Chapter 2: Neuverie

Neuverie appeared to follow the form of two basic settlements that had been merged together. Along the valley floor ran the wide river Cox making the valley itself into very fertile land for farming, and this was likely the reason it had first been settled. At one point along the valley, on the opposite side of the river to Kira, there was a steep rise and atop this was an old Marxan grey-stone fortress now serving as Kira's family's home.

The fortress had two outer walls, placed closely together that were flanked by square towers. Outside of the outer wall was a steep-sided ditch to prevent siege towers from reaching it, and a drawbridge hung open outside of the gate to be raised in times of siege, stopping rams from reaching the gatehouse. The gate through the second wall was situated on the other side of the castle, and this meant that if the outer gate was breached, attackers would have to run a gauntlet of fire between both walls just to reach it. However, defenders would easily move from the outer to the inner wall across bridges, far above any attacker's heads, between them.

Within the inner wall was a collection of buildings, including a keep, armoury, blacksmiths, and storehouse - possibly for food. In addition, the town that surrounded this impressive fortification had its own wall with two gates on either side. However, this was not Marxan-made, and it was not constructed from stone; instead, it consisted of a piled earthen walkway with a wooden rampart to protect defenders and a moat filled with water from the river. This later addition was only intended to prevent bandit raids. It would probably be hastily abandoned in the case of a serious siege, leaving the townsfolk to the mercy of the attackers.

The settlement itself was orderly arranged around several marketplaces and a dock where ships that had braved the passage from the sea up along the river Cox now lay at berth. From the looks of the crowds that could be seen milling about in these areas and the occasional cart flanked by guards, trundling out of either gate, this was a much more prosperous town than the port had been. All of this combined defensibility and trade connection made it obvious why Neuverie had been chosen by his father's dynasty to be Arkadia's final refuge.

On Kira's side of the river were many fields brimming with crops and set low in the valley so that water from the river could flow through the irrigation ditches that crisscrossed them. In these fields, many farmers were now working to bring in the season's harvests, and they stopped in their work to peer at Kira's companions as they rode down a dirt track and through the fields, occasionally crossing over the ditches using small arched stone bridges. After a short ride up the river opposite Neuverie, they arrived at a bridge built across the river by the Marxans. Its top was wide enough for two carts to pass side by side, and its age was apparent as in several places the stone guard rail was gone and had been replaced with cheaper wooden railings.

The city gate was covered by two wooden towers, both of which flew the Arkadian flag of vertical black, blue and white stripes, and, as before, the group stopped a way back from the gate before Captain Gavis went forwards alone to request access to the city. Soon enough, the gates swung open, and Kira saw one of the guards mount a horse and ride back towards the citadel to inform his father of his arrival.

Riding up through the city, they followed the central road past a bustling marketplace that stood filled with temporary stalls. The sense of security brought by the sight of crowds and the outside walls served to help Kira relax for the first time since arriving back in Anadora. Winding up through some side streets, they rode straight across a drawbridge and through the open gates of the citadel into the courtyard contained within its walls.

Here a small crowd had assembled including several well-dressed people who might have been serving as advisors and the king himself. Upon seeing his father, Kira's heart rate increased and he was filled with a dreadful sense of apprehension at what might come next. Alongside the king were two boys, one who looked to be around thirteen and was probably the brother from his memories and another who looked much younger, say around eight years of age, with a girl with an age somewhere between the two boys'. Great, thought Kira; family reunions are known to be so much fun, although this was his first.

Dismounting and allowing a servant to attend to his horse and bag, Kira approached his father. The king then moved closer to him too and clasped him by the shoulders whilst smiling broadly. "Welcome home!" he exclaimed loudly, "Come and meet your brothers and sister. You must be weary from your travels!"

"Thank you, father." returned Kira, uncertain what to say or how to act, trudging along after the king towards his family.

Whilst pushing him forwards to meet his siblings, Kira's father turned, smiled at him, and said, "There's no need to be so formal with me. You can just call me Dad or Dain."

Kira was then forced to go through a seemingly endless period of greetings where he struggled to avoid embarrassing himself by desperately trying to remember the names of people he had not seen for the majority of his lifetime. He managed to correctly name his siblings, with the two boys being called Owen and Favian and the girl being called Maria. However, on one occasion, when talking to one of his father's - Dain's - advisors, who he thought that he had recognised, he incorrectly named them and received quite a few odd looks from the onlookers.

