Chapter 211: Entering the Elven City
Evan hadn't gone out to greet the arrival — it seemed Heathermere had left him out on purpose, perhaps because he was a necromancer — but from the observation deck, taking in the view, he'd caught the full spectacle regardless.
Just as Evan's gaze fell on the Elf Queen, she in turn sensed someone watching her from a distance. There was no malice in that gaze, and when she turned, her eyes met his squarely, the two of them looking straight at each other across the gulf of space between them. In that single instant, the world went gray before Ladriel's eyes, and a wave of despair rose from somewhere deep within her. Something was wrong — the man was a necromancer. Anger surged up in her chest an instant later.
Before she could even react to it, another feeling rose alongside the anger — a despair so complete it somehow carried hope within it, as though everything were waking from utter stillness. Joy welled up unbidden in her heart, and the anger drained away, leaving only a deep, lingering bewilderment behind.
The moment Evan caught her eyes, his mind went hazy for an instant, and without meaning to, whatever he'd learned about restraint slipped from his control. He sensed her anger without meaning to — and then felt it vanish. In his Sea of Consciousness, light blazed up within that flower on the World Tree, bright as a lit lamp, and Evan drifted beyond himself, his mind settling into a state beyond joy or sorrow.
The instant felt like an eternity, though barely a moment had actually passed before Ladriel looked away. Still, her lapse hadn't gone unnoticed by the guards at her side.
"Your Majesty, is something wrong?" one of her lady attendants asked in a low voice.
"It's nothing. I simply noticed someone rather strange," Ladriel said, her voice carrying only to the attendant's ear, inaudible to anyone else. "Let's not speak of it further — the elders are coming up as well. Let's have a proper look at this Sky City, and see how it compares to the floating isle at our sacred ground of Goling."
Heathermere had turned her head at the same moment the Queen had, catching the scene from the corner of her eye before looking away again. She'd seen the flash of anger cross the Queen's face, followed at once by bewilderment, and it left her puzzled — the reaction between the two of them hadn't seemed normal at all.
No one else had noticed anything out of the ordinary — not even Roland. Heathermere knew the Queen stood at the very peak of Legend, while Evan was merely an Arcanist. Whatever had passed between them, she couldn't guess.
The welcoming ceremony continued, though Evan had already lost interest in it. His gaze drifted instead toward the elves standing at attention in the air. They hadn't moved an inch — a pair of them stationed every twenty cubits, stretching all the way from the ground up to Sky City, standing perfectly still no matter how the wind blew. It was rare enough to see so many skilled elves gathered in one place; any mage could hover in midair, but holding utterly motionless like that, suspended in empty space, would tax even an Arcanist. Yet these elves seemed entirely unbothered by it.
Evan looked again, and a smile crept across his face — he'd startled himself with what he found. Their perfect stillness in midair wasn't their own doing at all. It was the World Tree's doing. Realizing this didn't make him think any less of the elves — if anything, it left him even more astonished at just how powerful the World Tree truly was.
This went well beyond any ordinary ability. Evan turned to Shuang. "Shuang, did you catch that? It's not that these elves are so powerful themselves — it's the World Tree holding them up. Every last bit of force applied just right. It's flawless."
Only then did Shuang really look at the elves hovering in the air, and once she did, she gasped in amazement. "Should I sneak off and go find the World Tree while we're at it?"
"In a bit. Don't rush it — we'll be in the Elven Forest for a while yet, so be careful about everything. I don't want to lose a good helper like you," Evan said.
Shuang went still for a moment. "So the lich does have some conscience in him after all. The other day, haggling with old man Roland, you didn't even help me out — I could've squeezed a few more gems out of him."
"What do you even want with that many gems? They're just crystallized minerals," Evan said, genuinely curious.
"I just like them, that's all. Gems are gorgeous in the sunlight," Shuang said, as though this were self-evident. Evan had nothing to say to that.
Once the ceremony ended, the Elf Queen toured Sky City, then boarded a luxurious airship that descended slowly into the valley below, while the rest of the visiting delegation boarded their own airships and touched down together, entering the elven city.
