The road to the City of Nobles—Velentia—was smoother than any I'd traveled. Lined with ancient trees, stone-paved and patrolled by royal guards, it stretched like a silver ribbon through the land.
Velentia was where the blue-blooded resided. The cradle of wealth, politics, and power. Writers, too, if they were lucky—or noble-born.
As my carriage rolled into the city gates, I was struck by its towering ivory walls, the gilded emblems on each arch, and the soldiers clad in mirror-polished armor. The air even smelled different—of roses, waxed marble, and freshly baked pastries.
But underneath the beauty, I could sense it:
Expectation.
Judgment.
Every glance from a passing noble held weight. They saw the crest of the Royal Academy on my pass, and some offered polite nods. Others barely masked their disdain at a commoner walking their roads.
Yet I walked taller.
Because in my satchel was a notebook. And in that notebook were stories—real stories. Of hunger, of hope, of a little girl who stole bread and still believed in kindness.
I checked into an inn on the edge of the central district—too plain for a noble, too fine for a peasant. Just right for a writer like me.
This city may be gold on the outside, I wrote that night, but I want to see what lies beneath the gilded paint. The cracks in the statues. The silence behind the laughter.
Velentia—crown jewel of the kingdom.
To outsiders, it was a paradise carved in white stone and bathed in golden sunlight. Everything glimmered: the towering spires, the glass-roofed opera houses, the cascading fountains that seemed to sing a song of luxury.
But I wasn't here to admire the shine.
I was here to see the shadows beneath it.
My first few days passed with endless invitations. Nobles, curious about the "commoner boy who wrote a best-selling book," sent letters filled with flowery praise, wrapped in satin ribbons.
I visited salons where people spoke in elegant circles—waxing poetic about art and culture, but never lifting a finger for the people living right outside their manicured gardens.
"I adored the symbolism of the fish," said one viscountess, sipping on rosewater tea."Such a clever metaphor. But tell me, Master Ethan—have you ever actually seen a dragon?"
They laughed. I smiled politely. They hadn't realized I was the fish.
During my stay, I wandered beyond the perfumed halls and walled estates. I wanted to see how the nobles truly lived—and more importantly, how they treated others.
It didn't take long to see the cracks.
In the noble district, servants walked with eyes downcast. Street performers were hushed by guards if they drew too much attention. Peasant children were allowed only in the market square, and only to work.
At one estate, I watched as a nobleman tossed a bruised apple at a stable boy.
"You should be grateful," he sneered. "I let your kind breathe the same air."
My fists clenched at my sides.
Later that evening, at a noble banquet, the same man raised a toast to "virtue and compassion." The room erupted in applause.
Hypocrisy walks in velvet shoes, I scribbled in my journal. And no one hears its steps.
Not all nobles were cruel—but few dared speak against the cruelty.
That's when I met Lady Mirien, a quiet woman of about thirty, who ran a private reading circle for noble children. She invited me one afternoon, curious about my journey.
Her estate was modest by Velentian standards, but the warmth in her halls was real.
She served tea to her servants, by hand.
"You see," she said, "not all of us are blind. But many are afraid. If we speak out too loudly, we're cast out—or worse, silenced. Nobility is a theater, Ethan. Everyone wears a mask. Most forget they're wearing it."
She offered to introduce me to more "quiet sympathizers"—nobles who secretly supported education, art, and reform for the lower class.
"If you truly want to write about the heart of this city," she said, her voice soft but urgent, "then you must look in the places no one else dares to."
One evening, I followed a merchant boy through the servant routes—alleys where noble waste met the peasant struggle.
There I saw the Velentia beneath Velentia—a network of underground homes, secret schools for peasant children, doctors who treated the poor at night, funded quietly by unknown noble patrons.
I saw stories.
Real ones.
Of love, of fear, of anger. Of people enduring behind stone walls and golden gates.
And so, I began to write.
"Even in the brightest palace, a shadow follows every step," I wrote."And even in the deepest alley, a candle dares to flicker."
The kingdom unfolded before me like a patchwork quilt—each village, each town stitched with its own color, its own tale.
I traveled by carriage, by horse, and sometimes on foot. The further I went from the capital, the clearer the air felt—and the louder the heartbeat of the real world became.
I didn't just observe.I listened.
In a riverside village called Arselin, I met farmers who sang while they plowed, passing down ancient ballads through voice alone. Their language was slightly different—a local dialect nearly forgotten.
They invited me to a fireside gathering. A gray-haired woman sang a song so hauntingly beautiful, I nearly wept.
"Our fathers sowed stars in the soil,Our mothers kissed light into grain…"
I wrote every word down.I promised her I'd include it in my book.
"Let the world hear us, boy," she whispered. "They've forgotten we exist."
In the mining town of Greymouth, I met men with cracked palms and backs bowed from years underground.The air tasted like dust and metal.
A child no older than ten showed me a crushed helmet belonging to his father, who never came home.
Here, the stories were heavy—gritty and painful.
I didn't write as a storyteller.I wrote as a witness.
Near the edge of the kingdom, in Kareth's Hollow, fear hung in the streets.
A recent border dispute had left scars—homes burned, loved ones lost. And yet, in the charred shell of a church, a young girl recited poetry on a wooden box to a crowd of children.
She didn't smile, but her eyes were fierce.
"Words won't end war," she said to me. "But maybe, just maybe, they'll keep the memory of peace alive."
I nodded and promised to write her poem into the spine of my book.
By the end of two months, my journal was heavy.No longer a book—it was a living archive of tears, laughter, hunger, hope.
I wrote about:
A baker who fed his entire village through a terrible winter, selling every family a loaf for a copper they didn't have.
A blind old man who remembered the last king's reign better than anyone in the palace did.
A boy who dreamed of being a poet, but had never seen paper before.
I had over 300 pages filled with soul.
Back in my rented inn, I looked over the drafts, sketches, and pages.
There was no fantasy. No dragons or kingdoms rising.
Just truth.
And in truth, I found magic.
I titled the book:
"A Kingdom in Ink: Stories Written Between the Stones"
I didn't know if it would win me the prize.
But I knew, without a doubt, that it was the most important thing I had ever written.