Chapter 48

THE HOME I WANT TO RETURN TO

CASSIE

The kingdom of River Valley sat on the far end of the circular baroque courtyard. On its raised platform, River Valley’s Royal House glistened, standing gracefully for hundreds of thousands of years.

The skyscraper was so tall that it kissed the skies. It was a brightly colored hybrid of a building: its floor-to-ceiling windows were made of opaque materials with a sunroof that housed floodlights of glass.

However, unlike the buildings in Advania, each window had a different function, depending on which direction it faced. The sides of the building featured round displays of art, as well as a pulley system that accessed the ledge of the glass balconies, several stories above the street.

River Valley’s Royal palace boasted a laser disc player, and a vaulted roof with a circular design that encircled the entire complex. The top floor’s roof was used for large-scale concerts, and was the home of River Valley’s youth orchestra. While River Valley itself boasted most of the city’s notable sporting and music venues, the residence of the Royals was the crown jewel.

Like every palace in the Kingdom of River Valley, the building was filled with marble. The nobles and high-ranking officials walked among their servants on gleaming, polished floors.

While it might have been considered ostentatious, with lavish entrances and furnishings, it was less elaborately extravagant than the temples and fortresses of the rest of the continent. It was a modern palace that appeared well taken care of, while still retaining a sense of grandeur.

Around the palace stood a tight grid of tall, gray buildings, arranged in a circle. The buildings rose as far as the eye could see. The library—which housed the most ancient of texts—filled one of the buildings. Even from inside the library, one could see smoke rising from the multiple chimneys, through a dark window.

The others were great halls, which served as the center of the community, where nobles met to discuss matters of import and drank; they were the size of the grand theaters in Advania, but instead of all-in-one rows of seats, they had aisles. There were four big auditoriums, one for each color of the flag: Green for River Valley, Purple for Romdheim, White for Palladium, and Blue for Mages.

As the Empire continued to grow, so did its interconnected network of cities and towers. While it was a private affair for the top officials of each city, it was open to the public, as long as one possessed a warrant.

While the various buildings housed different types of businesses, there was one single building that encompassed all the cities of the Kingdom. It was the Ritz Hotel—the most well-known landmark in the Kingdom of River Valley.

Of course, to view the Kingdom of River Valley as merely a group of buildings would be to overlook its vast land. Riverspride spanned miles, covered by leafy green forests, or by fields where crops were grown. There were red and yellow farms that were cultivated by Vampires, the green fields that grew wheat and barley by Masks, and there were tanneries where Foxes processed animals for the Cats to sell to humans. There were stables where Horses were bred, and cold fish farms where the fish was fished.

The Kingdom was home to the greatest moon-like structures in the Empire: massive monuments that were floating in the sky, housing the symbols of each nation in the Empire. Each nation was represented by a massive city, which was also a must for tourists visiting the Kingdom.

While the rest of the Kingdom had temples and other buildings that were dedicated to a single god, the Empire was one of the few nations with a single, unified government.

The city of Blueland was no exception. The city of the Royals was home to Vampires, Wolves, and Humans, but it was also filled with a multitude of buildings dedicated to the werewolves-people.

Several of the buildings housed large collections of Wolves, in metal and ivory sculptures and tapestries. Another of Blueland’s proudest achievements was the Werewolf’s bank, where the werewolves of the empire deposited their yearly tax money. In exchange, the werewolves received interest on their deposits.

A rainbow bridge ran from the bank to a massive, cathedral-like structure, which was in the shape of a twisted, clawed fist, and filled with wide, thick marble columns. The Werewolf’s Arch—the city’s werewolf-sized flag—swung from the top of the building, holding a giant compass rose, with the northern pole pointing toward the Ritz Hotel. The city was also home to the greatest werewolf-man statues in the Empire: bronze werewolves dressed in the finery of the Werewolf Empire, some taller than the Empire itself.

From their vantage point, all the Werewolf statues glowed pink and blue, matching their colors in the flag.

A further two hundred feet below the Werewolf Arch stood a mirror-like floor, which was filled with a fountain, with a large painting of a Werewolf in the center. While the Werewolf had claws, his face was that of a handsome man in a green robe. It was the figure of the High Werewolf of the Werewolf Empire, Haldemir the Golden. The fact that he was immortal made him both a hero and a mythical figure. His throne was set on the other side of the floor.

One hundred feet below the floor of the Werewolf Arch, behind the statue of Haldemir, a lush meadow was cultivated, used to grow the king’s favorite flowers.

Around the kingdom of Blueland, there were areas that resembled actual landscapes. While many of the other countries had forests, which were devoid of man-made structures, Blueland’s forests were filled with trails, forests, lakes, bridges, and even ski-lifts.

Now that the River Valley Empire was in its third month, the Werewolf Imperial government was now actively putting more money into research and development. There were an average of five inventions a day. There was even a new guild formed that dealt with inventions, invention hacking, and the education of inventors.

Despite this, it was obvious that the Werewolf Empire would never hold on to its power for very long. The Empire had lost much of its star power, and the Empire’s population was suffering from the prolonged drought. Many of the Werewolves blamed the Humans for the decline of the Empire, and many of the Humans blamed the Werewolves for that decline.

Yet both sides thought the other had selfish reasons for their apathy. In truth, it was the people of the Empire who made the Empire the unique power it was.

The Werewolf Empire had done much for the lands outside of the Empire, including that of River Valley. The planet had been a colony of the Werewolf Empire for decades, with a population of one million and four hundred thousand, with a landmass of approximately forty-five thousand square miles. Although many of the humans thought of the Werewolf Empire as a wealthy, powerful landowner, the fact was that the Empire had far more territory, with far more werewolves, than the Empire itself, which was a very small territory compared to some of the other countries.

Many of the residents of River Valley had no idea how much power the Werewolf Empire truly had. The stories of the Empire’s mighty strength and power were often exaggerated by the humans of River Valley. In truth, the Empire was so large that even if it was a small percentage of the population of River Valley, it would still have a population of more than one hundred countries.

This was my plan, to return to the home I used to know.