Chapter Text
Come with me…
I want to take you to a distant land…
I want to travel with you to the land of the Five Kingdoms. Here, do you see it? In the confines of the Kingdom of Fantasia… though Fantasy has no limits.
Look at the map. There it is: the Kingdom of Eternal Ice.
It is a cold, inhospitable land, and no one knows its geography well.
Maybe it’s not the best place for a start, but we had to start somewhere.
I can’t tell you everything right now. You will have to trust me. We’ll meet many characters, visit incredible places, discover big secrets.
I’m sure that it will surprise you. Just a bit more patience… Before starting this trip, you’ll need to know certain things.
The first is that, a long time ago, the Kingdom of Eternal Ice was part of a bigger Kingdom, called the Great Kingdom, ruled by a single monarch: the Old King.
He was an incredibly evil magician, and all the subjects of the Kingdom were victims of the cruelty of the king and his men.
Many years before this story starts, one of his knights rebelled. He fought against the Old King, defeated him, and took his place. Because he was a good man, he decided to pardon the life of the tyrant.
This knight, using a spell made by the Old King, put the monarch and his counsellors to sleep. A part of the Old King’s palace separated from the rest, and turned into the Rock of Dreams. The place where the Rock once stood , separated from the Great Kingdom and transformed into an island.
They call it the Errant Isle, and it’s almost a legend, though some sailors in the Sea of Journeys swear they’ve spotted it. But, it’s well known you can’t trust all the stories that sailors tell.
After putting the Old King and his court to sleep, the knight divided the Great Kingdom into five different kingdoms: the Kingdom of Eternal Ice, the Kingdom of Corals, the Kingdom of the Desert, the Kingdom of the Forests, and the Kingdom of the Deep Earth. And he entrusted the rule of these five kingdoms to his five daughters, the Princesses of the Kingdom of Fantasia.
At last, before abandoning the Five Kingdoms, the knight suppressed all magic, for he knew that it had been thanks to magic that the Old King had spread evil into the Great Kingdom.
The knight had never been a true king, but the citizens of the Five Kingdoms called him the Wise King, for all he had done he did for the good of the people.
It’s been several years since the Wise King divided the Great Kingdom, and now his five daughters have grown.
The protagonist of this story is Nives, the daughter that the Wise King confided the Kingdom of Eternal Ice to, the coldest of the Five Kingdoms.
Nives barely remembers her family. She doesn’t remember her mother or her sisters. She only remembers that, when she was very little, her father gave her a box, and he told her that inside it, her future was hidden. Now, the princess keeps that box in a secret spot of Arcandida, the Palace of Ice.
With a bit of luck, you too will uncover what it contains.
But you must be very careful…
Because somebody is planning a way to return to the times of old magic. Someone who sings old songs, studies ancient books, and lives in the Rock of Dreams… though they aren’t sleeping.
Someone who has also grown, and, so they say, has returned to complete their evil plan: unify the Five Kingdoms once again, and awaken the Errant Isle’s court from their slumber.
When you adventure through the icy snow of this story, be prudent, for you’ll be stalked by a million dangers…
Welcome to Arcandida, the Palace of Ice!
- Tea Stilton