THE COUNCIL OF DEATH - LET THE BLOODBATH BEGIN!

King George II had been young when his father, King William IV had died to the nefarious sting of a plague mosquito in the Southern Swamplands. The 19-year-old heir had not waited long to take his childhood sweetheart, Lady Isabel Bowstring, to wife. She shared his wedding bed a mere three moons after his coronation. The fates were cruel on the young king, however. Eleven moons after the wedding, the eighteen-year-old queen died, shortly after giving birth to Princess Morgan Darkstar, leaving King George a widower at twenty. It had not taken George’s advisors long to spur him to take a new wife in order to produce an heir, but he refused to marry out of respect for his late queen. The king ordered a large portion of the Eastern Woodlands to be burned down to the ground, and ordered his men to die colour the walls of the royal castle and the armor of the king’s army black with the remaining ashes, in eternal mourning. Henceforth, the central castle of Tellus would be known as the Black Castle. Twelve years later, a widower still, George arranged for his daughter to marry the four-and-twenty-year-old Richard Amber. However, the king’s squire, Glen Oakleaf, son of James, a lad of fourteen years, contested the engagement, claiming Morgan’s hand in marriage. Angered, the king threw the young boy into the castle dungeons. Morgan informed her father that she would marry Glen, rather than marrying Richard, and the matter was settled with a duel. Against all odds, the young Oakleaf defeated his senior in battle, claiming Richard’s life and Morgan’s hand alike. At the death of his son, Lord Ballos Amber had broken all ties with the Oakleafs. The fated annual council, over a year after his son’s death, was the first time Lord Ballos would leave the Western Mountains again; many thought the only reason he attended the council at all was for his fear of a cooperative attack of the North and East on the West.


Lord Nereus Seabreeze had his suspicions about the death of King George. He threw a look of contempt at Lord Langdon Dragonfire. His eyes met those of the lord of the North, and Langdon’s expression was filled with even more hatred than his. Langdon was young, a few moons away from his 18th naming day. Nereus thought him unfit to rule. Relations between the North and South had always been very good, until the year before last. When Langdon came into power, everything had changed. Lord Edward Dragonfire had been an honourable man. The Seabreezes had always been able to count on the North for military support, and in return, they sent traders to the frozen, barren wasteland of the North to supply the Dragonfires with crops that would not grow in the cold and resources that could not be found under the frozen rock. After Edward’s death, Nereus had assumed that his son, whom Edward had always spoken highly of, would keep the agreement that had already been set in stone before his grandfather’s birth, but when many stationed Northeners were killed in a pirate attack on the port town of Palmure, the survivors were called back by Langdon, and no more troops were sent South. Obviously, Nereus had put an embargo on trade with the North in retaliation. Some resources were still illegally getting through, as it was very hard to crack down on smuggling, but the decrease in supplies had enraged the young Dragonfire, and he would have declared war on the South if that year’s council had been any more than a month away. Under decree of the late King George II, no wars could be fought during council. Violators of the rule faced death by the King’s Justice. A grimace spread across Nereus’ face. The king was dead now, no doubt due to that fool of a lord of the North, and his rules had died with him. A war would be fought during council, and it would be fought within the walls of the black castle.

Morgan Darkstar looked at the four great lords of Tellus with suspicion. She did not believe her father had died of illness. King George had been too strong to succumb to such a thing. She had not seen her fourteenth spring yet, but she could tell a man’s character better than most just by looking at him. Her dear Glen had taught her that, but she had quickly surpassed him. You could tell a man’s confidence by their stature, and men’s faces always betrayed their thoughts. Women were harder. They knew how to hide their thoughts and how to feign innocence even in the darkest of situations, even if their soul was as black as the night sky. The broad-shouldered Lord of the North seemed too confident for her liking. His face was without beard yet, even though he was two years older than Glen, and he already had adorable little fur on his cheek, but Dragonfire’s grin screamed arrogance at everyone in the hall and his eyes thought dark thoughts. Could he have poisoned her lord father? It couldn’t have been Glen’s father, she knew. Her teacher had taught her that treason ran in blood, which meant Glen couldn’t possibly have a traitor for a father. She looked at the man clad in yellow. Lord Amber was a tall, thin man. Glen hated Amber because his son had been supposed to marry her, but she knew Lord Ballos was not to blame. She could still see traces of old grief on his long face, no doubt due to the loss of his son. Could he have thought father was responsible for Richard’s death, and poisoned him for it? Morgan shuddered at the thought. The Southron lord was a portly, ill-mannered man. She didn’t like him very much. At previous councils, he had always thought of himself before his cities, and the country had not even once crossed his mind. That’s what her father had said to her once. She could see naught but anger on his face now, but she did not know what he could be angry of. Surely he hadn’t poisoned her father? As a lord of trade, he would surely have been able to acquire poison… Morgan shook her head. Her father was dead, murdered by one of these four lords. They all deserved to die for that, even Glen’s father. She would not sit idly by while these lords fought over a throne that belonged to none of them.