Sins & Virtues

Chapter Six: The Glass Palace

Diggory

Vermillion Mount, Vermillion

King Diggory was crowned wearing his travelling cloak and mud-splattered boots. The crowd of nobles and clerics assembled as witnesses were unadorned with their typical celebration finery, and there was no party to follow. Princess Sigrid rubbed at her eyes, swaying on the spot, having been swept from her bed just hours after her bedtime. Prince Albert watched in awe, trying to seem as mature and as regal as the new king, but still clinging to the sleeve of Sebastian Fitzroy, their half-brother.

Vermillion Mount was a vast city, longer than it was wide, like a bright streak across the flat green plains it rested on. A mile wide circle of level ground stood between the limits of the city and the infinite Tymber Forest; a stunning sight of emerald oak, ash, cedar, sycamores and pine, meshed with the golden red of the tall redwoods, the stark white and black of the silver birches, and the patches of the rarest trees; ironwoods, golden birches and red yews.

The capital city had no border walls, and divided by five lush lines of trees cutting their way through the buildings and houses of its citizens, to meet in the very centre of the arrow-head-shaped metropolis. All buildings were the same level, almost as tall as the trees the city traded in, except for the four Temples that rose out of the abundance of life around them. One sat in each lower segment separated by the trees, and in the fifth segment at the southernmost tip of Vermilion Mount, was the Glass Palace.

An elegant structure towering over the capital, made of stone and with a thousand windows. It was the first point the sun hit when it rose, casting a radiant orange glow across the city, and the last point the sun touched as it set. Diggory's ancestors, loyal and enamoured by the Carmine Sun and its Sun God, believed that its citizens should see the royal family as a source of honesty and purity and transparency. If the citizens could see their royalty in their pious and peaceful life, they would follow their example. It was those beliefs that inspired the construction of the Glass Palace.

The people of Vermillion were devoted to the Sun God and the Carmine Sun; the order of those faithful to him, who maintained the Temples devoted to him and encouraged the Virtuous life the Sun God required. Those devoted to the Sun God and the Carmine Sun, which was the entirety of the population Vermillion, and the northeastern kingdom of Marinoss, were known as Clarets, for the crimson red they wore in devotion. They attended the Temples at least once a day, some twice a day at sunrise and sunset, others, those most devoted like the Clerics, Sisters and Vestals, three times a day, at sunrise, noon and sunset, to Scorch themselves with the sun's rays and purify their souls with his light.

The epicentre of the Carmine Sun was the heart city of Amity, to the north of Vermillion, where the Clerics were the nobles of the Amitian people and the Cardinal led them all. It was where those most devoted would send their daughters to become Vestals, and their sons to become Brothers, serving as peacekeepers for the city and for those who would slander the Sun God and insist on a life of the seven sins, rather than the seven virtues all Clarets were raised to live by.

Piety. Purity. Devotion. Honesty. Honour. Generosity. Courage.

The Brothers made up the royal army of Vermillion, returned from where they were trained in the scrublands of Amity, in liveries of red beneath ruby gilded armour and scarlet masks covering half their faces.

Diggory dropped the crown onto his dresser, staring down at it for a long moment.

The crown matched the palace; its band was translucent and opaque, encrusted with rubies and opals. Over the top of the band, from right to left was a fin of sunburst; spikes fused together into an arching fan like the first rays of sunrise over the horizon. In the centre of the fin sat a blood-red fire ruby.