Vallerian and Gardinal helped her onto the litter, and with a grunt the porters lifted her up atop their shoulders. Settling into the cushioned seat, Arabella and Valleresa walked along her side.

“I’ve never been to the castle before.” Arabella whispered to Valleresa.

“It’s overrated.” The First Handmaiden responded dismissively. Celeste shook her head, Valleresa still struggled to understand the views of the commoners.

What few conversations rose from their group dissipated as they stepped out of the temple gates. Celeste felt her breath catch. Stretching down the already tight streets of Southshore, stood thousands of people with eyes on her.

“It’s her!” A woman’s voice shouted, and then everyone began to cheer. The guards surrounded Celeste quickly, creating a tight circle around her procession with Kriss at the lead and Gardinal at the rear. Thankfully the guards had no need for force as a path opened up before them as they made their way toward the city gates.

Cutting through the crowds like a ship through glassy water, the people shouted out to her. Shouts of joy, of excitement, of laughter. Many called her name, or just ‘prophetess’, or ‘healer.’ Some, however, shouted other names that made her nervous; tiles like ‘lost heir’, or ‘the Savior of Southshore.’

Still, they had come to see her, to cheer for her. So Celeste smiled at them all, waved at them, and tried to see every face. She tried to meet the eyes of every soul, even if just for a moment. All of the godborn were represented in that crowd, though scant few Sherya made up the crowd if any at all. Stout Khazimi, diminutive Jöln’s, fair Fershya, and broad Fereni, they were all there. Even the Korek, towering over the rest, seemed to shout out to her. They still called her that name, Na’Ga’Na, and with so many red-hued faces in the crowd it was as though the entire band had come to cheer her on.

Among the crowd a single face caught her eye for a split moment. A woman, perhaps just reaching her middle years, with beautiful golden hair in a messy braid pulled over her shoulder. Her face was gaunt, almost sickly, and she looked at Celeste with the saddest smile she had ever seen. Celeste’s mouth went dry as memory tugged on her for a moment.

In seconds the woman disappeared. But her face lingered in Celeste’s mind liked a stubborn root. Celeste tried to pull on that, to bring back an old memory. But try as she might, it slipped through her fingers like a muddy stalk.

With the crowds urging them forward it didn’t take long to reach the gates of Silvermarket. The towering monolith that was the city’s outer wall loomed over her, its rounded stone gate an impassable barrier that had cast a shadow over her entire life. It almost felt wrong as the wall guards pressed hands to chest, stepping aside as they passed them by. So long had those armored men stood as a barrier to her entry, and now she could see them straining to catch a glance of her. As Celeste’s porters carried her through those walls, over the border that marked the separation of unwelcome masses and Terminian citizens, no words were spoken. There was no grand song, or sounding horns, but for the first time in her life Celeste entered into the city proper. For her, at least, it was monumental.

The gravitas of the moment receded quickly as Silvermarket revealed itself before Celeste for the first time. She did try her best not to gawk at everything that caught her eye as they climbed up the twisting road. She really did try. The finely laid tight cobblestone road was wide enough to fit four high-wheeled carts abreast, snaking its way up the hill. Even then the streets here were busy, though not as tightly packed as Southshore’s alleys could get. Many people lined the sides of the road here, if not as many as in Southshore, though they looked up at her with questioning looks. Men in finely spun woolen doublets and women in long gowns with necklines that made Celeste blush stared up at her, whispering quietly to one another. It was the whispers spreading among them in place of the earlier crowd’s cheers that left her uncomfortable. Sometimes she’d hear them, one spoken a hair too loud. Or perhaps they wanted her to hear.

“…I heard she’s feasted with the Korek, like pigs from a trough I’m sure.”

“A street rat I heard…”

“I heard she raised the dead…”

“Could she really be the lost heir?”

On and on they whispered, but Celeste pushed their questioning looks from her mind. There was so much more to admire here than Silvermarket’s rumors and speculations.

She made a study of the buildings, fine plaster and timber structures often three or four floors high. Many of the older ones were built of stone. Occasional plaster additions were stacked atop stone first or second floors, the new additions obviously done in much more recent architectural styles. Finely painted signs hung out from nearly every wall, depicting all sorts of goods and services one could find if they patronized the attached establishments.

But the one thing that kept coming back to her was how clean it all was. The perpetual layer of caked on mud and thick grime that covered every building in Southshore was absent here. In its place she found crisp white walls with finely oiled wooden beams to be the norm. No rot marred the foundations here, and no crumbling plaster or stone was in sight, threatening to collapse with the first winter’s wind. In the place of Southshore’s crumbling moss covered wells, it seemed every one of the little squares they passed had large fountains, with huge statues to either the Pantheon, the Fruits, or heroes of old standing above them. It was all so beautiful, and it had been kept from so many by those massive walls.

“Look over there.” Kriss whispered to her, pointing up past her ear. Celeste grinned at Kriss’s wide eyes, surely he was the only one here who was just as amazed by it all as her. Well, she thought glancing at Arabella, gawking with her mouth as wide as a trout’s, maybe not as amazed as Arabella.

