After everything I’d been through recently, the last thing I wanted to do was go for a stroll, here I was.

It was three days after the incident at the Grand Ball. I had finally recovered enough after two days of bedrest to walk around and eat solid food again. So, Alverd insisted on “physical therapy”. He made me walk around the Castle, although he always made sure to escort me when I did so. Alicia tagged along too, insisting that she keep an eye on me. I wasn’t sure if she was more concerned about my well-being or my potential to cause trouble.

When she was confident that I wasn’t going to topple over, she led us to the front gate. As we passed through the massive doors, I saw the full majesty of the castle town below. The entirety of the castle town had been built upon the slopes of the volcano. A central road had been paved from the front gate of the Castle that cut through the town all the way to the base of the volcano itself. The sheer, jagged cliffs of the volcano’s rock outcroppings formed natural barriers that functioned like walls, meaning that only those who could climb vertical surfaces or fly could bypass them.

The buildings themselves were constructed mostly of stone. I wasn’t sure what kind of stone it was, but it wasn’t volcanic; likely they had been made with rock excavated from quarries. From my vantage point, I could see a crowded marketplace arrayed almost like a farmer’s market with citizenry packed tightly together as they vied for the sellers’ wares. Banners depicting the proud dragon emblem of Ishmar lined the streets, and teams of black-clad soldiers patrolled in disciplined groups.

Alicia began walking down the stone steps. “Hey! Don’t fall behind. I don’t want to have to look for you if you get lost in that crowd.” Alverd fell in step behind her, but answered with a question.

“Are you sure this is wise? We don’t look like royal guards. Won’t people get suspicious?”

The young Princess waved her hand dismissively.

“As long as you and Kuro don’t do anything weird, it’ll be fine. That’s why I made him leave his magic stick back in his quarters. There’s something I want you two to see.” She tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for me to follow. Seeing as how there was no arguing with her, I did as I was told.

“Something we have to see for ourselves?” I asked. “What could there possibly be to see that we haven’t seen before?” We started our long trek down the walkway. It took us the better part of an hour to reach the top of the castle town where a small guard post manned by a squad of soldiers in jet-black armor had been erected. These men and women were different from the normal soldiers I’d seen up at the castle. Their black plate mail had patterns that looked like the overlapping scales of dragons. It took me a moment to realize who these soldiers were. They were Black Scale Legionnaires.

Of all of Ishmar’s forces, even more so than their berserkers, the Black Scale Legionnaires had the most notorious reputation in all the land. They were the most elite, most ruthless, and most well-trained warriors on the continent of Selarune. Whether it was on the ground or mounted on a dragon, a Legionnaire was a fearsome combatant, ready to slay any enemy and die in the name of the King of Dragon Tamers. They were blindly loyal zealots who obeyed any order without question. Their reputation had spread far and wide for a reason. These people were responsible for conducting the infamous purges Ishmar had conducted over the eight centuries it had existed. They had to train long and hard to fight mages, and thus they had been assigned the task of weeding out and executing Algrustian spies. A lot of people had died under their watch, and I was willing to bet not all of them had been truly guilty.

About once every five years, they’d also enact another wonderful Ishmarian policy known as the Culling. They’d sweep the entire country searching for children under the age of ten who were suspected of being able to use magic. These children were then put to death oftentimes in public spectacles meant to teach the people the penalty for the use of magic. It was a filthy, barbaric display that had been thought up by, you guessed it, a bunch of filthy barbarians.

The Legionnaires had been part of the invasion of Marevar. They’d been the vanguard, the first wave of dragon riders swooping down from the skies to soften our defenses and pave the way for the rest of their troops. They’d marched into Farnus’ magic school and used their training to put my fellow mages down like sick animals. I felt a surging hatred boil in my blood as we passed by them. They saluted Alicia as she went by; she gave them an at ease and they let us pass without incident. I grimly reflected that it was lucky I didn’t have my staff. But I still wasn’t sure who was luckier for it, them or me.

Once we passed the guard post, we entered the city proper. The common folk of Ishmar were hardy people, which didn’t surprise me. The majority of them had some degree of muscle, the product of living in a tough and unforgiving land. Many of them were in the process of crowding a nearby market. Long lines were piled up in front of vendor stalls selling what appeared to be produce and meat from chickens, cows, and even fish. Still, the lines were unnaturally long. Men and women, all with the same weary look in their eyes, waited impatiently to purchase food from the various stalls. Signs hanging from each stall proclaimed “NO HAGGLING” in bright white paint. As the Princess led us past the line, the shocked citizens bowed as she passed. Near the front, I caught some of the conversation.

Apparently the person at the front was not satisfied with the amount of food they’d purchased.

