The aureate affairs, p.1
The Aureate Affairs, page 1
The Aureate Affairs
THE GILDED GLOW SERIES
BOOK I
KELSI CRIPE
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Identifiers:
ISBN 979-8-9876391-0-8 (Paperback)
ISBN 979-8-9876391-1-5 (Hardcover)
ISBN 979-8-9876391-7-7 (Ebook)
Published by Reverie Book Co. LLC
Copyright © 2023 by Kelsi Cripe
All rights reserved.
To all the bibliophiles like me who dream of living in a fantasy world,
this one is for you
Note from the Author:
This is a book that uses a lot of archaic and Old English/Regency/British phrases, words, and uncommon definitions of words that you may not realize have several different meanings for the same one. To ensure you grasp the correct terminology spoken by the characters and the period world within these pages, please refer to the glossary I created for you, the readers, which is available on my website (www.reveriebook.co/the-aureate-affairs-glossary).
Pronunciation Guide
Vérmethia – ver-myth-ia
Mina – me-na
Villeroux – ville-ah-roo
Magnen – mag-nin
Saintirél – sant-tea-relle
Acelin – ass-len
Chaulôn – shoo-lawn
Carré – ca-ray
vu Rhyne – voo rine
Maircault – mare-co
Châtillevé – sha-te-lee-ev
Rochevé – row-chev (as in chevrolet)
Chalimar – shall-e-mar
Champs D’or – shawn de-or
Cald – called
Ayner – ay-nere
Onryx – on-rix
Marlès – mar-les
Emera – a-mare-a
Strodela – atro-della
Ayreon – air-ree-u
Prologue
T
he great enchanters of the Continent were the governing bodies for thousands of years, reigning over every natural and unnatural being to exist. The ruling houses kept peace with trade, commerce, and politics while respecting the royal families of each nation. They worked alongside the prosaic’s for prosperity that had never before been achieved.
Everyone benefited from their governing magic–from the minerals in the earth to the creatures that roamed the fields and forests to the peasants and businesses that maintained the cogs of society, all the way to the blue bloods that pocketed the most from those with powers, otherwise known as the Nadir, who kept the negative forces at bay while they built an empire unlike any civilization had seen.
When the prosaic’s became too envious of their sway across the kingdoms and seas, campaigns drifted through the Continent of a revolt. Charismatic leaders wrote and sent out messengers to create an army so immense the promise of significant coin had even the young being signed up to fight.
Despite their powers, The Nadir Wars became a legendary mark in the history of the world, for the prosaic’s won against the enchanters by their sheer numbers and unexpected rebellion amid accord. The bloodshed was prodigious on both sides after nearly a hundred-year-long war. The ruling houses chose to preserve the last of their kind and struck a bargain to spare their small numbers left with the very people they helped become unstoppable forces.
Vérmethia became the undefeated military hierarchy of the Continent and enslaved the Nadir into camps sequestered far from populated towns. The arrangement kept them ready to defend and protect the country and its allies at any moment in exchange for their lives.
But with the immured Nadir, magic was seen as dangerous and therefore banned from being openly used, promoted, or celebrated as it once was for fear of a revolt in the future. The magical creatures of unhuman origin swore blood oats to roam the lands freely without interfering or speaking with prosaic’s, apart from the caveat that they became part of the militia under Vérmethia’s banner.
Most retreated to the forests and mountains, unable to spread their magical aid to the flora and fauna, which retained the balance of enchantment the world had accustomed to. The winning side worried about the repercussions of removing those who curated the spoils of the Continent and releasing the negative forces; however, peace still spread through the lands after the victory.
Six hundred years passed, and the Nadir War was reduced to mere paragraphs in history books. Yet, it continued to be whispered with fear woven into any mention of the term Nadir, for anyone who was found to have powers or was magically inclined was sent off to the camps for lifelong servitude to the crown.
To reveal you were a Nadir meant enslavement till death.
At least, that was what anyone below nobility believed was the case. The tales of the treaty and War had been told throughout generations from the last peasants and commoners to receive instruction before the Nadir War.
Only the nobility were offered it with amended books–the working classes given the old copies, for there were too many to waste by burning. Alas, the arduous schedules of servants and peasants rarely allowed them the time to read, let alone be able to read, for they had not been granted such luxuries as an education for some five hundred years.
Nadirs were still clandestine, but by and by, times seemed to be shifting…
Chapter 1
The Journey
T
he carriages drew closer to the kingdom city, and my dread escalated with it. Any hope that this was all just a dream disappeared from my mind like a sugar stealer in the wind. It was still impossible to fathom that only days ago, I was covered in filth, wearing boys’ clothing, and had been enslaved for the last eight years of my life.
