The One King

Kwith Castle was a sprawling ancient fortress whose beginnings had fallen to rumor and gossip. Set atop a small grassy mound in the Valley of the Kings, the stories of its rise and fall could be neither proven nor disputed. The only fact that remained constant over the generations was that it had never been destroyed, not by weather or fire, warrior or mage. It continued to stand unchallenged in the flat, grassy valley that extended out to the V-formation of the Royal Mountains’ sharp peaks. That was not to say, Kwith Castle hadn’t had many masters over the ages.

In the encroaching night, the One King sat on her balcony in Kwith Castle examining the depth of the valley and the vastness of the world. It was not beyond her power to meld with the heart of the world and it was comforting. On the top of the wall that surrounded her balcony, her long legs dangling over the side, she drank in the relaxing sound of insects and distant lizards searching for mates in the grass. Peace had settled in the night, yet a new age of warfare loomed on the horizon. The time of the One King had arrived.

Katrise rubbed her finger along her silken gown and closed her eyes. She tried to focus her mind outward beyond her physical limits. She searched the inside of her eyelids for a long time before the world seemingly exploded in front of her. Her muscles tensed but the shock faded quickly. Katrise had grown used to the effect. It was not easy to control the tides of the magin but she was learning. The shockwave shuddered by her and she opened her eyes slowly.

Before her, the world had changed. She saw the subtle difference between shade and shadow, between light and radiance. Katrise relaxed her mind into the cool rhythm of the world taking refreshment in its unseen magin waves. She absently undid the ties at the top of her tunic and bared her neck. The One King ran her fingers gently along the Mystic Mark that was branded into her chest above the breastbone and below her neck. It felt deliciously warm as Katrise pushed her mind out further.

In her youth, the world had consisted of a small sheep camp in the backwater hills of Llandsbar. The largest journey she had ever taken was to Kwith City and it had seemed to take forever. But the island continent of Llandsbar was so much more than those lost little sheep camps, even more than Kwith Castle in the Valley of the Kings.

She had learned so much more of the world in her quest to become king. She breathed in deeply, relaxing into the depths of the land. She wasn’t sure how to bring all the clans on all four continents together. She felt her skin prickle as she began to tense with the stress of her thoughts. How to bring mages and warriors, peasants and nobility, rich and poor all together on common ground defied her senses. Long ago, the world had fractured with the appointment of the Regents, and she was the only hope of putting all the pieces together again.