ROYAL COLORS When Talis left Mara in the capable hands of the servants at the bathing hall of the Regent’s Inn, he prayed to the Goddess Tolexia to heal the pain and confusion from Mara’s mind. The frenzied look of fury in her eyes as she murdered those sorcerers with such gleeful precision frightened Talis to his core. That was not the Mara he knew and loved, more like the Mara from Vellia under the influence of Princess Minoweth’s dagger and the dark taint of Elder Relech. But weren’t they both gone now? The memory of the hideous, crow-like Elder haunted Talis’s mind, and the effects on her psyche were devastating. Talis was hoping that the Jiserian Empire would be in ruin by now and crumbling under the remnants left behind by Aurellia, but as he surveyed the clean and sumptuous City of Carvina, this was clearly not the case. Their magical might and military power made them just as big of a threat as before the invasion. At every suspicious glance from the guards roaming the city, Talis told himself not to be fooled by the beauty of this place.
