his intended exit.

“This is the last one, yes?” The gray-haired woman in the center of the five turns to that soldier on the right of the room. He nods in affirmation. She motions for Lucas to approach. “Let’s hear his case then and get this over with.”

Lucas walks forward along the carpet until he stands between the two guards. From this position, he has to look up in order to see the people he is addressing.

“My most humble greetings to the esteemed High Court of her grace, the Queen Beatrice of the Grand Kingdom of Patrae, Amaliada, and Pyrgos.” He recites the greeting formality with just enough conviction to appear genuinely humbled. But as he speaks, Lucas thinks only about the hours he spent begrudgingly practicing his mannerisms for this very meeting.

He bows his head and recalls the correct degree, less than which would be disrespectful. In spite of this, he makes an effort to stop his descent just above the customary threshold. As he raises his head from the bow, both of the male advisors before him scoff in annoyance and furrow their brows.

“Lucas Grey of Platani is recognized by all members of this Court and given the privilege of making known any grievance yet unheard. Speak your piece.” The woman in the center responds in a dignified voice. Lucas watches her eyes scan what must be a paper on the desk before her, out of his view. This, he reasons, must be how they know his name and place of birth.

With the opening ritual of flowery language having passed, Lucas ceases to tense his muscles, an effort to stand as straight as possible. He lightly tilts his head to the side and runs his right hand through his dark brown hair as he speaks.

“You may have heard of my actions in some parts of the kingdom. I tracked down and slayed a bear threatening the livestock in Argyra. I was among the group that defended Mpalas against being sacked by Argossean bandits. I—”

“We have records of your escapades,” One of the men interrupts him, arms crossed and gaze condescending. “They earn you no clout here, nor does your heritage. What is it that you want?”

Lucas pauses, both out of annoyance and thought. Then he continues, his expression flat yet sincere. “I want to make a living. The rewards of the people come from what little they haven’t paid in taxes to the Crown. I seek a royal contract befitting of my skills.”

The advisors exchange looks and lightly shake their heads. Then, the woman in the center looks down at her desk. Lucas can hear a book opening and it's pages turning. She briefly scans a page, turns it, and scans the next one.

“We have no such jobs available.” She looks up from the pages.

The woman on the far left examines him. “I never expected the son of Ulric to approach this Court for work…”

This weighs on Lucas’s patience, the very utterance of his father’s name. When he came to the capital, he expected to meet uncaring bureaucrats, but not ones with such gaull. He exhales heavily and keeps his eyes on the woman in the center, the apparent authority among the panel. Her examaming look at him implies some interest but Lucas is unable to decipher her thoughts.

The woman on the far right speaks up. “You could join the army. The age of conscription is twenty-one, but a boy of your skill would be accepted even at nineteen years. It pays well, especially at higher ranks.”

“It’ll teach him some respect too.” The man next to her scoffs.

“No thanks.” Lucas’s voice is a low growl as he turns and approaches the exit door. His motion does enough to convey his disdain. “Never wanted to ask you anyway.”

The guard standing next to the door opens it just as Lucas approaches. From behind it, a woman quickly walks into the room just as he is attempting to exit. She wears robes similar to the advisors but noticeably less decorated and prestigious. In her hand is a rolled up paper stamped in wax with the coat of arms. Lucas is able to turn his body and narrowly avoid the collision.

“Excuse me.” She apologizes frantically without looking at him and proceeds to climb the short steps up to the advisors’s seats.

Lucas looks back for a moment and, out of curiosity, watches as the woman walks up to the lady in the center of the five. When the woman in the seat closest to him gestures for him to exit, he turns to leave and enters the hallway. Just before the door shuts behind him, Lucas can hear a few words from that central woman:

“He’s killed him?” Her voice is loud, shocked, and disturbed, a stark contrast to her previous composure.

Interest, for but a moment, flickers within Lucas. He turns to look back as he walks down the hallway. This feeling leaves as quickly as it came, and he faces forward again.

“Waste of my time.” He whispers to himself in a dismissive tone. “I could be earning money elsewhere—”

The door to the audience chamber behind him is swung open and that soldier hollers for Lucas to return. “They want you back in here.”