The girl standing before Emily places her hand across her chest and gives a light bow.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Juliana Madonna and I’ve been sent to welcome you into The Covenant.”

Emily quickly regains her wits, a cautious glint flashing in her eye unseen.

Not a Mandrago? Does she work with them? Or is she unrelated and sent by The Covenant?

Without pause, she returns the greeting with a bow of her own.

“I’m Emily Coldstone of house Mandrago. What house are you from?”

“Madonna!” Juliana says with a smile as she grabs Emily’s free hand and pulls her along. “Let’s go. If we hurry, we should be able to catch the next train!”

Not a Mandrago then.

Emily is too surprised to resist as Juliana hurriedly pulls her across the hangar into a narrow corridor with a shallow staircase. Juliana pauses as they reach the lowest step and turns back to look at Emily while releasing her hand.

“Will you be alright on the stairs, or would you like me to take your luggage?” she asks with obvious concern written on her face.

“Ah no, I should be fine,” Emily reassures her with a smile. “My strength increased quite a bit when I awakened.”

She starts moving towards the steps, but Juliana doesn’t follow. Instead, she looks at Emily with curiosity and asks her:

“You’re already awakened? Have you been with the Mandrago family for long before being sent here?”

She doesn’t know?

“Hm? No, they took me in six days ago, I awakened on my own before that.”

Juliana’s mouth drops open as she stares at Emily in shock, before excitedly grabbing her hand with both her own and hopping on the spot.

“That’s incredible! I’ve never met a self-awakened before. You must be really talented!”

“Wait, doesn’t everyone awaken themselves?” Emily asks, seeing the chance to fill in her lack of magical basic knowledge.

“No! Most kids from noble families like me are taught some basic magical theory from twelve, and then our elders help us awaken when we reach fifteen before sending us to The Covenant. As for kids we take in from commoner households, they’re usually helped by a teacher in The Covenant to awaken after a few theory lessons. Awakening on your own without a proper education is super hard and practically unheard of. The only known self-awakeners in the Modo Kingdom are the King and the head of The Covenant!”

Wait, they only awaken them at fifteen? I guess it’s probably quite hard on the body of anyone younger if everyone has to go through pain like I did. It sounds like all noble families like to give their children a head start too.

“If the commoners aren’t self-awakened, how do you guys know who to take in?” Emily asks a question that occurs to her due to the odd nature of her own circumstances.

“There’s a special magic crystal that reacts when it’s close to people with magical aptitude. I’m not sure about the process in other families, but we usually send one of our unawakened servants around our cities a few times a year with one to find any talents.” Juliana raises her nose with pride as she talks about her family.

She seems awfully proud of kidnapping and brainwashing people. No, actually I don’t know if all families do that. Maybe I just met a particularly shitty one. She seems too innocent to be bragging about that. Then again, there’s no guarantee she knows even if her family does brainwash people…

“I see…” Emily sighs, pressing her doubts down and not letting them show on her face while asking with a sly smile: “Also, weren’t we meant to be racing to catch a train?”

“Ah! Damn it, we’ll have missed it now.” Juliana’s shoulders slump as she begins pouting.

“Heh, come on, we’ll just have to grab the next one. You can tell me all about your wonderful family while we wait.” Emily scoffs and slings her large suitcase over her shoulder as she slips past Juliana and starts up the stairs.

“Sure!”

They fall into silence as they continue up the stairs, moving at a relaxed pace now that there is no rush. The stairs climb at least forty metres, driving in a sense of scale for Emily.

Calypso docked in the middle of the wall so we must be nearing the top by now.

Just as Emily starts thinking this, the corridor evens out and she begins hearing people moving about ahead. She drops the suitcase back onto its wheels and walks out into a large hall. The hall has a tall ceiling made of crisscrossing metal beams holding up huge glittering panels of glass. Suspended in the centre of the room is a giant clock, its loud ticking easily heard over the low din of the people’s movement. The hall is long and wide, with four large depressions on the floor separated by wide platforms of steel and several arched bridges connecting them.

As Emily pauses and looks around, Juliana walks up beside her and starts talking with a smug grin.

“You’re from Eimdon, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“It’s your first time seeing a train station then, isn’t it?”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Uh-huh, I’ve only ever heard Dad talk about them. Are the channels on the floor so the trains can come in here?” Emily asks as she starts walking towards the edge of their current platform.

Juliana catches her free hand again before she can walk too far and starts pulling her towards one of the bridges instead.

“Let’s get to the right platform, you’ll be able to see the rails better from above anyway.”

Emily allows herself to be pulled along again, wondering why Juliana can’t just tell her to follow instead of dragging her, but not resisting. They walk through the sparse crowd of well-dressed people and make their way over one of the bridges. As they move over the large depression, Emily looks over the side and admires the uniformity of the steel track below. Juliana notices her interest and asks her a question as they walk:

“Do you like trains a lot or something? You mentioned your dad talking about them, is he an engineer?”

“Ah, no. He was a clockmaker, but he used to tell me about all kinds of machines he’d seen to help me come up with ideas for new creations,” Emily responds sadly.

“I see. He sounds like he was a lovely man,” Juliana says, noticing Emily’s use of the past tense and drop in mood. “What sorts of things did you make?”

“Nothing too interesting,” Emily responds, happy to change the subject, “I was working on a mechanical bird a little while ago. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite get his wings right, so the poor little guy kept breaking himself against the ceiling…”

Juliana giggles lightly before looking up at the large clock above their heads as they step down onto the platform.