“Hey, this is smaller than the portion you sold me last week!” He yelled. He was waving a head of lettuce in his hand. I grimly noticed that it was unmistakably of Marevarian origin; vegetables had been one of the country’s biggest exports. It was indeed a small head, certainly not capable of lasting for a week, especially if the man had more mouths to feed than just his own.

The vendor shook his head.

“You get what you get. Everybody gets the same portion. You know that. Don’t try to lie and say you’re being cheated unless you want to lodge a complaint with the guard?” As if on cue, the cadre of armed Ishmarian soldiers flanking the various stalls stamped the hafts of their polearms on the ground. One came over, a brutish-looking woman covered head to toe in black armor.

“Is there a problem here?” She growled at the offending peasant.

Faced with such an intimidating foe, the peasant had no choice but to back down. The people behind him grumbled, a murmur of empathetic remarks making its way through the line. “We’re starving out here!” “I’ve got kids to feed!” Near the back of the line I swore someone called out “easy for you to stand guard all day while we break our backs!”

The soldier slammed her greataxe on the ground, baring her teeth through the opening in her helm. “You know how it works. Everyone will get their fair share. You complain, you go home hungry! Is that clear?” Again, another series of resentful murmurs, but then a mutual cry of “yes ma’am”.

The three of us watched as the peasantry fell back into line, literally, to await what they were allotted. The man who had spoken up paid for his paltry portion and left with a surly expression on his face. I couldn’t help but feel like he directed some of his resentment towards Alicia as he went. She remained stone-faced until he left, then pulled on Alverd’s cloak. We followed her away from the market towards a city square.

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Unlike virtually every other city square I’d seen in my life, there was no fountain in this gathering spot. Instead, an imperious monument of an absolutely statuesque (no pun intended) barbarian king stood. The word “extravagant” failed to encompass how utterly gaudy the statue was. It was wrought of solid gold, polished to the point of being able to see one’s own reflection in the shine, and standing almost fifteen feet tall. It depicted the well-built, muscled warrior king that had founded Ishmar. A plaque hailed him as Deyovar Lasver Miltila Dragontamer I. He was holding a magnificent sword aloft as a dragon coiled around his body, holding the sword aloft. The plaque stated that the great Mother Dragon, Evros, had gifted Deyovar with the knowledge necessary to craft the weapon, which he called the Sword of Evros.

As soon as Alicia entered the plaza, the nearby guards started roughly pushing people aside to make way for her. The peasants got the message quickly and cleared out. The guards formed a perimeter around the plaza, watching the entryways. They moved to manhandle Alverd and I, but Alicia waved them off. We had plenty of privacy since the size of the square put us out of earshot of the guards.

Alicia sat upon the marble railing beneath the statue of Deyovar. “So, you see then? How the people are treated here?” She tilted her head back towards the market we’d come from. “People were a lot worse before. It’s gotten better in the last few years, but before, people could starve in the street. Father cracked down on the citizens when there was a revolt. There simply wasn’t enough food to go around.”

Alverd seated himself next to Alicia. “Why would they do that, Princess?” She leaned back, sighing heavily. “When you get hungry, you get desperate. You decide that safety no longer matters. Like wolves. They get hungry enough, they’ll attack men with swords and spears if it means fresh meat. Here in Ishmar, the military always gets the first take. Whether it’s food or medicine, if it benefits our soldiers, they get the lion’s share.”

She shook her head. “I’ve got to change that. The people are the backbone of our country, not the soldiers. Without our people, there is no country. We might as well be like the tribes of old before they were united by Deyovar, fighting each other for dominance. Truth is, my people aren’t as unified as you outsiders think we are.”

I took the opportunity to take a seat next to Alverd. I looked over at the guards and the zealous way they barred anyone from entering the plaza.

“So what are you saying? That those rumors about the mage child hunts are lies?” I glared at Alicia with the intention of putting her on the spot. I wanted an answer and I wasn’t going to let her deflect from it.

Fortunately, she wasn’t in a mood to jerk me around. “It’s true. Children suspected of having magic are turned over to the guards. We used to have the hunts once every four months, actually, but at some point we started having larger intervals between them for some reason. It’s considered patriotic to hate magic . But I’ve always wondered if it was really necessary. To me, it just seems like cruelty for cruelty’s sake.”

Her response was surprising to say the least, but I pressed her further.

“So what are you saying? That you think it’s wrong?”

Alicia shook her head. “I can’t say that it’s right. My mother taught me magic was evil, and that those who use it are evil. But after you risked your life to save Alverd? I don’t know for sure anymore. Would someone with no heart or soul risk their life for another?” She looked me in the eye, and it made me uncomfortable. It was like she was trying to see into me, see past the surface.

