JUST ONE PUFF
The world is called Aurevane.
From afar, Aurevane appears balanced, almost deliberate in its design, as if some patient hand once weighed every landmass and tide before setting them in motion. Two vast supercontinents sit opposite one another, anchoring the planet like rival poles of power, their northernmost and southernmost reaches locked beneath ice that never melts. Yet beyond those frozen crowns, the world softens. Valleys open into greenlands, rivers cut patient paths toward the sea, and forests stretch until they meet stone or shore. Life persists here not because the world is kind, but because it allows people just enough room to endure.
Encircling all of it is the great ocean known as the Cerulean Girdle.
The Cerulean Girdle wraps around Aurevane like a living band of blue, unbroken and restless. Its waters carry warmth from the equator and cold from the poles, shaping climates and cultures alike.
Trade routes crisscross its surface, mapped and remapped by sailors who know that a single misjudged current can cost a ship its future. Storms rise without warning, vanish just as quickly, and leave behind legends that grow larger with every retelling.
The Cerulean Girdle connects the world, but it also reminds it of how small every nation truly is.
Scattered throughout this ocean are island chains and solitary lands, hundreds of them, each claiming independence, each insisting upon its own laws, its own gods, its own right to exist unchallenged. Among these islands, one holds particular significance not because of conquest or empire, but because of balance.
This land is known as the Tri-Crown Isle.
Despite the singular name, the Tri-Crown Isle is not ruled by one banner. It is divided cleanly into three equal nations, each occupying exactly one-third of the island's territory. No crown claims supremacy over the others, and no capital sits higher than its neighbors. The borders are old, drawn after conflicts long forgotten by the common folk but never ignored by those in power. Stone markers still stand along those lines, maintained with almost ritualistic care.
The three nations of the Tri-Crown Isle are independent, sovereign, and wary. They are bound together not by unity, but by necessity. Treaties regulate everything from shared waterways to defensive response times, and alliances are formed with careful language that leaves room for withdrawal. At their best, the three crowns cooperate, trading resources and information to ensure the island's survival. At their worst, they maneuver endlessly, each waiting for the others to falter.
War is avoided not because the crowns trust one another, but because history has proven that when one nation bleeds, the others inevitably follow. The Tri-Crown Isle remains intact because its rulers understand that coexistence, however tense, is preferable to ruin.
This story begins in only one of those nations.
The Kingdom of Colorada'Sierra.
Colorada'Sierra claims the western third of the Tri-Crown Isle, where mountains rise inland and descend toward fertile lowlands before meeting the Cerulean Girdle. The kingdom is often described as beautiful by those who visit and familiar by those who stay. Rolling hills give way to dense forests, vineyards stretch across sunlit slopes, and rivers wind lazily through towns that have learned how to grow without choking themselves.
Nature is generous here. The soil is rich, the seasons are predictable, and the air carries the scent of salt and pine depending on which way the wind blows. Colorada'Sierra is the kind of place where morning light feels earned and dusk settles gently rather than crashing down. It is easy, at first glance, to believe that this is a kingdom untouched by the harsher truths of Aurevane.
That belief does not survive long.
The capital city, San Cordellion, rises near the coast, framed by hills and fed by trade from both sea and land. It is a city built to be lived in rather than admired from afar. Streets are wide enough to breathe, districts blend into one another naturally, and markets hum with the steady rhythm of commerce rather than desperate noise. San Cordellion is clean by most standards, its infrastructure well-maintained, its public spaces inviting.
For many, it is a good city.
Families make homes here without fear of sudden displacement. Craftsmen find steady work. Scholars debate in open courtyards, and musicians perform without needing royal approval. The laws of Colorada'Sierra are strict but consistent, offering citizens a sense of predictability that much of Aurevane lacks. In daylight, San Cordellion feels safe, prosperous, and alive in the way cities are meant to be.
Yet shadows stretch long in this capital.
Organized crime is not hidden in Colorada'Sierra; it is woven into the fabric of daily life. Drug syndicates operate with the same precision as merchant guilds, cultivating, refining, and distributing substances that are officially outlawed and unofficially tolerated. Alchemical narcotics pass through hands both rough and refined, consumed in alleyways and private estates alike.
The kingdom is, by all reasonable measures, overrun.
Enforcement exists, but it is selective. Raids occur often enough to reassure the public, but never deeply enough to disrupt the flow of profit. Arrests are made, sentences handed down, and speeches delivered about moral decay and public safety.
Meanwhile, the syndicates adapt, relocate, and continue as they always have. Everyone knows where the drugs come from. Everyone knows who benefits. Everyone pretends not to notice.
This is the compromise Colorada'Sierra has made. The kingdom remains a good place to live because it has learned how to compartmentalize its problems. Crime is treated as an inevitability rather than a crisis, and as long as it does not spill into open rebellion, it is allowed to exist. For many citizens, this arrangement is acceptable. For others, it is simply the price of stability.
Beneath San Cordellion, quite literally, lies proof of how deeply the kingdom's contradictions run.
Hidden below streets, estates, and even royal grounds is a network of secret tunnels. These passages were carved generations ago for reasons that official histories no longer bother to explain. Some were meant as escape routes during sieges. Others connected places that powerful people preferred to travel between unseen. Over time, many entrances were sealed, their existence reduced to rumor.
A few remain known.
These tunnels are not marked on maps, nor spoken of in public. Knowledge of them is passed quietly within the royal family, treated as inheritance rather than information. To walk these paths without permission would be treason. To walk them with invitation is something else entirely.
Oscar is walking one now, the stone corridor slopes gently, cool beneath his boots, its silence broken only by his steady steps.
He moves without urgency, because urgency would betray him. The faint light along the tunnel's length glints off his yellow eyes, giving them a sharp, almost luminous quality in the dimness. This place does not intimidate him, though he understands exactly how dangerous it is.
He is here because someone wanted him here.
The princess of Colorada'Sierra is not spoken of kindly within her own family. She is too curious, too honest, too willing to look directly at the parts of the kingdom others pretend are not there. Where the royal court values tradition and restraint, she values experience.
Where they uphold appearances, she questions their worth.
It was she who showed Oscar the entrance to these tunnels, laughing softly as if sharing a childhood hiding place rather than a state secret. She did not do it to provoke scandal or rebellion. She did it because she wanted control over something in a life where nearly everything is decided for her.
Among the people of San Cordellion, she is admired quietly and criticized loudly. Within the palace walls, she is the black sheep, indulged just enough to keep her compliant and dismissed whenever she becomes inconvenient. She wears her title lightly, as if aware that it is both armor and cage.
Oscar reaches the agreed meeting point and slows, his thoughts drifting not toward danger, but anticipation. Above him, the capital continues its endless dance of order and chaos, beauty and corruption. Somewhere nearby, courtiers argue policy, merchants haggle prices, and syndicates count their profits.
Down here, none of that matters.
Down here, a princess waits, free from crowns and expectations for a brief moment carved out of stone and secrecy. Tonight is not about politics, alliances, or rebellion. It is about defiance in its smallest, most human form.
In a kingdom burdened by its own contradictions, sometimes the greatest act of resistance is choosing joy.
Oscar adjusts his coat, exhales slowly, and steps deeper into the tunnel, heading toward a meeting that will never be recorded, guided by a princess who refuses to behave, all for the sake of sharing a forbidden indulgence and reminding themselves that even in Aurevane, even in San Cordellion, life can still be claimed—just one puff at a time.