While the whole crew is going from Golden Hook to Ahulia, in a modest house close to the walls in the capital, a family of elves are happily living, it is in fact Piere's family, composed of his wife, his kid and himself. Their modest house is just big enough for the three of them to live peacefully and freely, it is also one of the few houses of the area that survived the king's order of destroying it thanks to Piere who was already working for the king.

The king actually wanted to destroy those small useless houses to build bigger and more expensive ones.

Piere is taking care of his only kid in the living room, he is playing with them when he suddenly hears his wife calling him to give some good or bad news :

-"Honey ! Look ! We've got a message from the King !"

-"What does it say ?" He replies, knowing it won't be something good at all.

-"It says : Dear Piere Iyha, after years and years of working really hard as a royal guard at the palace. I, the king, decided to invite you and your family to the palace so you can be rewarded as deserved, by the way your family will receive something as well. You are invited to come today, at any hour of the day, the food is always ready to be served. Signed : The King"

She reads and immediately changes her voice tone to show that she is extremely happy to read that letter :

-"Isn't it fantastic ? The king, inviting us to the royal palace !"

-"I'm not sure we should go, Ysaline. You know.. The king isn't usually that nice."

Ysaline, Pierre's wife, approaches the guard and sits next to him and their only kid, she sighs a bit before talking again :

-"It would be nice to feast for free and it is said that we will all receive something thanks to your hard work."

After a few minutes trying to convince him, Ysaline finally succeeds, she and the kid will visit the royal palace for the first time of their life, it might also be the only time they can enter the magnificent royal palace. Indeed the king doesn't like to let random people enter the royal buildings. Piere is kind of sceptical about what the king has prepared for them but the only thing he wants is to make his wife and kid happy so that's why he ended up accepting.

A few hours after accepting the king's invitation, Piere and his family are now on their way to the castle, they are walking to it since they can't afford having a horse. By the way, they don’t really mind not having a horse since they are pretty close to everything because there are a lot of shops in the city, the commerce is really good.

So they are now walking in the streets of Ahulia, Piere holding his kid's hand, they are walking next to some library but something is definitely odd. A few guards are gathered around and in the place, after a few seconds observing what is going on in the library Piere is staring at, he sees two guards going out of it with their hands full of books.

He is wondering what is happening, so he just keeps looking at them to see where they are going with those piles of books. The two guards are in fact just walking to a carriage to put the books in it. Piere can hear one of them talking from a distance :

-"Let's get rid of all of it, as the king said."

The other one answers something like what will come next, because Piere can't hear it well since he is walking away :

-"Yeah, no one needs those stupid books. Anyways, let's burn them."

Piere is now silently thinking about this situation :"The king is still burning books ! It has been years. Why is he even doing that ? Why is he taking History and Culture away from his citizens ? That is not fair."

The elf guard is so much focused on his thoughts that he almost misses the place they are supposed to stop so he just gets pulled back by his wife, Ysaline.

By the way Ysaline is a brown haired elf, her skin is light beige, almost white coloured. In her job she fabricates large squares of wool from some sheep she is growing, then she sells it to people making and selling clothes. So after pulling Piere, she quickly explains that he was about to miss the huge royal palace.

Then they finally arrive right in front of the third palace's gate, there are 3 in total, the third one is surrounding the entire place, including the execution place and some other less important buildings, this gate can be entered by anyone but only on day time. The second one is placed a little closer to the royal palace and NOT accessible to the citizens this time, in the area the gate leads to is the place the guards are temporarily living in, there is also a stable for the royal horses and some other random pets. And finally, the first gate is way closer to the royal palace, it is of course the most guarded one.

They are in front of the third gate, he directs his family to a smaller door, one made for people to enter the place but the door is kept by a guard in case a bad intentioned person would intrude the castle. Piere approaches the guard, holding the letter the received from the king, then he talks, not looking really happy and still a bit in his thoughts :

-"The king invited us..."

-"You don't look so happy Piere. Was it your day off ?" Then he takes the piece of paper and inspects it to make sure Piere isn't lying about what he just said. After only a few seconds quickly reading the letter, he gives it back to the short brown haired elf, the latter answers :

-"No it's just that I have a bad feeling about today. The king isn't usually that nice with people."

-"But you are the one directing all of the guards ? Right ? Why would the king not be nice with you and your family" They both casually start to talk.

-"He just never has been nice to anyone in this world. I even wonder if he is nice to his own family, if he has one... Anyways, I just have a bad feeling about today." But Piere doesn't seem to be interested in talking any longer to that guard, so he just walks past him after finishing his last sentence.

Ysaline, really happy to be there, is closely following Piere with their only kid. The elf is watching all around her, it is, as said before, her first time going in the castle. She, in fact, never even attended an execution day because she is always busy working and mostly because she doesn't really like to see people getting killed. Piere thinks the same, that's why he first became a guard, to protect and save people against bad intentioned ones.

They are walking in the first courtyard of the royal palace, Ysaline is looking all around the three of them walking straight to the main entrance of the castle. She sees a huge wooden platform. It is huge enough to welcome a spot to hang people, another to chop the victim's heads off with a really well sharpened axe and a guillotine. Both of those spots are really clean, as if all of the blood was deeply cleaned after each execution, by the way there are not that many public executions so going to one is kind of a special moment in someone's life.

The three people are directly walking to the second door, this one too is kept by a guard, the one keeping the door recognizes Piere from afar so he lets him go in the second courtyard, without questioning about the two others following him. They now end up walking past the place where the guards are living when they have to stay for a few days at the castle, which is quite often. So Ysaline asks :

-"Oh, so that is where you spend your nights when you aren't home for a few days. You know that our home isn't that far from the castle, you could go back home at any time."

Piere turns around and goes next to his wife to hold one of her hands, the guard says :

-"It is not my choice, it is the king's. I have to obey if I do not want to lose that job." While he says that he looks at her face, with a lot of love in his eyes. Anyone can tell that he is deeply and genuinely in love with her.

-"Do you think he'll make us visit some parts of the castle ?"

-"I don't know, we'll see later."