The young Princess folded her hands in her lap. “I had to witness one, you know. When I was very little. A six-year-old boy had been accused of the use of magic. His parents did nothing. Didn’t even fight it. They handed a crying child over to the guards. Up until about a year or so ago, they used to hang the bodies on the stairway we took to get here. But my father finally decreed that the practice of displaying the bodies would end. He felt it wasn’t doing what it was intended to do, which was to intimidate people into rejecting magic.”

I could feel my hand ball into a fist. I wasn’t sure where Alicia was going with this, but I hoped she was going somewhere relevant, and fast. Hearing her speak of the injustices inflicted on children made my skin crawl.

“And your point is what? That your father showed some modicum of decency by it? Don’t make me laugh.”

For my comment, I was rewarded with a harsh glare from her.

“I’m not saying what he did was the right decision for the right reason. The real problem is that we allow the mage hunts in the first place. Someday, we need to change our stance on how we view magic. Ishmar is far behind when it comes to things that other countries take for granted. If we had access to magic, we could fix the poor situation our country is in.” She nodded back towards the marketplace. “Most of our agriculture is exported from the conquered territory of Marevar. We can’t grow enough food on Ishmarian soil alone to feed our country. I’m afraid that was the reason why my father invaded your country.” She cast her head down in shame, unable to look at Alverd. My friend didn’t respond, but I could sense some tension in his expression.

So that was it, plain and simple. Our country had the fertile farmland necessary to feed not just our own people but the surrounding countries, as well. When push came to shove, instead of making any diplomatic motions to our country, Ishmar had come in and taken what didn’t belong to them by force. I felt sick to my stomach.

I had suspected as much during the five years Alverd and I had traveled across Selarune as mercenaries. Geographically, Marevar was situated between four different countries. Guilford was to the west, Ishmar to the north, Kiret to the east, and Margloom, the only country worth calling an ally now, to the south. One of the reasons Alverd and I had escaped the Ishmarians was because Margloom, upon learning of the invasion, occupied the city of Elorik, a Marevarian trade city near the southern border. The Margloomian Forgeborn Army created a refugee zone there for those fleeing the invaders.

Sadly, Margloom didn’t have the power to retake Marevar. Their odd steam weaponry was powerful, but they simply did not have the numbers or mobility to fight the Ishmarians. The only reason the Ishmarians didn’t take their war to Margloom was because they already had their prize. Still, they defied the Ishmarians when no one else did. The slavers in Kiret and the traitors in Guilford likely took their blood money and watched our country fall under the sway of Ishmar’s totalitarian rule.

When Alverd and I had arrived in Elorik along with hundreds of other scared people, I had seen for myself the power of the Forgeborn Army. Composed of soldiers wielding fire-belching polearms and hulking bipedal contraptions carrying portable siege weapons, I thought they had come to liberate us. But we soon discovered that they simply had orders to protect fleeing civilians rather than risk retaking territory from the Ishmarians. Still, we were grateful for what they had done, even years later.

I remember a Margloomian medic examining me with some strange handheld contraption, some wand-shaped device with a glowing crystal attached to it. I couldn’t look her in the eye. My eyes were full of tears. There were some refugees who thought the Margloomians had come across the border to invade, just like the Ishmarians, who fell to their knees in defeat at the sight of the hulking machines. It wasn’t until the Forgeborn Army started assisting people that we realized they had come to help us.

She had cradled my head in her hands to get me to look her eye-to-eye. I remember thinking that she was too matronly; she looked more like someone’s mother than a soldier. She spoke soothing words that I only half understood as I broke down whimpering, and she had embraced me until Alverd came to sit with us. I didn’t want her to leave at first. It was like being hugged by a loving parent. I felt safe for the first time since the invasion as that woman had held me like some scared child. Eventually she had to go, to attend to others who needed her help, and I watched her go running off with a deep regret in my heart.

The only member of Marevar’s royal family to survive was Prince Esnik. He had been on a diplomatic visit to Margloom and was on his way home when the invasion reached Irinholm. I think I actually saw him at some point, sitting in a tent speaking to a Margloomian general about the situation. He was a small man, barely out of his teens, still wide-eyed and unsure about the nature of the world. He had the same straight brown hair as his mother, who I’d seen countless times in public. It had been jarring to see him looking so hollow as the general informed him of the deaths of his parents and the fall of the capitol.

Now, he was in asylum in Margloom’s capitol. As the third child of the King and Queen, he’d lost a mother, father, brother and sister. As a prince, he had lost a nation full of subjects. So much had been thrust upon him in such a short time, and now he had the burden of countless lives on his very young and unprepared shoulders.

That was the day I learned what most commoners don’t realize: that royals had troubles of their own.