Chapter 29: 29- Interlude: Kingdom of Tvinner

The Kingdom of Tvinner, The Royal Capital:

Marquess Ragnar of Brightglow was an old man, he knew that he didn't have much time left for him in this world and he accepted that, he lived a long life, not all of it was happy, but it was good enough for him. He had a beautiful and capable daughter, one he wasn't afraid of leaving everything he had to, his territory was well managed and peaceful. He was ready to move on knowing that he had done all he could and that it was time for the next generation to take over. Or so he thought.

At that moment, the old Marquess was sitting in the Royal Castle's Great meeting room, along with all the other big nobles. These past few years, he had been leaving this kind of meetings to his daughter, sending her away with some of his trusted aids for her to learn how to deal with things like these on her own for when he finally leaves this world. This time though, it was different. He had to be here, he had to fly here on his own, after all, he was still the Marquess of Brightglow, and it seems as if an obstacle has appeared in the peaceful world he was leaving to his daughter.

The Kingdom of Tvinner was quite different from the other human kingdoms in the area in that it was a coregency, meaning a kingdom led by two people in power, usually a queen and a king, there were some cases when there were two queens or two kings, but those were few and far in between. This weird situation was the result of how the kingdom was created and by whom.

Hundreds of years ago, a twin was born, a brother and sister, as they grew it became more and more clear that the two had extremely distinct personalities. The boy was calm and gentle and didn't like violence at all, while the girl was hyperactive and liked fighting more than anything. Even with how different they were though, they still shared an unbreakable bond and love.

When they finally got their inheritances, the difference between them only got clearer, the girl got one of the strongest known weapons in the history of the land, and the boy got a defensive power that was thought to be unbreakable for a long time. The two were born in a time of great unrest, and as time went on and as they grew, people started gathering around them and after many and many years of war and hardships, they finally were able to carve a place for themselves in this world.

When the time came for one of them to take the throne, both of them wanted the other to take it as they didn't want the other's family and line to be forgotten in history. Eventually, they decided on a curious practice, it was decided that the boy would be the kingdom's first King, and the girl would just continue with her life as she liked, once she chose an inheritor for her Inheritance from her children though, that child would be chosen as the next King/Queen for the kingdom and would be raised by her brother the King, and as soon as her child take their place as the monarch, they would do the same with the previous King's grandson.

Many people thought that such a practice won't work, that there would come a time when one of the two royal families would betray the other and control the kingdom on their own. But that never happened and not because both families were selfless and they all respected their ancestor's desires and promises. It was simply because the kingdom was built on the power of the two Inheritances, and it seemed that the Inheritances had a link of some kind, both their users and their Inheritors would have a sense of kinship towards each other, and would trust each other unconditionally as if that love the first twin had was always there.

This led to a kingdom with two royal families, where the King or Queen raises the most important member of the other family without fear of any foul play.

As Marquess Ragnar was still lost in his thoughts, someone suddenly shouted:

"His Majesty the King, and Her Majesty the Queen have arrived."

With that announcement, all the parties around the round table stood up as they bowed toward the meeting room's door just as two people entered, a tall dignified and calm-looking old man, and a young woman who seemed to be in her late teens. The old man already had a head full of grey hair and a few wrinkles on his face, that still didn't give any sense that he was weak or anything similar, the old man still gave the same sense of serenity and solidity that he had around him just like the first time Marquess Ragnar saw him. If anything, it only seemed that his presence had only grown deeper and calmer.

The girl though, with her short red hair and her almost bouncing steps along with her continuously moving eyes, had a sense of energetic and playful feel to her.

"You may stand up," the King's voice was just like the presence he projected, calm, gentle and deep. Once it sounded everyone in the room stood up and waited for the King and young Queen to take their seats before sitting down too.

"So..." The King started once everyone was in their seats, "can anyone explain to me why we didn't notice a full-blown invasion heading our way?"

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With those words, Marquess of Brightglow felt as if the room had grown heavier, as if he was drowning under hundreds of feet of water, just that showed that no matter how calm he appeared, the king was extremely displeased by how no one was able to find out about the invasion till now.

"It... It was a mistake made due to neglection, Your Majesty..." One of the kingdom's intelligence agency's directors said as he broke out into a cold sweat.

"... Explain," said the king. Marquess of Brightglow's eyes didn't miss that even though just a small while had passed, the young Queen was already getting restless, she wasn't really one for sitting down and listening to such dry meetings, he was still able to remember how the last Queen used to operate, she would usually be walking around from place to place as the meetings went on, engaged in conversations and always holding or reading some document in hand, or looking down at some map, he was still able to remember how uncomfortable the current king used to look while trying to keep up with her, he surely would have smiled if the situation wasn't so dire.

"Yes, your Majesty," answered the director, "your Majesty must know about the monthly military training camps the demons always have. Ten years ago, and the first time we saw this kind of mobilisation, all our armies went into full alert and we were ready for war, but in the end, they only stayed well within their territory and we saw no indications that they were going to attack us for real, even our spies inside, later on, said that they were simply training."

The King nodded at his words when the director looked at him, seeing the confirmation and indication to continue, the man went on:

"Ever since then, at the same time of the month, the demons would mobilize their whole army and go in this training. For the first three or four years, we always got our armies ready whenever they were out... But after four years with no problems at all, we... We started becoming lax, and we stopped mobilizing the armies, we only left a few teams with the sole purpose of keeping an eye on these training instances..." The room again fell silent as the man's voice got lower and lower at the end.

"And what about our spies on their side? How didn't they notice anything at all? And the teams who are keeping watch, what about them?" The King finally broke the silence?

"Because they didn't know," the man answered with a pained sigh, "no one did, it seems that except for the generals who were sent to the war, no one knew that this wasn't going to be a normal training like the other ones, our spies are saying that even now, the demons don't know that their king has sent an army to invade the humans... As for our teams on watch... We are still looking into it, but we think that they have all been dealt with and that we have been talking with some imposters, the demons most probably knew about them and were planning for this for ages, we... We didn't see it coming."

"Marquess Ragnar," the old man couldn't help but sit straighter when the King's voice dragged him from his contemplating, he could feel his heart beat faster as he knew that the time has come for him to face the mess one of his vessels has made, "I heard that this was discovered by one of yours, how did that happen?"

"One of the guards overheard something suspicious from some thugs in the town, so he told his captain about that. Then, along with this captain and some help, they managed to confirm the existence of a kalla and a fiyavtic in the manor of one of my Knights' sons."

He knew that he had no hope of hiding anything, so he said all he knew as he knew it.

"So you are telling me that all of this was only discovered due to luck? That if some thugs didn't have loose lips we wouldn't even know anything about this till the demons are on our doorsteps?" Even through his calm tone, the old Marquess was still able to feel the anger in the king's voice.

Just at that moment, a knock came from the room's door, the King looked at the soldier standing guard and nodded. With the door opening, a thin man with scholarly air entered the room, he first bowed to everyone in the room before looking at the king with a questioning look, as if asking for his permission to speak with everyone there, the king gave his permission so the man took a deep breath and said:

"Your Majesty, we have just got an answer from the elves, and..." His voice cracked at this point before he steadied himself, "... And they said that they won't be interfering in this war..."

Listening to the unbelieving shouts all around him, Ragnar could do nothing but sigh as he felt his age catch up to him, just what kind of world was this turning up to be...