The Royal Thief

Chapter Fourteen: Choraia and Politics

"So today you're telling me about Choraia," I told Caer the moment he entered. 

"Oh, am I?"

"Yes. You are."

"Alright. But you better realize I'm telling you because I want to, not because I'm afraid of you or anything."

"Right, okay." I rapped the tabletop impatiently. I had made a concerted effort to clear off my stuff today so there was actually room for Caer's pile of books, which he set down with a thump. I leaned back to avoid the cloud of dust and he chuckled.

"How does that work? When you're creeping around-- I don't know, wherever you creep around-- how do you not sneeze all the time?"

"Creep? What do you mean, creep?"

"Sneak. Burrow. Slip silently through people's houses to lessen the burden of their possessions."

I only squinted at him.

"No?"

"No."

"Okay." He thumbed through the pages of the book he had read from yesterday then put it down abruptly. "What do you know about politics?"

"Um, that they're complicated? And boring?"

"Accurate. Anything else?"

"Not really." I wondered why he was asking. In general, I did not concern myself with the nobles' arguments about power and taxes and the distribution of sheep, or whatever it was they cared about.

"Well, that makes this a bit more complicated. You need some background information on political parties to understand the Choraia Convention, as it was called then, or the Cycla Scandal, as it was nicknamed in the years after, or the--"

"How many names does this thing have?"

"Let's just call it the Choraia Convention." He smoothed out a sheet of paper and wrote on it: The Politics of Solongia. "So, let's start with the basics. I told you yesterday how the guardians came to be connected to the crown."

A pause. "No, you told me how they were created."

"Well, that's debatable. There are some ancient documents that seem to suggest the Guardians were tied to this land far before King Moronal went to the stars for help. But let's assume that the version we went over yesterday was indeed the birth of the guardians, for the sake of understanding this first political party." He wrote underneath the title of the paper, The Inigro. "Inigro is from the original language of Solangia. It means original. As its name suggests, it was the first political party to really separate itself as a group. What it was then and what it is today are two completely different things, as the problems facing Solangia have of course changed, but its opinion on the Guardians has stayed the same. I'm assuming you don't know that what one believes about the Guardians is actually a very important part of which party you identify with?"

"No. Why would it?"

He shook his head. "Because the Guardians are important. You are important. Guardians wield power that others can only dream of, and that scares many people. You remember that in the story of King Moronal, it was prophesied that he would die by the hand of his Assassin?"

"Yes."

"Well, according to legend, he was. Now, back to the Inigro. It was founded on the beleif that the Guardians existed to serve the monarch. Simple. To add more detail, they also believed that Guardians should be treated with respect, as nobles. But, they must still act as servants. Now, here is where things get interesting." Caer added two lines to his paper, splitting off like separate paths from The Inigro. "The Inigro split two generations after it was founded. The result was the Inigrit--" He scrawled the name at the end of the first line. "And the Onoma." He added it at the other line.