Circle of Reign by Jacob Cooper

measure the temperature or recession of the glacier’s volume. It had receded, of that much Ehliss was certain. She reminded herself cynically that other areas of study throughout the Realm were focused on more enthusiastically and were provided well-maintained tools and instruments.
    No one cared much for the study of the great Glaciers of Gonfrey, not even most terranists within the Ministry itself. In truth, Ehliss believed that the only reason the Ministry continued to take readings of them was out of tradition. Some argued for the discontinuation of any focus on the northern borders of the Realm save for maybe an expedition every year or two. Even if that notiongained ground and was enacted, Ehliss knew that she would still come to visit the glaciers.
    She had accompanied her father, the former Minister of Terran Studies, many times as a child on his various expeditions and the glaciers were always her favorite. They were beautiful and kind to her. Nonjudgmental. Understanding in all their serenity. Everything most of the world had not been to her. Sometimes she would speak to her mother out here in the great open expanse. The frigid air felt cleansing as the wind howled and somehow she felt closer to the other side, wherever that was. She had overheard her father do the same thing for years after her mother passed away. Ehliss was so young then. Only here, alone and amongst the grand things of the world did she remember what her mother looked like.
    Something caught Ehliss’ attention from above. A large bird of some create was cutting through air and the long streaking clouds that resembled branching spears, the typical cloud formation for the Rising Season. The bird flew at extremely high altitude and faster than she thought was typical for any breed she knew of.
    An eagle?
she wondered. But its size was too great even for the largest cast of that species.
And why is it heading north? There is no game on the glaciers
. Ehliss thought, not for the first time, that there was perhaps something beyond the glaciers and that maybe the eagle, or whatever it was, knew something she did not. It was large enough to carry a person, she observed. Or at least it looked that way to her from so far below. None of the records of the Ministry gave even the slightest hint of anything beyond the glaciers. Many historians theorized that the Hardacheons had come from the north several millennia ago, but that would have been long before the land northward had cycled and entered an isolated ice age.
    Both ecological and weather systems, as well as the terrain itself, varied with stark contrast on their continent. At the northern borders lay a land in an ice age covered in glaciers that most in her profession believed extended in total size larger than the Realm’s borders; to the south was the Schadar, a desert of such intense heatand dry conditions that none could survive there. Well, none but the Kearon, she reminded herself. And the Schadar was expanding, if the reports were true. But, she also knew the glaciers were receding. Slowly, to be sure, but she had found soil so fertile at the edge of the Gonfrey Forest that met the beginning of the glaciers that it rivaled anything she had ever seen in the Realm, even from the Western Province or the plains of the Eastern Province. This soil was where the glaciers had once covered. She wondered if the glaciers had simply shifted instead of receded, but the patterns she took note of did not suggest a glacial shift. She was so excited to report it to Minister Findlay.
    She retrieved her field journal to try and sketch the large bird of perplexing create, but it had escaped her sight and melted into the northern horizon.

EIGHT
    Shane
    Day 3 of 3 rd Rising 407 A.U.
    THE MAN, STARING DOWN AS HE WALKED, made his way through the northern reaches of Calyn on his way to see Lord Banner Therrium. His shoes scuffled against the street that bore no stone, more of a cleared pathway to most of the Realm,