Welcome to the One Land
Aethorra is a whole world, set down day by day: seven realms, fifty free peoples, thirteen tongues and a thousand years of history, and from the first of January a Chronicle that never stops. There is no wrong door. Here are six good ones.
Choose Your Realm
The People of the Coming Year
Hearthking Selra Stormbrand
Red-haired, broad-shouldered, with a face full of freckles and old cold-burns, and three blue tattoo bands on her left arm for three longship voyages beyond the ice. A wolf's-tooth scar on her right calf. Laughs like a landslide.
Sarsak Tolmar
Bow-legged, wide-faced, with a sparse black beard, a broken nose, and a long puckered scar from a rival's saber across his chest. Wears felt and a single Kaishoni silk sash he took from a tribute caravan. Speaks Cherüsh, Kaishoni, and rough Aldmere.
Princess Tokrai Seitotai
Slight, straight-backed, with her father's long face and a stillness she learned in a court that wanted her invisible. Passed the imperial examinations under a false name at twenty-two, placing third in the Dominion; when the fraud was discovered the ministers burned the paper and Makok has never forgiven her for making him do it. Reads four languages, plays buitso with generals, and has quietly cultivated the Rampart's commander for six years.
Prince Faasheer
Big, hard, black-bearded, with the cataphract's bow-legs and a face that does not move. A scar through his upper lip that makes him look as if he is always about to sneer, which he usually is. Killed his first man at fourteen and his first brother, everyone assumes, at twenty-six, though nothing was proven.
Bevele Bansine Farisel
Short, plump, dark-eyed, with a warm grandmother's face and an abacus mind. Dresses richly but not showily; her one vanity is scent, a rose perfume that announces her before she enters. Widowed young, raised four children and a bank.
King Kenithor Deneskid
Shaved head, close black beard, a body made entirely of scar tissue and muscle. The Anvil's brand, a spear-point, is burned into his right shoulder like every Phymon. A deep dent in his left forearm where a Castavari bolt broke the bone at Faashab-Talodin while he stood guarding the crusaders' flank under the Iron Contract.
The World
Aldmere feeds half the continent and owes the other half. Tharax holds the only pass through the mountains with four thousand spears. Caelvenne lends to everyone and loves no one. Castavar prays, mines silver and marches. Zarvand reads the stars and guards the river it lives on. Kaishon has a wall, a million clerks, and a dying emperor. Hrodvald has a new Hearthking and not enough grain.
Between them live horse-lords, forest wardens, pirates, delvers, river-folk and ice hunters, and beneath all of them lie the ruins of the Builders, whose name nobody remembers.