“The next train to the city centre should be here in ten minutes,” she tells Emily while coming to a stop at the edge of the platform.

They stand quietly, a comfortable silence settling between them. Emily smiles as she realises this is the first time since leaving home that she has felt relaxed around another person. Even on Calypso, she remained cautious towards the crew, since they were sponsored by the Mandrago family, and never lowered her guard fully.

Ten minutes pass without a word said, and eventually, a low rhythmic thumping slowly grows closer. As the thumping grows loud enough for Emily to recognise it as pistons, it’s suddenly joined by a loud screeching hiss. Emily flinches at the unpleasant sound.

“The brakes are really noisy.” Juliana leans over and speaks into Emily’s ear to be heard over the loud sounds.

Just as she finishes speaking, the large mechanical marvel rolls into the station and moves past them. Emily admires the long procession of connected polished metal carriages as the train comes to a halt. A loud horn blares from the front cab and all the doors along the body of the train slide open simultaneously.

“Come on, you can goggle from the inside, I’d rather not miss this one too,” Juliana pulls Emily towards one of the open doors.

They step into the carriage and Emily looks around, surprised by the lack of people. The carriage is wide and spacious, with a long corridor down the centre and eight booths, with enough room for four people in each, lining the sides. However, only two of the eight booths contain anyone and there are only three people between them.

“Wow, it’s pretty empty in here.” Emily muses as Juliana takes her into one of the empty booths, shutting the door behind them.

“Well, that’s to be expected. The carriage we are on can only be used by nobles.”

Juliana takes Emily’s luggage and tucks it under the chairs as they sit down in the plush seats facing each other.

“How is that enforced? There was no check before we got on.”

“A ticket officer will come by soon and check all the booths for our crests. If anyone who isn’t a noble tries to use the front four carriages, they will be forcefully detained, so no one would risk it. Especially considering being a ticket officer is one of the jobs offered to Covenant members to gain contribution. There are some not-so-pretty stories of people trying to sneak into the noble carriages and leaving mangled.” Juliana shudders as she speaks.

Emily raises a brow with confusion and asks:

“Wait, do the unawakened know it’s magic putting people in that state?”

“Ah, no. Not unless they are servants of a noble family and sworn to secrecy. Most people just think it was physical violence, which seems to serve the same purpose,” Juliana responds with an uncomfortable frown.

Emily nods and looks out of the window as she hears the train’s horn again. The doors to the carriage shut, and the train shudders as the slow pumping of the pistons starts again. The view of the station slowly starts sliding by, and as the train picks up speed, they soon leave the building.

She admires the passing scenery as the train races through the city. From the high vantage point, she gets a clear view of the sprawling streets and the people busily moving about below. However, the further away she looks, the more her view is obscured by the mist, giving the city an eerie atmosphere.

“What’s with the mist? I’ve never seen it in Eimdon before and we had a fair amount of steam output,” Emily asks after a few minutes.

“It’s an enchantment placed over the whole city. I’m not sure exactly what it’s for in the rest of the city, but it stops pedestrians being able to get close to The Dome.”

“You can make enchantments act over a whole city?!” Emily asks with surprise.

“Yeah, I don’t really know much about it though. If you want to learn about it, there are classes you can take on enchantments and engraving. I’m sure the teachers will be happy to explain what the mist does.”

I wonder if I could enchant machines to add special effects to them.

They continue chatting, with Emily asking about the places they pass and Juliana happily answering. The train stops at several stations and winds its way closer to the centre of the city until the large ornate dome comes into clear view. From closer, Emily sees that the body of The Dome is a black metal, similar to the black iron that the mana crystals formed in. There are silver beams at consistent intervals all around the structure. As Emily squints, she just about makes out a plethora of runes carved into the silver metal.

If the black metal acts similarly to black iron, I’d guess The Dome is built to insulate mana and those silver beams are what causes the mist spell. Fascinating, I need to sign up for those enchantment classes.

As Emily admires The Dome, the train slows down and arrives at the station connected to it. She sighs with disappointment as her view is lost. Turning away from the window, she finds Juliana grinning to herself and staring at her.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just cute seeing you get so excited about the city.” Juliana’s response causes Emily to blush and look away.

“I’ve never seen a city so big and well-engineered, and magic’s really new to me…” she mumbles as the train doors open.

“Haha, there’s no need to be embarrassed. We all reacted the same the first time we came here. Unfortunately, you get used to it after a while and it loses its effect. Come on, I’m sure you’ll love inside The Dome just as much as outside.” Juliana says while standing up and grabbing Emily’s luggage from under the seat.

That’s not what I was embarrassed about…

Emily shakes her head and stands up to leave, once again finding herself being pulled along as they exit the train. The station they step out into is a lot smaller than the one at the docks, only having a single platform. She glances back at the train and sees that only the front four carriages have their doors open.

Makes sense that this is nobles only for the base of The Covenant, not opening the doors for the others is an effective way to stop them from intruding.

They make their way towards a large open entryway and step out onto a walkway between The Dome and the station. The walkway has a bronze metallic floor, and the walls are a mix of bronze and glass, allowing Emily to look down into the thick, swirling, ethereal mist below. Approaching The Dome, they reach a smooth silver panel at the end of the walkway. Juliana reaches up to place her free hand against it while turning her head to grin at Emily.

“This is where the real magic begins!”