The carriage settled into a gentle rhythm as it moved through the streets of Elaris.

Inside, the four of them arranged themselves without much discussion. Azael and Arista took one side. Aeliana and Liana sat across from them.

The cushioned seats were comfortable, the interior quiet, and the morning light came in through the narrow windows in long pale strips.

For a while, no one said anything in particular.

Elaris would be left in capable hands while they were away, that much was certain. The head knight of their house, Gareth Balmoris, was a man who needed very little direction and even less supervision.

Broad-shouldered and unhurried in the way that only genuinely powerful people tend to be, he carried himself with the kind of quiet solidity that made those around him feel instinctively safer. He had reached the sixth core level, a height that very few knights ever climbed and wore the fact without ceremony. Azael hadn’t spent any time with him over the years.

Gareth was rarely at the manor. Aeliana kept him busy, sending him where he was needed, and he went without complaint and returned without fanfare. He was, above all else, trusted. That was the word that mattered most when it came to Gareth Balmoris.

The city would be fine.

Azael leaned back slightly in his seat and glanced across at his stepmother.

"So we’re using the teleportation gate in Elaris?" he asked. There was a mild curiosity in his voice not ignorance.

"To reach Valemyr directly?"

Aeliana looked at him with her usual calm.

"Yes," she said. "The gate in Elaris belongs to our house. There’s no fee, no queue, no complications." A brief pause. "It’s the most efficient route."

Azael nodded once.

Arista shifted beside him, glancing out the window with mild interest. Liana sat with her back straight, hands resting in her lap, saying nothing.

The carriage continued on.

It didn’t take long before the building came into view.

It was a clean, white structure, plain from the outside in the deliberate way of buildings that don’t need to advertise what they contain. The architecture was precise, functional, with high arched windows and reinforced walls.

Two guards stood at the entrance. As the carriage slowed and the four of them stepped out, both guards dropped into immediate, respectful bows.

They went inside.

The interior was larger than the exterior suggested. A wide hall opened up before them, and within it stood rows of teleportation gates, each one a tall archway of pale stone etched with layered inscription work, the carvings faintly luminous, breathing with a slow and quiet energy.

The air carried a particular quality in here — still and slightly charged, the way the atmosphere feels just before a shift in weather.

Staff members moved through the hall with practiced efficiency. When they noticed the group, they paused and bowed, offering greetings in measured, professional tones.

One of the attendants approached Aeliana directly.

"The gate to Valemyr has already been prepared and calibrated, Your Grace."

Aeliana gave a small nod.

"Good."

The four of them were led toward one of the larger gates near the center of the hall. The archway rose above them, the inscriptions along its frame glowing a steady, soft white. Beyond the threshold, the air shimmered faintly, not quite visible, but felt.

They stepped through. The world folded.

For the span of a single breath- not darkness exactly, not light, just an absence of the in-between and then the other side opened up around them all at once.

The arrival hall in Valemyr was built on a different scale entirely.

The ceilings soared. The floor was pale stone veined with silver, polished to a mirror finish that reflected the light from the tall windows above.

The gates here were larger, more numerous, arranged in long symmetrical rows along the walls, each archway carved with more elaborate detail than the ones in Elaris. The capital’s way of making even its infrastructure feel like a statement.

Staff in formal attire were already moving toward them.

They bows gave greetings. Welcome of a hall that processed important visitors daily and had refined the process to an art.

Standing slightly apart from the staff were two knights in polished armor, bearing the insignia of the royal household. They stepped forward and inclined their heads with crisp formality.

"Welcome to Valemyr, Your Grace. We have been sent to escort you to the palace."

Aeliana acknowledged them with a calm nod.

"Thank you."

They were led out of the hall.

Outside, a carriage was already waiting larger than the one they had arrived in, the royal crest worked into the door panel in gilt detail. The two knights took their positions, and the group settled inside.

The carriage began to move. Azael turned toward the window.

Valemyr opened up around him like something out of an illuminated manuscript.

The capital was built on ambition and had never stopped indulging it.

The streets were wide and laid with flat pale stone, clean and well-maintained, lined on either side with buildings that rose in elegant tiers arched facades, tall windows framed with carved stonework, wrought iron railings along the upper balconies where window boxes spilled over with color. Banners hung at intervals between the lampposts, deep blue and gold, moving gently in the morning breeze.

The city was awake and moving. Merchants had their stalls arranged along the broader avenues, their goods laid out with care bolts of cloth, polished wares, things that caught the light.

Well-dressed citizens moved between them with the unhurried ease of people who had grown up in a place where beauty was ordinary. Carriages rolled alongside foot traffic with practiced coordination, the drivers navigating the wide roads with ease.

Fountains occupied the centers of the larger squares, their water catching the morning light in brief silver flashes.

And at the far end of it all, rising above everything, sitting on its hill with the unhurried authority was the royal palace. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

From this distance it looked almost like a piece of the sky had been shaped into stone. White walls and pale towers climbed the hillside in stages, each level more refined than the last, the highest spires catching the light at their tips like held flames.

The road that led up to it curved in a long, gradual arc, lined on both sides with tall trees trimmed into clean symmetrical shapes.

Azael watched it as the carriage moved closer.

He had known Valemyr existed, of course. He had been told about it, read about it, heard it described.

But there was a difference between knowing a place and seeing it.

He said nothing.

’It’s really grand.’ He thought while simply observing the city.

Soon they reached the palace.