- Keepers of the Crown
- The First King's Oath
- Seat of the Realm
The Solgrave Monarchy
The house rules from a seat it built in the quietest country in the realm, a green river valley of farms and orchards chosen because nothing troubled it. The court that once travelled from hall to hall now stays put, and lords, petitioners and merchants come to it instead.
The monarchy's strength is its oath. Every monarch swears the same words the first king of the house swore: to keep the roads open, the harvests fair and the realm at peace. Nobles who keep faith with the crown find a patient and generous sovereign. Those who break it find that the crown has a long memory.
The oldest noble house in the realm was the first to swear to this crown, and it remains the house closest to the throne. The other great houses respect the crown, compete for its favour and, now and then, test its patience.
Solspire rises out of the patchwork farmland of a broad river valley, east of the main river and inside the tall ridge, and nothing else in the realm looks like it. Its towers are slender and pale, and they twist as they climb, like wheat stalks turning toward the light, until each one flares open into a crown of coloured glass that throws the sunrise across the fields in red, amber and green. High arched bridges run between the towers, green-copper domes sit among them like upturned bells, and the tallest spire carries a great sun-disc of polished bronze that farmers in the far fields tell the hour by. Below the towers the castle steps down in terraces of gardens and fountains, fed by channels cut from the river, until the last terrace wall gives way to hedgerows and barley. It is the grandest seat in the realm. Market carts still roll right up to the lower gates, the court buys its bread from the same bakers as the farmhands, and on a still evening the whole valley can hear the fountains.
- Royal Seat
- Spiral Towers
- Terraced Fountains
- Seat of the Crown
- The Eldest House
- Mist Over the Falls
The Crownvale is the quiet green country where the realm keeps its crown. It lies east of the main river: a long valley of patchwork farmland, orchards and rose hedges, held inside a tall ridge that keeps the weather gentle and the wind soft. The royal castle rises out of its fields in towers of pale stone and coloured glass, and market carts still roll right up to its lower gates.
Above the farmland the country climbs into rolling highlands, where rose-hedged Briarbrook keeps its wide greens, its bread ovens and its slow stream. Past Briarbrook the river pours over the lip of a cliff as the Veil, the great falls, and the Waterweight rides the rock beside them down to Veilmere, a lantern-lit lake town wrapped in spray all year. Beyond the lake, on a high shelf where the grass stays green through the driest summer, the herders of Highfold keep their sheep, their goats and their cheese cellars cut into the hillside.
This is the home country of the oldest noble house in the realm. The Greenwells were stewards of these valleys long before the crown came to them, and their name stands first on the noble rolls. They still walk the lanes on foot, know the baker and the miller by name, and settle quarrels over a garden gate. When the crown went looking for a home, it came here.
Life in the Crownvale is gentle, and its people like it that way. Harvests come in, fairs come round, and courtiers buy their bread from the same bakers as the farmhands. Visitors call it the realm's front parlour: tidy, warm, and always kept ready for company.