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Legends & Lore: Talia: Ruler of Secrets | Episode 6
Update: 2024-01-04
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The making of a spy.
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Transcript
00:00:00
Welcome to the country's most exclusive boarding school, Bishop Gray,
00:00:03
where rules mean nothing and money means everything.
00:00:06
Academy is a new scripted podcast that follows Ava Richards, played by HBO's
00:00:10
industry, My Hala Herald, a brilliant scholarship student who has to quickly adapt to her
00:00:15
newfound eat or be eaten world. Her ambitions take hold and her values bend in hopes of becoming
00:00:20
the first scholarship student to make the list. Bishop Gray's all coveted academic top 10,
00:00:25
curated by the headmaster himself. Becoming a chosen one means she's on a path
00:00:29
to big things. After realizing there's no way she'll make the list on her own,
00:00:33
she accepts an invitation to an underground society that promises her one of the 10 coveted spots.
00:00:39
If she bends to their will for her own success, she could have everything she's ever dreamed of,
00:00:43
but at what cost? Ava must navigate a game of high stakes chess and risk throwing it all away
00:00:49
for love. If she makes the right moves, she could be set for life, but one misstep could cost her
00:00:54
everything. Academy takes you into the world of a cutthroat private school where power,
00:00:58
money, and sex collide in a game of life and death. Prime members, you can binge all 10 episodes
00:01:03
of Academy on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Birds of Empire is presented by
00:01:09
HelloFresh. Use code BirdsFree for free breakfast for life at hellofresh.com/birdsfree when breakfast
00:01:16
item per box while subscription is active. Hello listeners, be advised that this show is an
00:01:21
immersive audio experience. It may seem like sounds are coming from the sides or behind you.
00:01:27
Listener discretion is advised as this content is intended for adult audiences only.
00:01:32
Cue code presents Birds of Empire Season 2, created by Jason Liu.
00:01:38
Talia, ruler of secrets.
00:01:46
Talia never thought much about her direction in life. Most rammed nobles were this way and
00:01:56
she was no different at first. Her upbringing was one wrapped in the gauzy memories of comfort,
00:02:04
plentiful food, leisure, strolling the high peak with her mother. A handsome woman with an
00:02:11
aqua line knows she joked made her more suited for life in the branches as a bird.
00:02:16
Maybe that was the first time Talia thought of the other people who surrounded her.
00:02:24
The ones spread like moss or mold in the thick green or the barren wild.
00:02:30
Other people who carried on differently than she. How did they live?
00:02:37
Highland rams rarely descended to the lower reaches. They preferred to stay with their kind,
00:02:44
like metals all sorted by the same shine. Safe, but ever boring.
00:02:52
Her friends moved their mouths to gossip and Talia would do her best to care what was coming out.
00:02:57
She felt like a player and a story troop of life mapped out to fit neatly on a stage,
00:03:04
each moment planned and waiting. But something was calling her at the edges.
00:03:10
When she would go to watch the lowland story troops perform, she would watch the tellers waiting
00:03:17
to go on stage, fascinated by their heavy breathing, waiting for their cue to spring back to life
00:03:26
as this hero or that lover adjusting their costumes, practicing their smile or pushing back a
00:03:33
distracting thought. She wanted to live like that and one day she got the chance. Her father was
00:03:43
a barely tolerated member of the stone council and was routinely sent away on petty errands
00:03:50
or official business. On one such occasion he thought to bring his boy and daughter.
00:03:56
Talia was happy for the change. It was halfway upon her father's mount before he could finish the
00:04:02
proposal. Of course I'll come, Papa. She said it all in one breath and he smiled to hear it.
00:04:10
As they crossed the cloud bridge to touch the edge of the high forest,
00:04:15
she could feel her stomach dropping out, mouth wetting. This was life.
00:04:22
That's what Talia thought as hers was hurling toward a heavy changing.
00:04:28
That day was meaningless to her father, business of little consequence,
00:04:34
passing a crafted message about waterways to the lake stewards of the bears.
00:04:41
He introduced himself to a waiting convoy of their people, bowing his head, exposing
00:04:47
the thin wrinkled reed of his neck and naming himself Antelon Hadrian of the council of stone.
00:04:54
Talia let her body jut from behind the shape of her father's just as he finished.
00:05:00
He introduced her as his darling daughter. She must have been quite bad at hiding her mesmeric
00:05:08
thirst for new things, because all the bears grinned widely, softly at her eagerness.
00:05:14
It was so welcoming and warm, a summer rain in the cool of night. A young river guard hanging
00:05:23
back from the convoy reminded her of a hero and a story that her mother used to tell.
00:05:29
The bears always looked like they could be absorbed at any moment into the earth.
00:05:35
The cloth they wore, their robes of furs were always studded with moss and flowers
00:05:41
and charms and arrows and markings and pouches of this thing or that.
00:05:47
It's like you could never find the edges of their bodies.
00:05:51
They were what you would imagine a whisper would look like if you could see it.
00:05:56
And bursting with life. Their inky hair wild as the glow of their oaken skin,
00:06:04
she wanted to dive headlong into their world. And after her father stopped his ceaseless yammer,
00:06:11
she got her chance, caught up to the young warrior and cast the net of her charm so confidently
00:06:18
that he had no choice but to allow himself to be ensnared.
00:06:22
They agreed to meet again and again and again and each time she did she felt that she grew closer
00:06:32
to the center of the stage no longer awaiting her entrance. Now she was here.
00:06:38
Talia Hadrian, the disinterested Highland girl from the peaks, spent the rest of her days as the
00:06:47
most prolific spy for the people of the water. For years she was able to pass along everything
00:06:54
from trade routes to battle plans to the bears. And during the wars it's hard to know just how
00:07:02
many lives she spared. To her people she was a strange outcast, Alona, who never married,
00:07:09
took too much interest in council, business and gossip. Her disappearance was hardly mentioned
00:07:17
among the nobles as they swapped stories and wool over root tea. She was just the sad reminder of
00:07:25
what happens to the girls on the peak with nothing to live for. To the bears though, she was a hero,
00:07:33
a wife, a mother, and long after her death in green palm, she was even worshiped by some as an
00:07:43
earthly incarnation of Shari, goddess of duality, ruler of secrets. But to the shy river guard on the
00:07:52
back of the convoy on that day, she would always be Talia, the girl who descended from the clouds to
00:08:01
lift up his people with the whispers of her own. Birds of Empire stars Gwendolyn
00:08:11
Briley Strand as the keeper, written and directed by Jason Lu, executive produced by Jason Lu,
00:08:19
Rob Herding, David Henning, and Shen Yin Hu, producer Lawrence Zinelli, co-producer Nick Shanks,
00:08:28
edited and mixed by Will Tendi, original score and composition by Darren Johnson,
00:08:35
music editor Will Tendi, supervising sound effects editor and sound designer Randy Torres,
00:08:42
audio engineering by Ben Milchiv, assistant engineer Alex Chock, casting director Chrisy Ferelli,
00:08:51
script supervisor J. C. Heinz, production legal Christina Bullbrook and Lindsey Keel,
00:08:59
production accounting, pin Chen Lu. This podcast was recorded under a SAG after a collective bargaining
00:09:05
agreement. Birds of Empire is a Q-Code production, sound recording copyright 2023 by Q-Code Media Inc.
00:09:13
Birds of Empire is presented by HelloFresh. Use code BirdsFree for free breakfast for life
00:09:21
at hellofresh.com/birdsfree when breakfast item per box while subscription is active.
00:09:26
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00:10:13
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00:10:19
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