Chapter Twenty: Order of the Tenth Knight

Back then, not much was known about the Tenth Kingdom other than the popularity of Princess Snow White and the gruesome tale that follows from the Ancestral House and the Seven Dwarves. Other versions of it mostly revolve around the beauty and the bountiful harvest of the land, as well as its surrounding majestic hills and green pastures. But a lot have changed after that; the tale has been debunked and history chronicled the rest, and now the Tenth Kingdom is a major power to reckon with, commands a vast majority of armies, Astrologers, and warriors, and an influential founding member of the Commission on Appointments.

But the Tenth Kingdom did not start to be a glorious realm as it is now, and the history books are full of bloody and treacherous tales about the power struggle that has been witnessed by these lands and its surrounding physical, social, and political landscapes. This Kingdom has, in fact, been founded by a person known to be as the Tenth Knight, but it was not very easy for him to claim the land for himself and reign over everything on it in his name.

The Most Excellent Order of the Tenth Knight, the highest order of the Kingdom, was, obviously, named in honor of this first King, during his time as the Tenth Knight, when these lands are still governed by the Council of Knights, culminating in the Battle of Brytanshire (now a major borough in His Majesty's Union) that led to the fall of the subsidiary Knights, and since then after that famous battle has resulted with him being crowned as the rightful King, which effectively dissolved the Council and started the monarchy as we all know it today.

No concrete record has been made about the slow rise of the Tenth Kingdom, or whatever happened during the reign of the past Kings other than the myth of the Ancestral House that is full of wonder and magic (aside from the horrifying tales that involved Princess Snow White eating a poisoned apple). It has always been a mysterious place in the Kingdom, full of wonder and amazement, and since then has been under the custody of the henchmen because of the secrets that the House contained (as well as its gruesome stories), including the mysterious activity therein that propelled the Kingdom in its glorious, esteemed place.

Now, as the Kingdom is preparing to celebrate the 3,001st Anniversary of the Order of the Tenth Knight, turmoil is threatening the status quo in the Commission and the appointed powers. The present King knows everything about this peril, so he is planning a meeting with his current Union to try and salvage any way to prevent the escalation of tension that has been brewing earlier on at the onset of the crisis. He wanted to make sure that any attempt to break into The Ancestral House has nothing to do with the current tensions in the District of Peace, and that a diplomatic solution will be reached with the South Kingdom's opposition against the current Union customs rules.

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