Reaching for the Stars

Chapter Sixteen

The empire of Valena was small but mighty, originally founded by two sisters, Inara and Ashara, they ruled together for decades, expanding a small city into a decent sized empire, not even just that, but their military was renowned, none could beat them on the battlefield. It was an empire that had many allies, if only because they were afraid to be seen as enemies, the current queen was the grand daughter of the grand queen Inara, her sister Ashara never married or had children, leaving Inara's bloodline as the only remaining trace of the great sisters.

Queen Amalia was just as fearsome as her ancestors, keeping the peace as required, but when there was a threat, she showed no hesitation in getting rid of it, expanding the Valena empire as she did. The Valena empire was renowned for their strength, but also for their bravery, to enter the tainted lands of Ulgana and return untransformed by the curse that supposedly dwelled within the land. There seemed to be no doubt that the curse was indeed there, because even after so many years, only the empire of Valena and two other empires dared to venture within the tainted lands.

Though stories told me, the other two empires suffered great losses for their greed, while the empire of Valena seemed to have some sort of resilience against the curse, or something, because their people remained unaffected even after numerous trips into the tainted lands of Ulnaga, or so my carriage driver, Yanus, was telling me. Having heard this was my first trip to the empire of Valena he had taken the time during the journey to regale me with tales of the small but mighty empire.

The more I listened the more curious I became, why had Orpheus chosen this place, of all the places, he chose a lesser-known academy in a relatively new empire, for some that had been around for thousands of years, the empire of Valena was only now reaching its fifth century, cultivators lived longer than mere mortals, and I knew that the sisters that founded the empire must have been mighty cultivators indeed. We had been on the road for almost a week now, I would have had to stock up on supplies again, but Yanus had been rather generous with his own food.

So I still had half a weeks worth of food left, though we should be reaching the border today if I was right about where we were on the map, Yanus couldn't show me, said he didn't rely on maps, but mental memory, I thought that was foolish, but he seemed to know his way well enough, since the Silver Woods were near the border of the Khirad empire it hadn't taken us long to get to the border, we could have gone much faster, but we were loaded down with supplies for Yanus to trade, and he didn't want to tire out his horses too badly, so we took frequent breaks and stopped at inns for the night not too late in the day.

The Silver woods actually spanned half the continent, including part of the Valena Empire, but it was much too treacherous to pass through it, though it would be much faster than going around as we did, most groups would never survive the journey, of course I had a fox by my side that scared away all the predators, but he hadn't wanted to walk that far, so on carriage we were, even if I felt like my money had been depleted a fair bit to do this. "Miss Elianna, look ahead, we near the border pass." I could see the flaming braziers from back here, now that he had pointed it out, the sun was only just beginning to set but they had them lit already.

Guards in black armour stood around the road that entered into the empire of Valena, the moved to stop the carriage as soon as we drew near. "Reason for entering the mighty empire of Valena?" The guard's voice was deep and loud, I could feel his words vibrating inside my chest.

"I come with trade items, but my passenger has come to apply to Ashara Academy." The guards flicked open the curtain covering the carriage door, seeing me, what was no doubt an extremely small woman compared to him, he looks skeptical.

"What do you come to apply for at Ashara Academy, girl?" I shift nervously, even Orpheus opens one blazing gold eye to stare at the guard, before closing it and going back to sleep, presumably not seeing him as a threat, but he looked very threatening to me.