What was made painfully apparent by this reunion was that his own siblings didn't seem to view him particularly favourably, most likely considering him as some sort of returning rival to the throne, he cynically told himself. Out of them, the only one that seemed to make any effort in talking to him was his oldest brother. Owen had inherited his mother's blond hair and blue eyes instead of Kira's father's black hair. However, Kira could not remember anything about him aside from a vague image of them playing outside when they were much younger, and he, again critically, kept telling himself that Owen was probably only pretending to be nice to him when trying to engage in conversation about Illyria's arenas as they walked towards Neuverie's keep.

Once inside, Kira was taken up to his family's apartment with his siblings whilst his father stayed downstairs to pay captain Gavis' company for their work.

The apartment was laid out around a central area with a fire pit in the middle and rooms all around it. Kira was shown into one where he was informed that it was going to be his bedroom. It was quite a bit larger than the room that he had stayed in in The Lost Lion and even the room he had lived in back in Illyria. Off to one side was a double bed with a large wardrobe for his clothes. Laid out on the floor there was a thick rug woven to depict the view of Neuverie that Kira had seen as he had come down the road to the city, and his room also featured several windows that offered views over Neuverie's dock area. These were made from expensively large single pieces of glass that served as a statement of wealth in themselves.

Owen had followed him into his room and, after a brief but somehow endless conversation, Kira went to get dressed into more suitable attire for a prince with the clothes provided for him. He then went back out into the central hall to find both his youngest siblings rolling about on the flooring play fighting over some minor offence that they had probably perceived from one another.

"Children, huh," Owen said to Kira, smiling slightly, acting as though he wasn't young himself being only thirteen years old; after a moment, he then continued, "Want to go downstairs and do some proper sparring?"

"Sure," replied Kira trying to just go along with what he immediately perceived was a scheme to try and publicly embarrass him.

They went off together, and Owen attempted to continue the conversation as they went down the stairs. "You know, Father will want to throw some sort of celebration for your sixteenth; I've heard that two Krinestadt manipulators will be attending."

This actually got Kira's attention. Manipulators were people who could manipulate the aura that they claimed surrounded everyone, although it was never seen by anyone else, to complete acts that were more befitting of some ancient deity than a mere mortal being. Apparently, Krinestadt had a centralised order of manipulators that had given them the edge in their war with Arkadia. So meeting some was an enticing opportunity given that the manipulators back in Illyria had been some of the best conversation partners that he'd had whilst there.

However, the idea of Krinestadt manipulators here did pose a concern, and so he asked, "What would they be doing here?"

"Eh, I guess that Father just wants good relations with Krinestadt for now, plus there's no need to worry because we have a few of our own – manipulators that is," replied Owen, entirely failing to put Kira's worries to rest.

They now arrived out in the fortresses training yard, and both walked over to pick weapons from a rack of swords positioned at one side. Seeing what they were doing, people elsewhere in the yard stopped mid training to watch the two princes. With Kira taking up a blunted long sword and Owen a blunted hand-and-a-half sword, they moved to the centre of the area and stood several feet apart from each other. Kira was well aware of his brother's younger age but resolved to not underestimate him since he brought up this challenge. Instead, he would make Owen underestimate him.

To do this, Kira held his sword low in front of him, keeping the blade between him and his enemy. He had received tutorage in sword fighting in Illyria, and he knew that this sort of guard was favoured by beginners as it kept the sword between them and the opponent as a perceived safety net. Taking the bait, Owen held his own blade in a high guard above his head and moved in to make the first strike.

Wanting to close the distance and use his strength and height to his advantage in grappling, Kira stepped forwards and into the path of Owen's blade, raising his own to block the attack. He then pushed his blade off to the side so that Owen's blade would be guided by his guard and stepped forward again, putting his left leg behind Owen's right as he pushed on his sword with all the strength he could manage.

Sure enough, Kira's strength advantage, or more likely height and weight advantage, paid off and Owen was forced to try and step back causing him to trip over Kira's foot and land with his back on the dirt. This was all to the amusement of the gathered crowd, and Kira's father had come to watch himself.

Owen saw this and got to his feet, scowling at Kira. He then launched a series of attacks but was kept at bay with Kira using the superior length of his longsword and arms to keep his brother out of measure for any serious strikes. Not wanting to embarrass him too greatly, after circling the whole area at least once, Kira put an end to it by allowing his opponent to over extend his flurry of attacks and counterattacking whilst he was off balance so that Owen, once again, landed in the dirt. This was when one of the men that Kira had seen training earlier came over carrying his own longsword and wearing chainmail.

