Chapter 1
It was a warm, beautiful and clear night in Vacanta with the bright stars reflecting on the peaceful ocean. Ships were sitting in the middle of the ocean for the night since the harbour was closed and was only going to be opened four o’clock in the evening. Ever since Lithanya came back to the continent and started taking her father’s position as part of her training, more foreign merchants had been coming into the kingdom to start their business on the land. Lithanya had also been tightening up the rules to prevent those people who were still sending her death threats from entering the kingdom. She was also making sure that all the kings were putting extra protection for their people.
Since the first day of her training, no one expected her to be super strict compared to her father. Everyone thought that she was going to be punched by everyone because everyone knew her as intimated, too quiet and didn’t have a backbone. But she was actually the opposite, scary, firm, strict and outspoken when it was necessary. She had two personalities which were sweet and quiet when she was not being an empress but scary and strict when being an empress. That shocked everyone in Tellus and Mortalis that she was capable of ruling. But they were still concerned if she was capable of ruling without her father helping when she actually became the empress.
Lithanya was sitting in her bedroom on the floor and reading the letters that the kingdom received from the other kingdoms. There was no doubt that she was still receiving death threats but she hadn’t received that much when she started her proper training. She threw those two letters in the bin then focused on the most important letters. Most of the letters were about foreign merchants from Tellus and Mortalis specifically putting their businesses in Vacanta. The Tellus and Mortalis were trying to compete with the other merchants in Nymphaedra and Eldoria. Even though Lithanya knew it was going to be hard to compete with the wealthiest merchants in those two worlds, she was liking the competition.
Eyana and Roja walked into the room to check how their eldest sister was doing. “Lithanya, we haven’t seen you since the day after new year. When are you going to join us for meals and adventures with us?”, Eyana asked like a child.
Lithanya placed the envelope on the messy pile. “When I’m done with all these envelopes. I promise that I’ll spend time with you before I leave back to the academy.”
“That’s what you said yesterday, the other day and two weeks ago.”, Roja mentioned.
Lithanya slammed her palms on her face. “I’m sorry, girls. I didn’t expect being an empress would be so much work.”, she was serious.
“Hence we’re kidnapping you for a few hours to see the new market that just opened.”, Roja suggested, then sat on the floor on the opposite side.
“What market?”
Eyana sat next to her twin sister. “We don’t know yet. That’s why we’re going there today. It’s going to open in half an hour so we’ll wait for the line to decrease.”, she answered.
Lithanya nodded and saw Yaithra coming into the room. “I see you managed to break into our sister’s room.”, she answered.
Lithanya shook her head and continued with her work. “I’m not avoiding you, ladies. I just have so much work.”
“I know.”, Yaithra stopped by the coffee table. “Are you coming with us to the new market? All of us are going, including the servants.”, she said and looked at Lithanya. “Now stop what you’re doing and come with us.”, she ordered Lithanya.
Lithanya rolled her eyes and slotted the light green quill in the jar while slowly getting up. Harina came into the room with her arms crossed.
“Come on, girls. The market is about to open.”, she said with eagerness.
The twins grabbed Lithanya’s arms then they walked to the door with Yaithra. Eyana grabbed Yaithra’s arm but Yaithra was refusing to hold Eyana’s arm.
“Eyana, you know I don’t like people touching me.”, Yaithra mentioned.
“I don’t care.”, Eyana held her sister’s arm tightly.
As much as Lithanya also didn’t like people touching her, she wasn’t as bad as Yaithra. And Lithanya was used to the twins holding her tightly because they always used to cuddle on her since they were born.
Ashok was standing by the entrance with all the servants who lived in the palace. He was waiting patiently for his family but he was getting impatient that they were taking long. He wanted to be in the market to see the items before everything would get sold out. It was such a shame this market only opened in the evenings.
The women came out of the building with Eyana closing the door behind her. The other women stopped in front of Ashok and he immediately knew who was the one who took so long.
“Lithanya, it’s seven o’clock now. Shouldn’t you be relaxing instead of reading those boring letters?”, he asked.
Lithanya stared at him for a moment. “You’re just so relaxed because most of the responsibilities are on me now.”, she mentioned.
He nodded. “Fair enough.”, he said and looked at the market just further away from the harbour. “Let’s go.”, he said while walking to the gates.
Everyone followed behind him with Harina walking next to him and holding his muscular arm. Yaithra was looking at her parents for a moment then she looked back at Lithanya.
