The Vanaheim Theocracy, principal state of the Vanir Triumvirate
This day would mark the start of a new chapter in Vanaheim’s history. Crowds lined the streets, waving national flags with zealous fervor. All of their eyes were on the ranks of marching soldiers clad in gleaming silver armor. The troops advanced through the gate in perfect lockstep. Today, heroes would depart for distant battlefields.
The álfar soldiers’ stern faces were filled with pride. The townsfolk watched them go with delight and celebration. The streets were filled with plenty who wept—mothers, wives, brothers, sisters, other family members—but their sorrow went unnoticed in the crowd’s ardor, mistaken for tears of joy. Had an outsider been present, they might perhaps have sensed something strange in the air. The people’s excitement was too heightened to be natural. Yet there were no outsiders, and so the peculiarity went unremarked upon, mistaken for normal, natural, expected.
Up the street from the marching troops rose the cathedral of Vana Vis, the keystone of faerie worship. Plenty of soldiers remained on its grounds—so many that their body heat warmed the air despite the breadth of its premises. Guarded by their proud shields were the cardinals, the highest administrators of the faith. They watched their troops depart from the safety of their balcony, dreaming of the day they would become the new rulers of Soleil.
Cardinal Snorri left his peers and returned indoors, making for the adjoining structure of Galta Palace. His footsteps took on an edge of irritation as he passed through the corridor between the two. The occasion was a historic one, and yet the Holy Emperor had made no appearance.
“What is he thinking?” he muttered. “There has scarcely been such an important day since our nation’s founding.”
His pace slowed as he came into view of the sentries. Finally, he halted before the door to the Great Baldachin, the holy sanctum wherein the Holy Emperor and the Faerie King Shub-Niggurath dwelled. He knocked lightly—his exasperation was not worth risking the Faerie King’s ire. There was no response. He knocked again, and then again.
“Your Holiness? Your Holiness? Are you there?”
The Holy Emperor could not possibly be absent. The Faerie King’s most faithful servant could not simply up and leave. A departure from the palace grounds would require permission, to say nothing of a sizable escort, yet Cardinal Snorri had heard of nothing of the sort—not on this most important of days. No, it was unthinkable. There was only one possible explanation. While the Holy Emperor could not have left the palace grounds, there was nothing stopping him from wandering freely inside them.
Snorri’s shoulders slumped as the notion struck him. “Surely not. Where has he gotten to? Hm...?”
As he laid a hand absentmindedly on the handle, the door creaked open. The grounds of Galta Palace were forbidden to all but the Holy Emperor, the Faerie King’s chosen, on pain of divine punishment. Yet Snorri could not help his curiosity.
“What if something ill has befallen His Holiness?”
If the Holy Emperor had collapsed, it would be a serious matter. Snorri raised his eye to the gap in the door.
“What in the world?”
An álfen woman lay in the Holy Emperor’s chambers. She was grievously wounded, sitting with her back to an altar with a broken statue. She gasped in pain as she pressed a glowing hand to her injuries. She was healing herself, Snorri realized.
“I was too hasty, it seems,” she muttered. “Yet how could I have known that relic of the past would choose now to return?”
At last, Snorri found the nerve to enter the chamber. He pushed the door open and looked around. “Your Holiness? Are you there?!”
There was no reply. Only the wounded woman responded. “Yes?” she croaked.
“Hm? Ah, you. Wench. Where is His Holiness? He was supposed to make an appearance at the ceremony.” Snorri cocked his head and crossed his arms, looking around, but again, there was no sign of the Holy Emperor.
Only the woman responded. “Don’t be ridiculous. I am the Holy Emperor.”
“You? Preposterous. I have never seen you before in my life. Bringing women into a sacred place... His Holiness must have taken leave of his senses.” It was no business of Snorri’s what the Holy Emperor got up to in the Grand Baldachin, but he was shocked that the Faerie King had permitted it.
The woman’s eyes widened for a moment, but then she lifted a hand and pulled a hood down over her head. “I suppose I cannot blame you for not recognizing me. I never did show you my face, did I?”
Snorri backed away, staring. “Impossible,” he snorted. “His Holiness is a man, not some slattern like you.”
The Holy Emperor might have been slender enough to be mistaken for a woman at a glance, but he was most certainly a man. He had soft features but great wisdom, beloved by his people and respected by his faithful. A more natural emperor there had never been. It was disappointing that he had brought prostitutes into Galta Palace, but he was still the Faerie King’s chosen and commanded the highest respect.
“So you happened to know him by sight,” the woman murmured. “Well, that is unfortunate.”
She rose to her feet and approached Snorri. Her former frailty was nowhere to be seen, replaced now by a fearsome strength. He sensed at once that she was no common harlot.
“Who are you?” He glanced behind him as he backed away. The door was still open. He could escape into the corridor and call for help. He began to inch toward it, slowly and smoothly so as not to be noticed.
“You may call me Nameless.” As she spoke, the door slammed shut.
Snorri’s face flooded with confusion. “What?”
“And I slew your Holy Emperor long ago.”
“What is this nonsense—”
Nameless swung her bell staff, knocking Snorri to the floor. The cardinal groaned. He hadn’t even seen her draw the weapon.
Nameless advanced on him, a faint smile playing on her lips. “And your Faerie King besides.”
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