Page 7 of The Kingdom of Flames

Time shifted as they traveled. They left her homeland and traveled towards the center of the Painted Realm. A place many had looked for, but none had ever found. Outside of her window they traversed impossible lengths. She saw the coastlines of the Yellow Bannered lands. On the other side of the coach, somehow, were the mountains of Cedarhall. The large pristine lake of Toyne Hollow came into view next, even though it was across the realm, and in the distance across the water she could see the bastion of Grimclaw’s school of higher learning.

Places she had seen, visited, some she had only heard of went by. The riders never slowed. The coach never ceased its stead pace, the speed of it like an inevitable falling object, carrying her. They passed by people of every banner, and none looked at her.

They don’t see me.

She was entering another world. It felt like an hour, it felt like a week, a lifetime. The air was warm, thick almost—as if she were underwater. Celestine knew she was traveling to the place between two worlds, a knife in reality staked through both of them.

She saw winter, and autumn, and spring and summer. There was no cadence to anything. Shadows grew and fell with a quickness that denied logic.

The riders galloped slowly next to her in their mirrored masks. Their cloaks were soft silver, and they reflected the melting world around them. They held long halberds pointed at the sky.

A strange calmness fell over her. She sat back into the cushions on her seat. There was no thirst, no hunger. There was no ailment or ache from the journey. At nineteen years old, she had seen much in life. Men screaming in agony, the elder alone in their hovel, unable to lift their own firewood. She had not seen the capitol of every banner, but she had seen most of their people. Seen them in their harvest celebrations, their infidelities.

Yet now it all seemed so far away. A world away. They weren’t traveling to anywhere, they were traveling through something.

Her life and crest would likely fall when this ride ended. Would she be chased in the bride hunt? Or she might be slain for the impudence of the realms meager offering.

Were the Seasons sized as men? Were there really twelve Lords of Calendar? All these questions felt subtle in her mind as she was lulled into a trance by the gliding carriage. It never buckled, it never jumped. She was coaxed into a blissful trance, faintly aware she was likely being calmed before slaughter.

I will not despair. Even broken glass glitters when faced with the sun.

A bump jarred her from her dazed thinking. She sat forward, looking around.

Not a bump, a crackling sensation. The air is different now.

She stuck her hand out the window to feel the air between her fingers. But she didn’t feel anything. It didn’t move. It was still.

The other carriages had long faded away as if slipping into mist. Celestine looked out over the carriage. They were cresting the top of a very tall hill. Forests, mountains, and even deserts lay ahead of her. But sectioned, orderly, like pieces of a pie.

It was Calendar. The central pinpoint of seasons and time and their pull upon one another.

Whatever calmness had held her in the carriage abandoned her when she stuck her head out the window. Down the long vast road was a grand castle at the center of four different climates. Above the castle, both the sun and moon hovered directly above, as if here they were so much closer to the world.

Celestine blinked, trying to will her eyes to see the truth.

The air above the castle was snowing, but only from one-quarter of the land. The snow blew into rays of sunshine that melted it with brutal heat. Above another quarter, pollen rose in great bays, so thick it looked like they were underwater. Above another, leaves fell and tumbled in great swirls as if dancing above a burnt golden world of brown and bronze.

“Is this Calendar?” Celestine asked the rider next to her as the cart slowed. Her stomach churned with the steep descent. The manicured road, the forest, and the desert on either side of the pathway defied any reasoning.

There was no response from the masked rider. Were they real? Were they people?

Calendar loomed closer. A dazzling display of craftsmanship. Celestine had seen one or two keeps in her time and had even seen a real castle in the Silver Bannered Realm. But nothing had ever approached this magnificence.

The carriage slowed as it entered the gates of Calendar. On either side of her, tall pillars showed the sigil of each Lord from their four respective seasons.

There are twelve. That much is certain.

She saw a red pillar made of leather, swords, and spears, as if someone had collected a ruined battlefield and smelted it into a monument.

She saw a pillar of Amber, sculpted by crystalized honey, and bees circled it in a swirling dance. The Brown pillar was a myriad of pelts and ferocious beasts and a long axe with twin leather straps encircling it. A wolf with a mighty snarl and eyes that seemed too alive for a statue seemed to follow her with his predatory gaze.

On and on they went, pillars of declaration, or beauty, of macabre promises. The Scarlet pillar made her look away, as it seemed to be the deep purple of blood at night, with blades rising from it.

The Black pillar—she dared not look. When she passed it, a feeling of such great love and then a hollowness and despair made her grip the sides of the carriage to steady herself. It was as if she was falling into a grave.

The carriage pulled around the grand circle of the majestic estate that was both lordly, wondrous, hideous, and morose.

I am here. Oh, father, I am here, and I wish, dearly, I wasn’t.

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