NOVEL NEXT 7 - Foreword
Foreword,
It is somewhat of a custom at the start of these volumes now for me to set expectations and to contain the narrative. Readers might expect to say it started in such and such year until this year, from that event to the next. I cannot entirely avoid this, lest I neglect the needs of future researchers. To wit, this volume contains the war of conquest in the east, when Aillesterra stood defiant against Vassermark, among other contemporary events. I expect it will contain rather little of the domestic affairs in the capitol. Readers interested in the politics of Hearths Bay at this time should acquire copies of the various journals kept by the politicians of the time and published posthumously by those seeking to profit off tenuous association.
It is the nature of the eastern kingdom that primarily concerns this foreword.
Aillesterra has a way of exoticism to it in the minds of most people, a reputation they have done much to cultivate whether they cared to or not. Objectively speaking, their isolation is as much a product of geography as intentionality. That, and the influence of the fae goddess Titania. Consider that to the north is mountains, a swath of stony peaks whose valleys point to the north and west, opening their roads to the central kingdoms and to Skaldheim. Traversing the fiery slopes of the Ashfall range can be considered easier. To their west is the most ruinous stretch of land belonging to Giordana. In much part this is because of centuries old wars, but the desert is inhospitable nonetheless. Their southern border is the wastes, split by a quite remote reach of sea. And to their east was a form of constant war.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Within their pocket of the world the land is lush, fertilized by springs of water from the air blessed by their god. It is from that random assortment of water that the clans formed, centralizing control of the precious resource under old families and cementing them with tradition. Status is everything to the Aillish, and status dictates the very water they live with. While it is their priestly caste that profits from the vitality of the pure-fallen water, the lowest serfs must subsist on fouled and muddied runoff. It is from this hierarchy that their bonds of societal control form.
Given the egalitarian reformations inflaming the spirit of the Vassish at this time, the war became a clash of paradigms and any child could tell you who won. This is, afterall, the story of the Undying Emperor. The Aillesterra of today is almost unrecognizable from the realm it once was. Only a fraction of their temples remain, now in contention with the churches of Iono as their missionary work spreads. To look back to this war is akin to discovering a lost world, but it was not a land of savages. Their women produced art rivaling any other kingdom's, and their eunuchs were only a step behind in the sciences. What held them back was the incursions from the east, not their practices. It is my analysis that the diminished living at the periphery was why they were able to field sufficient armies at all. Other kingdoms would have collapsed, except perhaps the northerners who were able to fend off the trolls.
What caused Lucius the most problems, however, was the eventual accusation that his taking of wives was a foreign adoption, that he meant to pick and choose the social morays of the world that best suited him and force them upon everyone. I shall endeavor herein to dispute those charges. The boy did not take any foreign kingdom's beliefs.
He had even stopped taking my own beliefs.