Vérmethia was a realm of pure beauty, lush countryside towns, vast estates owned by its entitled residents, yet surrounded by mountain ranges. It was a strategic land mass, even with the far corner of the nation connected to the Great Thesder Sea, where its port flourished in continental trade.
Its apt location made for an impenetrable fortress for the people of the prospering lands and the safest on the Continent. No enemy could attack without scaling vast mountainsides and then become entirely exposed in the huge barren canyons dug a hundred miles from the nearest civilized town. Not that the country needed such reinforcements with its long-standing weapons just waiting to be of service…but that was not a topic to linger on.
Certainly not anymore.
I couldn't believe I missed the early mornings before dawn, the hours upon hours of hard labor milling rock at the quarry. It had been all I’d known for so long that I couldn't help but feel adrift, exposed, and not just because I was now on my way to becoming a lady of society, forced to wear dresses and pretend to know at all about the fine things in aristocracy.
Unlike so many others at the quarry, I may have had an education and had read and studied the means of gentry and the formal language they spoke with from centuries-old books. However, I was as far from a lady as one could be with my very poor fortune–the figurative kind, though I didn’t have a coin to my name either.
In fact, I had no name to be known, only my given name, Mina.
It begged the same question I couldn’t stop asking myself: How should I, an unnamed commoner, have come to be in this carriage? Why was I even a contender to become a lady? To be presented to high society, the Beau Monde, and have the possibility of becoming a nobleman's wife or whatever they did for these “débutantes” as they were called…
Not many females were employed in the quarries, located so very far on the outskirts of the country, and for good reason. It certainly was not for the faint of heart, and camps filled with the harsher sex could be dangerous. Not to mention, they were perilous by simple rudimentary safety.
However, after being sold to work in the Magnen region at eleven, a wonderful group of boys there had taken me in like a sister. I felt my eyes burn with unshed tears thinking about Rufus, Tillian, Jude, Barnaby, Lex, Giles, Adrian, Flynn...my brothers. No blood relation but the truest of kinship one could possibly have, along with such excellent humor to help all of us get by another day.
I subtly wiped the corner of my eye, refusing to show weakness around these petty pageant queens. Louisa, Viola, and Cecilia sat around me in the carriage, ignoring me as if it were just the three of them. They were as entitled and snobbish as you could find, I was sure of it.
I instantly loathed them when I was brought to the meeting point in Villeroux two nights ago—following nearly a fortnight of travel from Magnen.
I was brought in from the kitchens to avoid being seen in “disapproving apparel,” as my enforcer had called it, and after hours of bathing and horrid grooming, only was I then allowed to enter the pretty drawing room brimming with dozens of girls in empire waist dresses and gossiping behind lace fans, embroidery hoops, and leatherbound books.
I had not had much interaction with the other nine carriages carrying the rest of the débutantes. Still, their sneers and judgmental glances in my direction when I arrived and whenever I happened past them showed me that I was indeed on my own in a pit of corset-wearing snakes.
I shifted uncomfortably in my short stays, having never had to wear them. I’d only ever worn wraps to contain my growing breasts through the years beneath my genderless tunic. I had not donned or seen a dress in a very long time. The only clothing we had at the quarry was identical to signify what we all were: slaves.
The term was a dark mark on my heart.
These girls had beautiful titles and family names, and I…I was just a horrid, slanderous denomination. Nothing more. A pebble, one of countless, unseen, uncared for, as had befallen me for as long as I could remember.
How was I to believe that all those years of dreaming with the lads of being free of the quarry were finally here...and would now be so indescribably lonely? I was free...free from the beatings, poor nourishment, harsh elements, and bone-crushing work...and all I wished was to go back.
To return to my only friends, the only people I trusted with my secret…who knew what I was and could be imprisoned for…the only people I considered family when I had been left all alone in this world when I was just a child…and being alone only allowed the shadows of my past to haunt me thus easier.
One could not have such ill fortunes without fears of the dark, of what awaited me in the blank spaces of my memory. To not remember my life before I was a mere six…yes, shadows and strangers and foreign places were all but fodder to the demons of my nightmares. Too many empty dreams of faceless people, perilous black shapes, the feeling of danger creeping up my spine at every turn…
I put my chin in my hand and watched as the castle grew closer out the glass window, the frilly curtain tied back and swaying against my braided hair. A few centaurs galloped past in the open field with bows and arrows strapped to their armor-clad backs; they were known to work as perimeter patrol for most of the monarchy’s many estates.
I considered for the hundredth time just running away, but the prospect of being out on my own in this country with no money kept me fending off the pack of débutante wolves.
Survival instincts were really all I had in terms of proficiency in anything.
“I cannot believe this commoner is a contender...just look at her slouch,” Cecilia whispered to Viola. I refrained from rolling my eyes. They all seemed to think I had no chance, which was correct of them to assume, yet I couldn’t help but notice how they all actually acted quite intimidated by me.
