"Killa, hey, Killa!"
"We're here, at the capital city of Aur!"
The excited voice of a young man reverberated in the air as the horses trotted slowly towards the gate of the capital of Aur.
Killa paid no attention towards the excited youth, on the contrary he turned towards Weiner.
"The letter said someone will welcome us at the gate and lead us to our temporary residence," he recollected the content of the invitation.
"Seems like the King did not required his guests to directly enter the palace but to wait until the day of the celebration," Weiner said.
"We don't know if the envoys from the other kingdoms are already here or not," Killa commented. "The celebration is only 3 days from today."
"That mean I have a lot of time to explore the city!" Harith chimed in, his eyes were already shining. Killa and Weiner looked at him with ragged expressions, this kid has too much energy!
They had been riding their horses 28 days straight, with ocassional 3 to 5 hours to rest until they reached the border of Aur, and afterwards they slowly made their way to the capital, which took them 5 days. All they want then was to sleep and rest!
As they reached the 15 feets tall gate of the city, they saw a few soldiers guarding in front of the gate at either side, and a young man clad in red was standing in the middle of the gate. He was looking at them, it seems like he had been expecting their arrival and had been waiting until then.
They alighted from their horse as the red figure strode towards them in leisure pace. He wore a polite smile and introduced himself as the prime minister of Aur.
Killa had known that the present king of Aur ascended the throne, and his two companions certainly had became his right and left hand too. One of them became the first rank general who lead the whole division of the soldiers of Aur, while the other one, who, from the information that they collected, became the prime minister. It was rumored that this person was the one who give advices to the king, a man of intelligence and wisdom. In short, he was the one who was responsible behind all the success of the king. However, he never thought that the so - called advisor of the king of Aur would be a man in his 20s. He even looked younger than their first prince.
"It was an honour to us that the king of Aur to personally send his prime minister to welcome us. I am Killa Koval, the prime minister of Liiv. This is the first prince, Weiner Avra, and the fourth prince, Harith Avra." Killa clasped his hand in front of his chest, a sign of greetings in Liiv. Weiner, Harith and the soldiers also did the same hand motions. Abel smiled, he copied the foreign greeting sign effortlessly.
"Aur was honoured to welcome the envoy from Liiv to the capital city. These people will lead all of you to the residence," he said as he directed his right arm to a group of people clad in light blue uniform, all of them had polite smile on their face.
"Please take your time to rest from the long journey. If there's any request from your party, do inform any of these people," Abel continued unhurriedly.
"The celebration at the Palace will take place 3 days from today. The palace will send people to escort you to the palace at that time," Abel finished his speech. "Feel free to explore the capital city of Aur in these 3 days if you're interested."
"Great! I'm looking forward to it!" Harith exclaimed. He liked this big brother in front of him, he was not only good-looking, but had a friendly aura.
If he told this to his big brother and Killa, they would surely call him short-sighted, because in their eyes, this friendly smiling fellow is surely not a simple man!
Abel chuckled at the energetic red haired youth. He stood out with his bright red hair and sparkling face, totally the opposite from the rest, who wear a polite, serious expressions.
"I can recommend some places to you if you want," Abel said, "because if you really want to explore every nook and corner of the capital, I'm afraid 3 days won't be enough." The youth grin widely, showing his white teeth.
The interaction between the two party did not take long as Abel ushered the people in the blue uniform to lead the way for the entourage from Liiv to their temporary residence.
The entourage from Liiv was not big, Killa, Weiner, Harirh, and 15 soldiers, making a total of 18 people. All of them were on horseback, they did not brought any carriage.
Abel glanced at the back of the people, at the red-haired youth, and then his gaze lingered on the oldest man among them who was whispering something to first prince. The Koval family sure stood up to their reputation as one of the oldest noble family in the whole Western Everole.
The Everole continent, even though it comprised of different kingdoms with different royal families and various nobles, but ever since the 1000 years peace agreement by their ancestors, there was this freedom of of citizenship, even though it only applies to the nobles, that they have the right to serve any kingdom of their choice. However, this changing of citizenship could only be done if it was approved by the ruler of the kingdom in which they want to reside under, and this change could only be done once in 50 years.
The family name could only be preserved if the whole clan decided to change their citizenship together, as situation such as a branch of this family who was under kingdom 1 was residing under kingdom 2 was unacceptable. There might exist the freedom of citizenship, but a loyalty to one ruler is unquestionable. Hence, those who wanted to change their citizenship without bringing the whole family will be considered breaking off their ties with the family and creating their own, new family.
Over the years, a lot of nobles changed their citizenship, without the involvement of the whole clan, resulting in the creation of a new noble family, and declining of the main family.
That was one of the reasons why in the present Everole, there were very few noble families who were able to maintain their prestige since centuries ago. The Koval family was one of such families, and they unexpectedly had been loyal to the Liiv kingdom since centuries ago.
Abel touched his chin. The Avra family was the present royal family of Liiv, but it was different 40 years ago. Another interesting fact was that the ancestors of the current Avra family was originally founded in Aur. Even though at the present time the family already vanished long time ago along the turmoil of the kingdom, who knew one of their bloodline actually became a citizen of Liiv, and gave birth to the current royal family of Liiv? Of course, this information was not known by anyone, but for their intelligence team, they managed to secure this fact.
Abel's eyes flashed with unknown glint as he gave some instructions to the soldiers guarding the gate before he turned to leave the place, going to the direction of the palace.