He introduced himself as Ulric, the resident weapons champion of Arkadia, and briefly asked Dain, Kira's father, for permission to fight. With the consent granted, the pair took up places again opposite each other in the centre of the training yard, and Owen had no choice but to go back and stand defeated at his father's side. Noting this, Kira guessed that Owen's opinion of him had just sunk even lower than it had been originally, as Owen not being the first born was probably enough of an insult to make them rivals in the first place.

"So," started Ulric, crouching with his sword in a high guard like Owen's had been, "You must have gotten some weapons training in Illyria."

"Yes," responded Kira, "But, I wouldn't call it extensive. I mostly just watched fights from the sidelines at the arenas…."

And before he could continue, Ulric had moved forwards and made his first swing towards Kira. The blade came in from above but, as Kira simultaneously moved backwards and his sword upwards to meet it, Ulric deftly switched the direction of the blade so that it was coming from below instead. Just managing to divert his own blade to block it, Kira saw that Ulric was now easily close enough to make a follow-up strike and end the match there. This really wasn't good, thought Kira, already feeling outmatched, as he may have been as tall as Ulric but his opponent's more muscular frame would give him an edge in close combat.

Fortunately, Ulric allowed Kira to back away only saying, "Don't talk so much."

After a few moments more of Kira desperately trying to block and avoid Ulric's blade whilst maintaining his distance, Ulric ended things by fainting an attack and then striking Kira sharply on the arm. "You might have watched fights in those arenas," he said, "But I fought them."

He then walked over to Kira's father, saying something about how Kira was plenty proficient with a blade for an upper-class brat, as he put it. Once he was gone, Dain walked over to Kira and told him, "Don't worry about Ulric, I doubt that anyone here could beat him in single combat."

"I could," interjected a second, slightly hunched over man from beside the king.

"Manipulators don't count," shouted Ulric over his shoulder as he continued walking away, muttering, "Damn unnatural, how strong and fast they are."

Keen to speak with a manipulator again, Kira waited for his father to introduce them to him, but no such moment arrived. Instead, the manipulator was allowed to walk away and re-enter the keep. Seeing this, Kira resolved to try and talk to him later, hoping that he would turn out like the kind residents of Illyria under his cold outer appearance.

Kira's father then turned to him and told him, "Don't mind Merek, he's the court manipulator, and they both have a bit of a rivalry going on. I guess you could say that they both seem to struggle to accept the other's specialities as equal arts."

With the crowd dispersing, the king bade Kira follow him to the keep, where they then took the stairs down into the cellar instead of up to the royal apartments. After following the winding staircase down a way, they came to a stout wooden door studded with iron and flanked by two men standing guard. Upon seeing the king, they stood to attention, and Dain opened the door using a set of keys he produced from within his robes.

Within was a dark room with an arched ceiling, undoubtedly this way to bear the weight of the keep, with the only light coming in from a couple of small, barred windows that, even without the bars, no person would be able to squeeze themselves through. Ahead of them, piled onto the floor in neat stacks almost reaching the vaulted roof, were bars of gold and silver and over in one corner was a collection of chests apparently filled with coins and jewels.

"You'll be king here soon enough," Dain told his son, "I wanted to show you this," whilst gesturing into the room with his arm. "Your tutors in Illyria mentioned Jaeger, I'm sure?" the King asked.

"Yes," said Kira, quickly thinking back and hoping that what he was about to say wouldn't be wrong, "I heard that when Arkadia, when we, split from the Marxans our first queen married the most powerful manipulator of their generation, Jaeger."

"Then you heard right, but I'm not sure that they were ever married." interrupted Dain, "Being Jaeger's bloodline gives us the right to rule, so never forget that."

He then directed Kira back towards the door, "Starting effective tomorrow, you'll need to study our situation and soon I'll give you responsibilities of your own." finished Dain, and with that, they left the room to head back up to the royal apartments.

Thinking back on the wealth that he had seen displayed, Kira recognised that it, on its own and without context, was impressive. However, the room had scarcely been bursting with gold and, when attempting to run a kingdom, gold seemed to flow like water from a reserve that was not refilling. So, as they spiralled back up the stairs, he asked his Father, "Does the crown also have its own businesses and state-owned industries dispersed within the kingdom."

"Yes," returned his Father, apparently pleased with Kira's interest, "The mining industry, particularly the mines found surrounding Berwick, hand over profits directly to us."

Great, thought Kira dryly, so that's why that was the only area with any state-funded defences against the barbarians. Back in the royal apartment, after a man had come to hand him several documents to read detailing the state of the remains of Arkadia, and given that his siblings had seemingly vanished, Kira settled down to read.