“I heard from our friends that a wealthy physician and…”
“Platinum merchant.”, Lithanya completed Yaithra’s sentence because Lithanya knew.
“Yes. He’ll be returning to his family in Serphia. Since we were part of the Serphia community, they invited us. So, we’ll be heading to the richest part of Serphia.”, Yaithra explained.
Lithanya nodded. “And I bet you that this merchant is related to the Xiao family because that family is big and all of them are platinum merchants.”, she mentioned.
“I’m not sure. I don’t even know the name of this merchant.”, Yaithra was being honest.
She nodded then came out of the palace premises with the family. They could hear the instrumental music in the new market and the people laughing for joy.
The new night market was completely packed with people and there were long lines by each store. Even the night theatre had a long line and only a certain number of people were allowed to go inside. Each group had half an hour to watch the performance.
The Manrayar family stopped by the entrance of the market with their mouths slightly opened. They didn’t anticipate that there would be so many people on the first night until Harina spotted some sales on the windows.
“I didn’t know there’ll be sales on the first night of the opening.”, she was looking at the signs.
Roja came closer to her mother. “It clearly shows that you don’t often like us. When a new market opens, there’s always a sale for a week.”
Lithanya looked through the crowd. “I doubt that we’ll be able to go inside. It’s super crowded. I’m not just saying that because I want to go and do more work. I’m looking at the number of people in this market.”, she explained. “Maybe we should come tomorrow since it’ll be quieter.”, she suggested.
Eyana looked at her with sadness in her eyes. “But what about the lovely desserts that were on the poster?”, she moaned.
“Those desserts won’t go anywhere.”, Yaithra mentioned then looked at their knights. “Look, our knights are making the other people come back tomorrow since this place is busy.”
“How many hours does the market open at night?”, Greyna asked.
“Only four hours.”, Roja answered.
“Come on, everyone. We can go to the other markets since we’re outside. We can get desserts from there.”, Harina suggested.
They agreed and turned around together. When Lithanya and Yaithra were further away from the group, they looked at each other like they were plotting something. Their bodies became invisible instantly and they went to market.
“Lithanya, Yaithra, don’t even think about it!”, Ashok knew instantly.
They forgot that their fathers had the same powers they were learning from the academy. Lithanya and Yaithra came back to visibility and followed their family.
The entire family were sitting in a quiet restaurant and were having a wonderful roast dinner. Ashok instructed the servants not to make dinner since he already planned to have dinner somewhere else which was meant to be in the new market. The servants were using this time to enjoy their meals and relaxed their exhausted bodies.
“So girls…”, Harina started the conversation. “When are you going back to the academy?”, she asked.
“In two weeks.”, Yaithra answered.
“Then you’ll become a captain the following week.”, Ashok looked at Lithanya.
Lithanya gulped her food. “I’ll spend one week in the academy then I’ll head to Terradawn the next week.”, she explained.
“Are you ladies excited to go back?”, Harina asked.
They answered but different answers. Yaithra nodded while Lithanya shook her head. “I’m not excited because I’m going to be a captain and it’s going to require so much work.”, she wasn’t half lying.
She wasn’t also excited because she had to work with Yuxuan who could be a pain in the ass. She didn’t want to tell anyone about that because it would probably cause problems and working with someone from upper class was forbidden.
“I’ll get used to it and there’ll be people helping you if you’ve a heavy workload.”, Harina said.
Lithanya highly doubted that the people in Nymphaedra would because she was from a lower class. In fact, she had a feeling that the people in the institution were going to dump their work on her since the lower class had a reputation of working harder.
Everyone was back in their homes and palace. The new night market was still open but unfortunately, everything was now sold out. Eyana and Roja were going to try again tomorrow but they were going to leave the palace earlier.
Lithanya was back in her room, getting ready to hit the bed. When she opened the windows for the breeze to come into her room, she saw a child standing by the mountain further away from the palace. Lithanya stared at the child with her head slightly tilting to the left. She tried to get a closer look at the child’s face but she was unable to see because it was pitch dark. One thing that also struck Lithanya was that no one lived by the highest mountains. So, it was unusual for that child to be standing by the highest mountain.
Lithanya blinked once and the child disappeared instantly. She looked at the other highest mountains but there was no sign of the child. Eventually, she left it and walked to her bed to sleep early since she had to attend a meeting early in the morning.
