Sins & Virtues

Chapter Two: The Gold Path

Marisol

Marina Fell, Marinoss

It took a day and a half for the locomotive to reach the outer walls of Marina Fell. The tracks cut through the lands of the Marinoss, skirting the Monsoon Jungle and through the horn of Marityn's Sands, staying close to the forests and only slowing through the meadows that flowered all around the great capital. The Ore Peaks stood like three guards in the distance beyond the walled city, their summits appearing hours before the palace steeples and turrets slid into view over the horizon.

By the time Marisol's engine reached her city, she and Persephone had exhausted every card game, every childhood story they both already knew, and every attempt at discussing what their lives would be like once their journey was finally over.

They didn't stop for lunch. According to the Halcyon; the elite army that protected the royal family, deployed to escort them, the Dukes and Princess Marigold were anxious to have their new Queen return to the city as soon as possible.

Marisol was not quite as anxious but did not give a counter order.

Any boredom or restlessness was placated by the luxurious surroundings on the royal locomotive. An almost lifetime of pious modesty, occasional fasting and a constant lack of colour or entertainment, had left the two young women susceptible to the lush fixtures and fittings, all in the shining gold and pewter of the Gold House's colours. The simple passenger trains that carried machines and the metal mined throughout the kingdom weren't as luxurious, with bench seats and communal carriages, though neither of them had ever ridden those. Persephone had arrived at Lady Arianne's by carriage, and Marisol had arrived on the very train they departed in.

The pair watched the landscape go by, awestruck as the ramrod-straight trees and thick canopies of the jungle made way for the golden expanses of the deserts, and in a blink were replaced by lush green, rolling meadows full of orchids and tall grey hills pocked with the entrances of mines and neighboured by tall industrial cities. Marinoss' main export was the gemstones forged and crystallised far beneath the surface of the lands. History told that the jewels on each of the new monarch's ancestral crowns once belonged to the earth beneath Marinoss.

The gold and grey banners and flags that decorated Marina Fell were bordered with black, each citizen they passed as the train finally slowed, wore black, and every soldier wore a black cloak over their shining armour.

The train stopped at the shiny, newly cleaned, station just outside the limits of the city, nestled amongst the simpler homes of the poorer citizens. Marina Fell was a thriving, bustling metropolis, where even the common people lived comfortably, benefiting from the charity of the royal family and the wealth of the Ore Peaks' factories and mines.

Marisol disembarked the locomotive dressed in a black gown. She had wobbled when Persephone had first helped her into the heavy fabric; completely different from the light and movable pinafore dress she had worn for so long. The layered skirt consumed her to the point she removed the bottom layer of petticoat, to avoid succumbing to the humid heat outside the airy train. The dress was cinched just beneath her breasts with a golden belt, with long sleeves that ended with a loop around her middle fingers, and she slid her feet into velvet slippers. With deft fingers, Persephone had helped pin up her hair, settling a chain diadem headdress across her forehead, the chains draping back over her golden hair like intricate shining stripes. It marked her as a princess until she took the monarch's crown instead.

She felt like she was clad in a costume, a player about to perform in a strange production completely alien to her.

There were no parades as the carriages travelled through the gates and up the Gold Path; an arrow-straight street that cut right through the city, to the centre, named as such for the ore embedded in its stone, making it sparkle as the rising sun crawled along it each clear morning. The Solaire Palace stood in the very centre of the city, built atop a wide hill so it stood high over the city.