The Queen of Stone_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [9]
The proprietors of the Twilight Palace also went out of their way to erase the scars of the Last War. The décor drew from Galifar at its height. Tall tapestries depicted heroes of the unified kingdom, carefully chosen from each of the Five Nations of Galifar. It was a symbolic effort; more than a picture of Bright Kethan would be needed to bring a Karrn and a Thrane together at one table. But Thorn was always fascinated to see the world of her great-grandfather, a world in which the people of the Five Nations stood as one.
A steward caught her eye with a questioning glance. Thorn wanted a drink. She wanted dreamlily … anything that would make the pain of the burning stones go away. But as she raised her hand, she saw the tapestry that hung behind the steward, the image of the knight with the flashing sword and the fierce red dragon. Harryn Stormblade.
She had no time to waste. Thorn pulled a bottle of dark liquid off the tray of a passing steward, silencing his complaints with two gold coins. She made her way to her room and slid the cover off the coldfire lantern. Passing her hand over the bed, she called the book forth from the space within her glove. She drew the dagger with the crimson furrow, staring at the red circle on the black pommel.
“Steel,” she said. “We need to talk.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The City of Graywall Droaam
Eyre 11, 998 YK
When she was a girl, Nyrielle Tam wanted to be a soldier, to fight for Breland like her father. She’d been raised on tales of Brelish bravery and the noble values of her homeland and her king. Other nations were full of villains and madmen. The Thranes were blinded by zealotry. The Cyrans were arrogant cowards, and they would surrender the kingdom to elves and goblins. The Karrns desecrated the bodies of the dead to create zombie armies, and who could say what horrors would fill the world under a Karrnathi king. And the people of Aundair relied on dark magic to slaughter their enemies. By the time Nyrielle was a teenager, though, Aundair and Breland were allies, and people didn’t tell those stories as often.
In childhood stories, Breland was a land of opportunity, a place where even the nobles respected the common man, where the lords were truly servants of the people. It was a land of industry and progress, the greatest hope for the future.
As she grew older, Nyrielle learned to recognize propaganda. She could even imagine what the children of Thrane or Karrnath might have been told about Breland. Its people placed gold above honor. Its industrial might spawned corruption and crime. The nobles had no control over their subjects, and the people had largely abandoned their faith in the gods. Slander and lies, but all with the same hint of truth as those childhood tales of other lands.
The people of Breland were more pragmatic than their cousins in other lands, less devoted to Sovereigns and Flame. And there were those who said that the noble families—even the great King Boranel, a hero who’d fought in the vanguard of many a battle—were no longer necessary. It was the royal succession to the throne of Galifar that had brought about a century of war; many believed that the proper response was to abandon the institution of the monarchy and start anew.
For all that, Nyrielle believed in Breland. Her homeland wasn’t the paradise of her childhood. But she believed that the king was a good man, that he believed in justice and the rights of his people, and that when the war was over he would tend to the wounds of the nation.