Trailing Kriss’s pointed finger, Celeste thought she could make out a massive tower stretching up into the sky in the distance. Another huge wall separated the colossal tower from Silvermarket, but that was not why she could hardly make it out. A haziness marred the sight, as though it was only partly there. Of course, she thought, the Academy Tower. She had read that some Archmagus long ago had made the district somehow larger than the land it took up. An incredible feat in any manner, but it made everything within look hazy from outside. An oddity to be sure, and apparently even odder looking down at it from the palace according to the books.

Celeste wondered if she would ever get the chance to see the Arcane District of Terminia. She had always wanted to visit the Academy, the greatest center of learning in the whole world. That and of course pay a pilgrimage to the temple of Renya, Goddess of the Arcane, and first daughter of Ethinia. Perhaps one day she would get that opportunity. Looking at Kriss, staring at the tower with child-like wonder, Celeste hoped he would be beside her when she did.

The march through Silvermarket was longer than she would have expected, at least an hour spent walking from outer gate to inner gate, and the district was far longer than it was wide. The twisting road moving back and forth like switchbacks, led them to walk along side the wall itself for a good while.

These guards were a tad bit less jovial. Fershya men in shiny golden armor, they looked like well-trained soldiers. They eyed the Faith Militia as they marched past, only stopping their procession for a moment to inspect the invitations proffered by her father. It didn’t take the men long to wave them through, yet their cool measuring gaze left Celeste with a chill.

Stepping out of the gates, Celeste stared up in astonishment. In every direction massive stone towers at least ten or twelve stories high dominated the sky, gold and silver glistening on every windowsill and decorated roof she could see. The Gilded Towers, home of the Fershya nobles of Terminia. One of the three noble districts of Terminia, each separated by high walls as though the disparate godborn nobles could not stomach seeing those they thought of as lesser. Or that was how the various accounts written by said nobles had made it sound.

Her father had made her read comprehensively on the nobles of the land, and she could likely make her way through this district from the maps she had studied alone. But to look up and see the huge stone towers, real gold gilding the edges of every structure, it made her almost lose her composure. She had seen them as outlines, barely visible over the wall her whole life. But here? Here they hardly seemed real.

Remembering her books and maps, Celeste glanced to the north expectantly. Over distant walls she made out what could only be the famous “Forest” of the Sherya. Massive spires stretched up over the walls, so slender it seemed hardly possible. Staring out at them, she swore she could almost see them swaying in the wind like a grove of aspens. She had read a book once, by a brilliant scholar and builder explaining how the towers were made so high, stretching even taller than the Fershya ones. Still, reading about it then and seeing it with her own eyes were two very different things.

Turning, she tried to make out the famous Goldport to the south. Home of the Fereni nobles, she could see the tips of a few keeps poking above the walls. A handful of wide crenelated tower roofs, just barely peaking above the wall that separated Fereni from Fershya. The Fereni houses were famous for their strong keeps, made for safety, not that anyone would ever attack. A holdover from Post-Abandonment Fereni culture she had read. She would have to ask Vallerian to take her to his father’s keep one day. It would be nice to see the home he and his sister had grown up in, even if they did avoid talking about their family. Perhaps she could help them make peace with their father one day.

If the trip through Silvermarket had been muted compared to Southshore, moving among the Gilded Towers seemed a funeral march. Few enough save servants were seen moving about the wide flagstone boulevard, made of fine white stones obviously picked for their hue. Once or twice some servants looked up at her in surprise, staring back at her eyes for a long moment before scurrying off. And occasionally a palanquin or coach curtain would be brushed aside to reveal a studying gaze, but even that happened fewer than a dozen times. It seemed the Gilded Towers were too busy for her. That or they simply did not care.

The final wall was the most impressive. A huge iron-tinged stone structure, it was the picture of power. The gate itself was open now, spread wide to reveal a topiary lined limestone road stretching right up to the palace entryway. A line of ornamental royal guard lined the road, swords drawn and held before them, gold fringed capes billowing in the wind that seemed more a gust as high up as they were.

A tall Sherya man appeared from around the corner as they approached. He was of the Arrahunya tribe, judging from his brown hair and brilliant emerald eyes. He wore the livery of house Enyenweld, the royal house, and had the posture of a servant who likely outranked most he met in a day.

“Ah, you have arrived.” The man spoke, a crisp, clean tone to his words, giving the bishop a sweeping bow. “Your Grace, I am Elrenanyos, steward to His Majesty the King.”

“Rise child, we are here as summoned. You may inform His Majesty.” The bishop responded, a coolness to his words. The man had seemed only to grow more tense as they got closer to the palace.

Celeste’s litter was lowered at an order from her father, and Gardinal and Kriss helped her from her seat.

“The king was made aware of your arrival the moment you entered the Gilded Towers Your Grace.” The steward responded, his face seeming not to move an inch. “Come now, you are expected in the Grand Hall.”

Their procession followed the man, the Faith Militia save Gardinal and Kriss staying outside as was expected. But as Celeste strode up to the first step leading to the wide gilded doors, she glanced back, staring out the long straight road, through the gates, and out over the Gilded Towers. There, almost impossible to see at that distance, she could just barely make out the outer edge of Southshore.

Celeste turned and followed the rest inside.