Sovereignty

(Still) Chapter one

           The place they had for a quarter was something far from luxurious. It was a place under the old building where the Stenam used to dwell. Mark 'used to'. The Stenam. That was the a council of twelve aristocratic men who welded the greatest power in different akai. They were there to check on the actions of the leader, to guide for the good of the people and excellence of the kingdom. And when the current queen came into existence, it was meant to be no different. It was not like as if the balance had shifted, no. It was just that someone with a serious deal of dark intent and a thirst for power was finally reigning. Well, at first the queen seemed to try to blend in with the idea of someone seemingly ruling beside her. But as time when on, when she tried to make decisions the Stenam always seemed to be against them. It did not take long for this to get on her nerves. And one day, out of the blue, she brought forth a dark mass of her power and destroyed the Stenam building. With that she killed eight of the Stenam trapping their souls in eternal prison of torture, along with anyone who occupied the building at that time. Any other who may have managed to escape was tracked down and killed by the queen herself. This act for one made the people of the nation and those far and wide fear the queen. The Stenam were men of greatest skill, facing one alone should have been difficult enough and facing them all was assumed to be impossible. They were believed to know how to conjure great storms, fires, sprits and so on in the respective akai and when the queen beat them all, that just put her at the very top. No one ever tried to cross her. Of course she also had her massive downfalls like her battle with the tower of Jdgein, Craa and Uthui. After her last defeat she seemed to go silent. Then out of the blue, a princess was announced but never seen.

After the downfall of Stenam, the queen began to implement her will and the army was one of those. She proclaimed only female warriors and which ever male tried to keep that position was slaughtered without hesitation. For them she implemented two rules;

You are to bare no child

You are to use your entire being to fight for the queen

And if any of these were broken, death of both body and soul awaited. Only those out of the army were allowed to part with the first rule. But this she did hundreds of years ago, when still in her youth, though her grip on it and the people never changed. Yes, the queen and her kingdom had reigned long and didn't seem to be on its way to a downfall, on the contrary.....

When the queen formed her new army, she sent out the best skilled men to train them in all aspects and at the end of the day the girls had to be able to fight and kill their trainers and if not, they would be killed. She had them create their own training grounds and only offered the old Stenam building for housing. She did this probably so as to remind them of the extent of her power and it worked for some, others might have just been loyal to her without question. Besides, in away that building always stood crumbled to the ground like a trophy, a reminder to all people of the extent of the rage, will and power. Maybe that's why she didn't do away with the ruin. And it was the only way one could actually tell that there once was a Stenam. The army didn't just consist of any Tom, Dick and Harry, it had the most skilled women still in their youth. The ones felt out of the army were either permanently deformed from battle, too young which is below the years of four, in their prime, demented, proved useless beyond reasonable doubt or dead.

The Stenam building had an underground hall which was meant for emergencies. It was basically two large halls,one over the other, that run about a third a mile with poles randomly situated to support the ceiling. It had only two main exits, the upper exit and the south exit, and few passage ways. It was made completely out of hardened grey rock which made it unusually cold. The upper section was were the girls were currently situated. It was normally damp due to the cracked walls that let in water at any possible point. The walls were lined with torch holders and a small section had small make-shift closets where they could temporarily put their belongings. There were a few benches here and there and three washing basins situated at different points. Under the upper was the ground floor where the girls slept, sometimes trained and kept their weapons, not many, if not none, had personal belongings. It was also where their bathrooms were. Of course some of the girls did tend to fight while in the dormitories. Others went up to the extend of picking up the weapons and slaughtering each other. The other girls would simply watch their peers take on each other and not get involved. Some would simply watch while others caught up on their sleep. If they were fighting next to one who wasn't interested,that person would have to either ask to share a bed with someone far away or wait for the fight to end and sleep on bloodied sheets. Either way if you didn't want a fight, you should talk to those fighting. The girls were never taught to solve other people's problems, only their own. The victor of the two would have to clean up the mess they caused if they didn't want to be killed by the rest. In case they were both badly injured, no medical help was offered. They either healed on their own or died but not before cleaning up the mess. And if they both died on that very night or day, the others would clean up the mess and life would go back to normal. Besides, it was all part of the sorting. The upper floor is where they had their means and freshened up. The entire building generally smelt of metal stale water and blood, but when you live there your whole life, you get used to the smell and it doesn't bother you so much.