Three hours into the ride I was reminded of how much I hated carriages, my stomach was twisting and turning, my spine didn't help either, every bump was a small shock of pain that ran from my hips to my neck.
This small stretch, the in-betweens of the Kortarian and Geortarian regions seemed committed to making the journey unpleasant.
Karelos was asleep on my shoulder, I wondered how he somehow wasn't being kept awake by the bumps. His arms were folded, completely unconscious.
Three of the guards were asleep too. The remaining five stared ahead, as if they were examining this road's emptiness.
Surprisingly, this is the best path between the two countries. The one with the least amount of stone and bumps along the way. Which I find hard to believe.
If I hadn't been paying attention, I wouldn't have noticed the subtle change in scenery. Kortaria's roads ran through salt-touched earth, with a thick coat of grass across the entire terrain.
The ground out here was pale, something I wasn't accustomed to. I'm much more used to the fishing villages dotted across the route to the capital.
I'd seen maps of this region my entire life, but experiencing it is much more different.
"Is the sand and grass that interesting?"
Karelos had one eye open, watching me with a deeply unbothered expression.
"I don't go out that often, I actually stay in the castle and deal with the royalty ordeals, unlike someone."
"I'm getting judged for not wanting to sit around and sign trade deals or whatever it is you do?"
"We're Anagayen, we should be doing those trade deals together."
"But this is so much more fun!"
"Your definition of fun is sitting around in a carriage for hours...?"
"Indeed, and it is also the fun of these others guys, right?"
The other knights gave a tired "yeah" in unison.
I gave a short laugh, I didn't mind Karelos doing his own thing, but I wouldn't mind a helping hand when the contracts and papers stack up.
He chose the adventurous lifestyle, and our parents, king and queen of Kortaria, are the type to let us do whatever we please as long as we're happy.
"After we get out of this carriage it'll be so much better! You've swung a sword around before, right?"
"Uhm... well I did back when we went through mandatory self-defense training."
"..." Karelos' eyes went wide in shock, he covered his mouth before giving a muted laugh. "That was almost 8 years ago!"
"Well, you asked if I had swung a sword around, not if I had done that recently!"
"What if a monster chooses you as their victim, what are you doing then?"
"I have you by my side constantly! You wouldn't let a monster even get near us."
Karelos looked at me in silence, odd for him to do so, he keeps yapping constantly.
"Yeah, you're right, I wouldn't let that happen."
The terrain kept shifting. The reddish earth gave way to something far stonier as we climbed gradually through low hills, the carriage groaning on the steeper grades.
I could see the outcroppings of dark rock out the window, breaking through the soil like fossil bones, and beyond, in the far distance.
The mountains of Geortaria's northern border.
That sight sparked a question in my mind I had been meaning to ask Karelos for a while now.
"How much do you know about the Geortarians?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Why are you asking me? You're the one who reads and does dinner with the royalty and stuff."
"I must admit, I don't know the Geortarians really well, like their culture and customs... I've only met the king and queen, and had a vague idea of the prince's existence."
"Well I have a vague idea..."
Karelos leaned back, adopting a thinking expression.
"I know their language is the hardest standard language on the continent. Luckily, the Geortarians we'll be talking to already know enough Kortarian so it won't be an issue."
"What makes it so hard?"
"From what I've heard when listening to natives, they have elongated vowels that change the meaning of words, along with tones and... these ejective sounds that I haven't seen in another language before."
"Ejective...? So like they're non-pulmonic?"
I tried making an ejective consonant, I found success with the ejective version of our T phoneme.
"It's weird isn't it?"
"I feel like once you get the hang of it, it becomes much easier."
"Speaking of easy... The writing isn't. It was specifically designed to be impossible to learn without a specialized tutor, if a family can't afford it...-"
"They can't read."
"Exactly. Its built on logic that doesn't translate to anything an outsider already knows."
"So there's no hope of us reading any sign or scripture."
"I wouldn't worry about that, its not like we'll be navigating our way across town, as long as you don't wander around too much you should be fine, try to keep an eye on me at all times."
"What else do you know?"
"I know a little bit about their culture!"
Karelos pulled a proud smirk, not one of my favorite expressions from him, I must say.
"Power is everything to them. And their power isn't just their military or money, although they count, they include everything. Skills, knowledge, talents, landholding size, language fluency, whether you can lift a heavier weight than someone else. There's a system for tracking it... They call it a Pukeib-"
"Its a Puk'hiib." One of the knights interrupted.
"That. Its a running account of everything that makes you more or less than someone else. Everything I mentioned and more is tracked there. If it can make you marginally superior to another person in any measurable way, it belongs in the Puk'iiib."
The knight stared at Karelos wrong for mispronouncing the word wrong again.
"That sounds kind of exhausting."
"It's the only thing they've ever known, so they probably don't notice... My point is, hierarchy is everything to them. If you understand where you rank you behave accordingly."
"And where do we rank in that system?"
He put a thumb to his mouth giving a thoughtful hum. "I'd say above everyone currently living in the royal capital. Since the king and queen passed out, we're the most powerful entities present now."
Copper veins ran through the mountains in the distance, the aluminum deposits that had supplied Kortaria's shipbuilders for decades could be seen too.
I'd grown up understanding the trade in numbers, looking at the actual land it came from felt strange.
"There was something else," I said after a moment. "The workers in the castle. The staff... I remember hearing something, or reading about it. Can't remember which, about what they wore. Something to do with colors."
Karelos's expression shifted slightly. "The cloaks?"
"Yes! That."
"There was a system, I believe, but I thought it had to do with the patterns. But like anything in their society its tiered and hierarchical. I can't remember the exact details, though."
"It might matter when we get inside, if there's anything left in there, or anyone..."
...
Karelos spotted the castle first, more so, what remained of it.
"Xena."
I looked where he was looking, out the opposite window, up throguh a gap between two tall buildings toward the central hill that dominated the city's skyline.
The foundations seemed to be there. Parts of the outer walls still stood, ragged at the top where stone had collapsed inward, blackened from the heat.
Its main structure, the towers, great hall, everything was gone, reduced to rubble and foundation.
Faint smoke still rose from somewhere in the ruin. Barely anything, but its thin darkness stood out from the blue sky.
I looked at it for a long time. A hundred and fifty people. I had turned that number over in my mind all night.
"Wake up the guards who are sleeping, Karelos. We're nearly there."
"Are you sure you still want to be here?"