Chapter 146 - Sylvarin

Chapter 146: 146 - Sylvarin

They left the mansion shortly after sunrise. Cordelia had a vehicle waiting to take them to the station, and by the time they arrived the city was awake, merchants opening shops while passengers moved toward the structure built around the railway.

Adrien had seen trains in his previous world, and what waited at the platform was familiar enough to recognise and strange enough to hold his attention.

More than a dozen long carriages ran behind a streamlined front engine. Pale metal covered the exterior, broken by dark wood and wide windows, thin lines of mana ran beneath the surface, and large crystals glowed inside the engine. No smoke, no coal, and even standing still the only sound was a low vibration beneath the platform.

"So the entire thing runs on mana?" Adrien asked.

"Mana engines," Amelia said. "The crystals provide most of the energy, and formations distribute it through the train."

Cordelia walked ahead of them. "You’ll have enough time to inspect it. We’re going to be inside for around eight hours."

Their tickets put them in one of the expensive carriages near the front. Instead of rows of cramped seats, the compartment held six wide chairs around two tables, with enormous windows covering most of the walls and room to recline almost flat.

Adrien pushed his suitcase into the storage above them. "This is considered a train seat?"

Cordelia took the chair nearest the aisle. "You’re travelling with two Edevanes and me. Did you expect us to sit in the cheapest carriage?"

Adrien took the seat beside the window. Amelia sat next to him almost immediately. Lucien looked at the remaining places, then at Cordelia, who pointed at the seats opposite without a word, and he sat beside her, leaving Adrien and Amelia together.

Adrien noticed, and so did Amelia. Neither commented.

A few minutes later the train began moving, without the violent pull Adrien remembered from old trains on Earth. Mana ran through the formations beneath the carriage and the vehicle gathered speed so smoothly that the cup of water on their table barely shifted. The city slipped away, and Sylvamir opened around the railway.

Adrien understood at once why Amelia had wanted him to travel this way. The tracks climbed onto pale stone supports, carrying the train above the forests instead of cutting through them, and from the window he could see enormous stretches of green beneath him.

Rivers twisted between the trees, splitting into streams before joining again farther away. Wooden bridges crossed the water below, and villages appeared wherever the forest opened.

Nothing here seemed built by shoving the landscape aside. Roads curved around old trees rather than felling them, houses followed hillsides, and some settlements sat partly over rivers on stone platforms above the water.

"It doesn’t look anything like Valleroy," Adrien said.

Amelia looked out with him. "That’s why I wanted you to see it."

Adrien turned slightly toward her. "So Lucien was right."

Amelia ignored that part. "If we’d used a teleportation port, you’d leave one city and appear in another. You wouldn’t see any of this."

"I think this was the better choice."

Her expression eased. Opposite them, Cordelia looked down at the book she had brought and turned a page without saying anything.

An hour later she announced she wanted to stretch her legs.

Lucien looked toward her. "We’ve barely been moving an hour."

"I know." She stood anyway. "You should come."

Lucien stared at her a moment before working out something Adrien apparently had not, then closed his eyes briefly, stood, and the two of them disappeared toward the dining carriage.

Adrien watched the door shut. "Was there any reason both of them needed to go?"

Amelia looked suspiciously interested in the landscape. "She likes walking."

They stayed alone for almost half an hour, and talk came easily. Amelia pointed out places she recognised, including a mountain range where rare medicinal plants grew and a river running almost all the way to the capital. At one point the train crossed a bridge so high that the water beneath looked like a thin silver thread.

Adrien leaned closer to the glass. "You grew up with this?"

"Not all of it. My family travelled quite a lot, but I spent most of my childhood closer to the capital."

"It makes Valleroy look very flat."

Amelia smiled faintly. "You haven’t even seen the best part yet."

The hours passed without Adrien noticing. Food came to their compartment around midday, and Cordelia had returned with Lucien long before that, though twice more she found reasons for the pair of them to leave together.

By the third time Adrien understood exactly what she was doing and chose not to mention it, and Amelia had plainly reached the same conclusion.

Late in the afternoon the landscape changed again. The railway climbed higher, forests turned into managed woodland cut by roads, canals and larger settlements, and more trains appeared on parallel tracks, some carrying passengers, others hauling enormous freight carriages loaded with materials.

Then the first outer districts appeared, and Amelia straightened beside him. "We’re almost there."

Adrien turned toward the window as the train passed beneath a large arch covered in glowing runes, and the faint noise of the wheels vanished instantly.

"What happened?"

"Sound barrier," Amelia explained. "Every railway entering Sylvarin passes through one. Trains aren’t allowed to make that much noise inside the capital."

Adrien looked impressed despite himself. The railway curved around a hillside, and Sylvarin appeared.

The capital stretched across a vast green valley between distant mountains, larger than any elven city Adrien had seen. Two broad rivers ran almost parallel through it, dividing districts joined by dozens of bridges, with tree-lined avenues following the water.

White stone buildings rose between gardens and plazas, gaining height toward the centre without swallowing the greenery. Mana-powered vehicles moved silently beneath the elevated railway while smaller waterways branched off the rivers.

At the very centre stood the royal castle, enormous. Tall white towers climbed above the city, joined around a central palace overlooking both rivers, silver roofs catching the afternoon light while long terraces descended toward gardens covering the hill beneath.

No impossible trees carried entire districts here, since Sylvarin did not need them. From the elevated railway Adrien could see almost all of it while the train entered the capital in silence, and for several seconds he simply watched.

Amelia looked toward him. "Welcome to Sylvarin."

Adrien kept his eyes on the distant white castle. Sylvamir had already impressed him. Its capital was something else entirely.