I can damn near hear the irritation in her voice.
“I’ll leave now,” I step away with a small nod.
The Discerni woman walks to the tree and pulls out a small oak pen from her robe, angling the tip against the smooth wood before she begins to write.
Bell Grove path.
Kiera
“It is done.”
I watch as the words just etched begin to fade, alerting the King of
my travel and estimated arrival.
“Thank you,” I nod, “until next time, Kiera.”
Kiera doesn’t reply, just levels me with a pensive stare as I turn towards the grove. Her brooding look follows me all the way to the small forest until I set foot on the path that will lead me back to Castle Bardot.
My home.
The trail along the Bell Grove is absolutely beautiful, as is the entirety of the Kingdom of Disce. Our forests are tall and full of canopies of green, and our rivers and lakes are such a pristine blue that they mimic the sky above. Nearly all of the Kingdom’s lands are surrounded in woods, an ode to the heavy earth element that runs deep in every Discerni’s veins, and there isn’t a single area in our lands that can’t be described as breathtaking or just downright stunning, a true testament to the land we’ve all come to revere.
When the sunlight falls down from wherever it stands in the sky, it shines on the woods and waters and makes the land sparklein gold, and when the moons are out at night, they both have a similar effect as they cast a silver shimmer over the earth that makes living here absolutely incredible. Not a single piece of Disce is muted in its beauty. Not even the grey stone roads or the tan dirt paths that connect the towns and cities.
The dirt path I currently walk on is a small trail barely big enough for two. It starts at the eastern gate of Castle Bardot and follows north along the Bell Grove, passing Bardot Library as a near middle stop if you’re heading out of the capitol. The grove itself consists of simple woods of average height that frames the entirety of Bardot, but the full of it acts as a reminder to the castle residents of the truly vast forests that lay beyond. Yesterday marked the first day of Spring, the greenest the grove and our forests will be all year.
My destination, Castle Bardot, is just as magnificent as the rest of the Kingdom. The massive residence is nestled at the bottom of the Greenstone Mountain, the only mountain peak in all of Disce. It’s main entry faces the middle of the Bell Grove and greets anyone who travels along the Great Road to our capitol, the castle surrounded by a town of merchant shops, homes, taverns and inns, all of them acting as a decent-sized welcoming committee for any visitors just passing through. Past the town is a stunning white rose garden that spans the full length of the castle,each row of green and white so pristine that one can’t help but stop in their travels to admire them.
The castle itself is made from the greenstone of the mountain- a grey stone that hosts various shades of green swirls throughout, while every window and balcony of the residence is made up of a rich, brown wood that’s complimented by lush green vines. Trees as tall as the Great Forest sprout along every door and provide a real-life canopy to walk under once you’re inside, not to mention the thousands of lanterns of bottled moonslight that shimmer along every wall.
It’s a truly stunning place to live, a beautiful residence that brings so much life to the bottom of the Greenstone Mountain, and while I love every single part of the capitol residence to my core, it’s the city ontopof the mountain in which my heart and the heart of Bardot truly lies.
The Palisades.
Thousands of homes of beautiful greenstone with rich wooden verandas follow along the top of the mountainside, some of them carved into the slope while the majority rest on the peak and jut towards the sky. There’s a main road on top of the mountain that goes on for days, the stone path littered with cottage-like buildings that create an endless maze through the mountain forest that takes years to understand. There’s shops, schools, taverns, homes, anything you can think of, all of them combining to create the largest city in the Court of Knowledge. Hundreds of cobblestone pathways carve between the various vendors in every which direction, making the city so busy and heavily populated that it has to be broken into three sections: the Eastern, Southern and Western Palisades.
It’s a perfect city atop a mountain, one that offers a certain rowdiness not often found or allowed in the castle at the bottom, but it’s also a perfect city that hides imperfection not far behind it…
I narrow my gaze to the top of the mountain and stare at the buildings that look like nothing more than tiny flecks in the distance. My eyes squint to the sky behind them, as if I can find all the dead land that rests just beyond our beautiful city…
The Plains of Unknown and the Barren Flats.
They’re blights to look at when you’re above. Two bleak borders to our beautiful Kingdom that are covered in a vast expanse of dead grass, small rolling hills, and not much else. No one leaves Disce in any capacity to cross into those lands, and not once in the history of the Old World has any foreign traveler made their way across that land into our Kingdom. They’re just there, dead and desolate without any signs of life, a stark contrast to the natural beauty of our Kingdom.
I remember reading once that a powerful Discerni tried to summon the earth of the Flats a thousand years ago. He aimed for growth, to turn the yellow earth into a land of lush green that could thrive with our Kingdom. Not only did he fail, but his summoning was so weakened in the process that it acted as a fair warning to all others: The land had no intention of changingits ways and anyone else attempting to do the same would do well to rethink that decision.
No one has tried since.
The sound of galloping hoofbeats tears my gaze away from the Palisades and back to the path in front of me. A single rider moves swiftly in my direction, his left hand holding the reins to his grey steed while his right hand points loosely at his side. He guides a second mare directly beside him, every gallop between both horses purposeful and made with calm intent.
I quickly move off the path and make room for the man to pass, then bring my right hand to my left bicep when I notice him slowing both horses to a walk in front of me. That’s another habit I thought I kicked last year, but as my fingers brush against the cool stone under my shirt, I smile at the protective weight and then lift my hand to shield the early morning sun.
A grin quickly plasters across my face when I recognize the second mare.
“It’s too soon for you to be riding again, girl,” I croon in greeting.
Millie walks up to me and rubs her nose in my palm, her gentle head dipping down to the bag at my hip for the apple she knows is waiting inside.
