of the houses are gems and diamonds that bring color and life to the land. There is not a prettier kingdom in the realm. I can promise you that.”
Oliver reluctantly opened both eyes and slid across from me so we could share the same window. “It is overcast,” he allowed.
But there was doubt in his voice, too. Doubt that spread through the cabin like a plague. We drove through a village close to the Elysian border. I wanted to blame Soravale for the neglect it showed its people and towns, but I couldn’t.
I didn’t believe Hugo or Taelon would knowingly let their villages fall into such disrepair. But there was no denying that something grave had overcome this place.
Unlike in Tenovia, the village hadn’t burned to the ground. It was more like the color had been leached from it. The houses were drab. Windows were broken and roofs unpatched. I saw not a soul as we passed through. No heads peeked from windows. No doors were thrown open as the royal caravan rumbled by. It was as though the village had been abandoned. Or the villagers were hiding from us.
Neither scenario made sense. Border towns were often the richest because they had the best of both kingdoms nearby. This village sat in close proximity to three. It had easy access to the fishing industry in Soravale, the timber from Tenovia, and the wealth of Elysia.
“What happened here?” Oliver asked.
“This is not right,” I agreed.
Oliver shook his head. His eyebrows scrunched together over his nose. “Do you think war?”
“But war with whom?” I watched agape as we drove by fields that were nothing but mud and weeds. In midsummer, the crops should have been well on their way to harvest.
We continued to watch as the landscape grew more desolate. Fields covered with ravens stretched for miles. A few of the birds lifted their heads to watch us pass by. Their beady eyes fixated on us without a hint of fear.
A shiver slithered through me. I knew better than to think they were watching us. Although their heads turned as we moved forward.
“Did you see that?” I asked Oliver.
“Is that the wall?” His gaze was fixed forward. He hadn’t paid any attention to the birds.
“That is the wall,” I answered. “Or it’s supposed to be.”
“What do you mean?”
I ignored Oliver’s question and stared at the stretching barrier that used to gleam as bright and shining as any of our mountains. Time had dimmed the stark beauty of the stones that built it ages ago, but it had never looked quite so dim, quite so lackluster.
This wall had been a symbol of both past and present for thousands of years. Before the kingdoms were united, the realm was ravaged by war. This wall had protected Elysia from total annihilation.
My ancestor, King Allister Allisand, had built the fortification. It had taken thirty grueling years of constant labor while war raged all around. He chose the hardest rock known, found deep within the mountains. The stones were said to be unbreakable.
When it was finished, the wall stood strong and thick, declaring to all other kingdoms that Elysia would not be invaded, would never give in to the demands of lesser kingdoms.
And so, when the eight other kingdoms realized they would never cross into Elysia, they would never have our diamonds or the center seat of the realm, the highest pinnacle of power, they began to negotiate peace.
Allister was recognized as the wisest, most powerful king in the realm and given a place of honor among the newly allied. The nine kingdoms would be united, from Blackthorne to Heprin, but one kingdom would rule above all others: Elysia.
When war ended, the religion of the Light was adopted as the religion of the realm, since their chief belief was peaceful living. But they also denounced magic both white and dark, so magic was banned.
The Crown of Nine had been passed from one Allisand to the next, down Allister’s bloodline one hundred times. Until my father had been brutally murdered and the Seat of Power handed over to my uncle, my mother’s brother, and a man who was not an Allisand, but a Fennick.
Tyrn Fennick.
“Huh,” Oliver sighed. “I can’t help but be disappointed, Tessana. I have always heard such grandiose things about the wall. That the wall looked like a diamond, stretching on and on in both directions as far as the eye could see and that the wall glistened so brightly in the noonday sun that it