I couldn’t fathom why.
I was no beauty.
Working in the quarry for nearly a decade had not helped my body grow into a plump, fair, rosy-cheeked maiden. These girls had not once lifted a finger away from a needle for embroidery nor a pianoforte key to play music. They were all nicely filled out, having never had to earn a meal or go to bed hungry like me.
My body wasn’t like theirs and for which I was quite glad. I was thin but strong. I doubted very much any of them could defend themselves as I could. And my height was unusually taller than most girls who wore heeled slippers. I had seen my face very little through the years, but I shouldn’t think any piece of me was worth fawning over, let alone to catch a gentleman's attention.
Beauty would never have been sold to the quarries in the first place, and I was reminded of that frequently when they beat me. No one dared lay a hand on a female of any real means, of that much I was certain.
Besides, when I entered the manor house three days ago, it was easy to see why I would never compare to any of them. Most of these girls had perfect red, blonde, or brown hair; shiny, clean, always curled, and done in elegant hairstyles of today’s fashions. When it was finally washed for the first time in weeks, my hair was nearly black.
Hardly a virtuous color.
The maids of the manor spent nearly an hour brushing it out, washing it over and over until it was smooth and free of knots. Years of wearing it in a braid had not done much to maintain its health, not that it mattered for a slave.
The débutantes surrounding me now had bright blue or warm brown eyes, ideal for batting lashes and wooing suitors. Mine was a mix of green and blue, and I most certainly did not carry a chaste, shy countenance toward anyone. Nothing about me was normal or the standards for socialites, which was why I could not deduce how I ended up here.
When Hugo Laroy, the royal adviser to the northern region of Vérmethia, made his yearly visit to the Magnen quarries to update the ruler of the country on the work, it was absurd that he should have ended up choosing me out of the very slight number of girls who worked the rural canyons. None of us were eye-catching by any means.
Why me?
I had been asking myself this question since he called me forward out of the line of workers nearly three weeks ago.
The man responsible for my new destiny had examined me closely in front of all the boys, the wards accountable for keeping us in line, and his muddy brown eyes did little to warm me to his statement of what he would be doing with me.
I first refused when he told me I would be coming to Chaulôn, the very heart of the kingdom of Vérmethia, to be introduced to society as a lady. All my brothers, the boys I considered my only family, had tried to protest too when I was hauled towards the royal carriage against my will. It was not fair that I should be saved, and they were left to die.
Ever since, it was like being a fish out of water.
Laroy had ordered my hands and feet to be bound after my two attempts to escape during the trip away from Magnen. But it was much worse when I arrived at a house full of socialites. Eating with all of these narcissists and sleeping in a vast room together, I hadn’t closed my eyes much for fear of the foreign place, and people thrust upon me.
All I had ever known was rural life. I was more educated than your average peasant, from the orphanage where I learned to read and write. However, etiquette was quite fleeting after being sold. Fuck, even using utensils again had been a challenge, especially when I was so hungry and ate triple the portions of the rest of the girls.
Everything was new.
Everything was frightening and foreign and unusual.
My mind could not settle, even now. Would I ever see my brothers again? What new path was before me, especially one not of my choosing? Though I certainly had not chosen such a difficult life at Magnen either, I very much doubted it would be easy. Nothing in my life had been easy. I hardly knew the word for the lack of it these last thirteen years I had endured without a home to truly call my own.
Fortune, it would seem, had a grudge against me.
I started when the carriage came to a halt. In my deep musings, I hadn't realized we’d arrived at the perfectly manicured grounds leading up to the castle. I lifted my chin from my gloved hand.
Gloves.
Just another new part of this unusual lifestyle. I was still unaccustomed to wearing them. What was the purpose of lace gloves precisely? They were quite impractical–yet practicality was no longer something I should fret on about, I supposed…
The carriage door opened, and a servant’s white-gloved hand appeared to help us down. I went first, then Louisa, both of us sitting closest to the door. I almost tripped on the hem of my dress and heard the snickers behind me.
“Of course a commoner should struggle to step out of a carriage. It is probably the first she has been in, having no money for one!” Cecelia said with a rude giggle.
Oh, how easily I could knock each of those pretty faces out cold...fuck, how I longed to roughhouse with the lads, brawl on the stone-colored dirt back at camp, shove each other, and practice self-defense with them. Their company was so much simpler and more enjoyable than my same sex.
I feared the days of male companionship were long behind me. In either case, most boys from the quarries went on to become soldiers once they were broken of their deviant behavior and came of age. I hoped my lot would. They were good, kind, loyal boys, and my heart hurt with how terribly I missed them already.
I prayed they were safe and together still…though the knot in my heart would plague me forevermore, never truly knowing.
