Determined to take control of their fates, Arjen and Arien escape Derolina Castle at the age of sixteen after their cruel mother dies. They adopt new names and find a home in the city of Aramore, while the Emperor of Yuriana searches for his missing...
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The salty breeze met them when they crested the top of the hill, tousling their hair and teasing their noses. As they took in its freshness, they stared down at the valley below. Aramore sat clustered around a bay bordered by tall mountains. The city crowded the shore where docks jutted out into the water, ships tied up beside them, their rigging creating a dense forest of masts. The sea glittered as blue as the sky, and the calls of seagulls drifted on the air. The twins stared in awe.
The wagon they rode on stopped, and the driver turned to look at them. "You sure you don't want me to take you all the way?" he asked.
"This is fine," said Arjen. "We want to see the view anyway."
The driver lifted and eyebrow but then shrugged. The twins disembarked and watched the wagon descend into the city.
"Aramore's much bigger than I thought it would be," said Arjen, his attention fixed on the numerous buildings. "But it also looks amazing."
"That book we read was written about fifty years ago," said Arien. "Aramore has probably grown a lot since then." She noticed her brother had paled a bit, so she took his hand. "We'll be all right."
"We haven't been around this many people in a long time," he said, referring to their past lives. "I don't remember a lot, but I remember being in crowds, tall buildings...and...what were those things called again? We rode around in them?"
"...Cars?" The word jolted Arien a bit. Wasn't that how they died back then? As she dug into the depths of her past memories, she could see how that world and this world were so different. It was like being on an alien planet now. ...Were they on another planet? She had never stopped to think about it.
"The air is so clean," she continued, smelling the briny air once more. "I'm okay if they don't have cars."
Arjen squeezed her hand. "Let's go. We didn't come this far just to stop."
She nodded, and together they headed towards the city. They had to walk on the margins of the road because there were so many wagons and carriages coming and going, an endless stream of traffic. This wasn't the only road into the city, but it appeared to be a major one for travel and freight. No one gave them a second glance.
Aramore was one of the Yuriana Empire's major ports, and one of the most important because it was easily accessible to other nearby countries. Since the ascendance of the current emperor, the port had experienced exponential growth, bringing in unimaginable wealth to the empire. At least that's what the twins had heard.
The number of people increased, and Arien's chest tightened as her gaze darted this way and that, closely evaluating the people who passed. It was second nature for her to scan faces to determine threats. At Derolina Castle, the twins had read the servants' faces for the same reason. They could never be too careful. Arien found herself clinging to Arjen's arm. He calmed her by patting her hand, but he probably felt as anxious as her.
