Tales of the Five Kingdoms

Naius Doralean Third Summit

(A.N. - I'm dedicating this chapter to karriezai since it was her idea I do it. Thanks for being a long time reader and telling me about this place to begin with.)

Contains spoilers for SKY WOMAN and RUNE KNIGHT

Seventh of Sun, Imperial Year 1342
One Year Before the Fall of Shan Alee

Naius, heart glowing, burst in through the front door of her home. She wished to cry out and announce to the entire world what had happened. At long last, she had done it.

Third summit, she thought, finding it hard to believe even now. Flames, the governor ascended my name. I'm not a nomin anymore. I'm a sion, a full citizen!

Naius bit her lip to contain her excitement, but a delighted squeal managed to escape regardless. Before she did anything else, she had someone she needed to thank.

Her home was built of sandstone. Floors were marble, and the walls were paneled with dark wood from the east. Her large foyer was lined with clay or copper urns, each containing soil and flora. Naius grew herbs, vegetables, and flowers of all varieties within her pots and up on her terraced roof. These were the lifeblood of her trade.

Perpetually stained fingers attested to her long years spent as an alchemist's apprentice. She'd been sent to her master as a girl of five and received education in biology, botany, physiology, medicine, spellcraft, and alchemical theory. Her parents had given nearly all they had to pay Master Vatoor Ontarion Second Summit to accept a nomin into his care. They passed away long before they could see what Naius made of herself with their sacrifice. For their honored memory, she resolved to make them proud.

Once she was released from her teacher's service, Naius used her meager savings to buy a rundown home within the mercantile district. Her neighbors were slow to accept a new— and rather ambitious— nomin girl amongst them, but Naius' growing skill as a healer and her affordable alchemical spells were swaying the sions to look on her kindly.

She was nineteen, only three years out of her apprenticeship, but Naius could now stand proud as a true citizen of Shan Alee.

Her home had evolved over time and was now richly decorated. Naius had been doing all she could to show that she had the means to be recognized as a sion. Nearly every coin she earned from selling her spells and medical services went into acquiring prestige and advancing her status. Necessities were forsaken for affectations. All according to her designs, but if Naius hadn't been able to grow her own produce, she'd likely have starved within her first year on her own.

Now that she was a citizen, she'd have to improve her home even further, or she'd always be seen as an upstart grasping above her true station. If she made enough sales in the coming month, she could get an artisan to carve spellwrought ornamentation on the house's facade. That would do wonders for her prestige, and she'd no longer be accused of having the only drab house on the street.

If things go really well, she mused, I could get the whole house spellwrought. That would stick in Alak's craw.

As Naius went a few steps further into her home, she came to the mural on the lefthand wall and knelt down. It was a mosaic, shards of painted tile artfully put together by an artisan who owed her a favor. The radiant figure depicted at the center and his golden dragon of legend stared kindly back at her.

"Your will reaching across light and time," she murmured, offering her prayer to the Founder. "Your sion gives thanks for your blessings this day, Dragon Emperor Inwe, Father of Shan Alee."