This Exciting Life - Chapter 15 READING A BOOK 1

God had given me a book with practical information, but nothing too revealing. More like a short explanation on the continents and their empires and countries.

The world of Amaranth had four seasons just like Earth and just like Earth some places were colder than others, warmer than others and more humid that others. A year was 360 days, one month was 30 days, a day was 24 hours and an hour 60 minutes and so on.

There were two continents. The Arum Continent was officially known as the biggest continent of the two and was populated by all kinds of beings. The other continent was called Lobelia and only a small fraction had been explored so far. It was considered to be the most dangerous place and very little was known about the continent. Those who went there never returned, but it was rumoured that powerful monsters and demons roamed about.

Arum Continent was made up by six empires and a five smaller kingdoms. The six empires were:

The Holy Empire – Capital: The Holy City

The Empire of Light – Capital: The City of Light

The Borage Empire – Capital: The City of Courage

The Northern Empire – Capital: The City of Ice

The Empire of Freedom – Capital: The City of The Free

The Holy Empire was the biggest empire and that went unchallenged for very good reasons. First of all, The Temple of Amaranth was situated in the capital and also the Church of Amaranth Headquarters.

The next biggest empire was The Empire of Light. It was said that the empire was the first of its kind to be created by man alone and without divine support. History said the first emperor had seen a great future for mankind. Hence the name ‘The Empire of Light’ as a beacon of hope, prosperity and enlightenment.

Both empires were ruled by humans and discriminated against none-humans, sometimes to the extreme and especially against mixed-bloods. Though humans considered beasts as lesser beings, they were still thought worthy of being loved by Amaranth, if the beast was of pure blood. Amaranth was after all also their goddess.

On the other hand, pure-blooded beasts saw humans as lesser beings as well and still believed their goddess Amaranth was the legendary beast, the phoenix, who had ascended to heaven. In a distant past, there had been major wars to determine what race the goddess was, but in the end the humans won. As such, her image was that of a beautiful and gracious woman.

But there was one thing they all had in common, the disgust for mixed-bloods.

Each race saw it as a defiling of their holy goddess and branded them as traitors to their kind.

Some were killed, but most of them were enslaved and died as slaves.

Even the smallest empire, The Empire of Freedom where all races aimed to live in harmony with each other, frowned upon mixed-bloods.

My brows furrowed when I read the part about discrimination and enslavement. That kind of obvious disregard for equal rights just didn’t sit well with me, who came from the 21st Century and a different world too.

As for the kingdoms….

Suddenly I heard crying howls and whimper and looked up. The two cubs were thrashing about on the couch and having nightmares. I didn’t need to guess what they were about and got up to stroke their furs and soothe their anxieties.

“Shh shh, it’s okay. You’re safe, you’re safe. Mama’s here and no one’s going to hurt you.”

As soon as they felt my touch and heard my words, they relaxed and snuggled closer to me.