The Third City

Far to the north of the imperial territory, jutting out from the crimson alkaline shore of the northern sea and near to the impassable boiling jungles at the world's terminus, stands the ancient city of Rantine. It is called the Third City in official accounts, and, with varying degrees of disdain, 'The Exception' by imperial subjects. To date, it is the only state to have survived White City diplomacy with its political independence intact since the first imperial campaigns of annihilation, nearly three hundred years ago. Rantine is large and populous, and very old. The architecture is quite unlike that found in the White City - the Rantines build in wood as much as stone, and they favour courtyards, one and two-story buildings, shadowed interiors, dark-tinted mirrors, painted walls. It is called the third city because in centuries past it was one of the three peer states that vied for supremacy in the region, alongside what is now the White City, and what was then the Old Capital.…