Evan was among them, Shuang riding on his left shoulder. The elven hosts took a great interest in Shuang, even showering her with little favors — but that generosity extended only to her. The moment they learned Evan was a necromancer, their sympathy for Shuang deepened at once, certain that a necromancer must have used some despicable trick to bind a flower fairy to a contract, leaving her no choice but to follow him around.
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That only made them treat Shuang better still, while their faces soured further toward Evan. He seethed inwardly the whole time, watching Shuang preen with obvious satisfaction, growing more irritated by the minute. Shuang, for her part, couldn't care less — she had Evan figured out completely by now. At worst he'd put on a show of being annoyed, and honestly, that sulking lich expression of his was rather endearing. Had Evan known that was what she actually thought, he probably would have been even angrier.
The elven city was built entirely upon the trees — perhaps because of the World Tree's influence, every tree here had grown to an enormous size, forming three staggered tiers rising one above another. Rope bridges connected tree to tree, winding this way and that in countless turns. The wooden houses were built with real artistry, no two of them alike, yet each one blended naturally into the very tree that held it.
It was a civilization with a flavor all its own. Evan stepped into a coffee shop where the elf running the place was a beautiful woman. She couldn't tell he was a necromancer, let alone that he was a lich — only a handful of people knew the truth of what he was, and not even Heathermere had seen through it. The Elf Queen, for all that she stood at the very peak of Legend, hadn't noticed either. She knew he was a necromancer, and while curious, she hadn't thought an Arcanist-level necromancer worth any closer scrutiny.
Shuang, perched on Evan's shoulder, drew the attention of the elves in the coffee shop once again. They whispered among themselves — apart from their pointed ears, they looked no different from humans, and strikingly handsome besides. Evan hadn't seen a single unattractive elf yet.
"Sir, what can I get for you? We have coffee, tea, cloud wafers, and a specialty of our forest elves — laurel tea," a server dressed in an apron came to the table and asked.
"Two cups of the laurel tea," Evan said. Shuang flew down and settled onto the table.
"One moment, please," the server said. Evan took in the room while he waited — paintings on the walls, delicate specimens of beautiful plants displayed here and there, all of it refined and lovely. The window stood open, green leaves reaching in from outside.
"Morissa, did you go see Hollingburton's Sky City?" A male elf walked in, a bow slung across his back, a handful of arrows in his quiver glowing faintly at the tips — Gale Arrows and Anti-Magic Arrows.
"I've been busy with the shop, haven't had the chance. You went, didn't you? How was it?" Morissa said, already brewing the tea with quick, practiced hands. In no time at all, a cup of deep green liquid was poured and set on the table in a delicate porcelain cup imported from the East — a piece of art in its own right.
Evan took a sip. His sense of taste still hadn't fully returned, though it came close enough to a normal person's by now, and a distinctive fragrance, alive with vitality, rushed down into his stomach.
Across from him, Shuang drew in a breath through the air, and a thin stream of tea rose up out of her cup and shot straight into her mouth — half the cup vanished in an instant, though her belly showed no sign of swelling. She let out a long, satisfied breath. "Good tea. There's real living energy in it too."
Evan had long since grown used to Shuang's way of drinking tea, but the elves found it endlessly fascinating, including the male elf still mid-conversation with Morissa about the floating city hanging in the clouds above, telling her it was now open to visitors — anyone could go up who wanted to, with several great airships shuttling back and forth between the ground and Sky City.
What they were really discussing was part of the trade arrangement between Sky City and the elves. The elves held a great deal of magical material, plant-based reagents especially, many of them quite rare, and the merchants aboard Sky City weren't about to let an opportunity like that slip by — ferrying any elf willing to trade up to Sky City free of charge. That was why, these days, practically any elf could make the trip up.
The male elf invited Morissa to come along with him to Sky City. She hesitated a little. Evan could tell there was some mutual interest between the two of them, though not quite enough yet to call them a couple.
He sat there sipping his tea slowly, gazing out the window, when a small insect fluttered up to the sill — a beetle. None of the elves paid it any mind, but Evan went still, most of his attention fixing on it at once.
There was a faint, almost imperceptible ripple of energy coming off the thing, as though someone had it under control. Evan tried to recall whether elven magic included anything like a bug-summoning spell — it seemed like an obscure niche within their tradition. There was a strand of dark magic among the elves capable of driving small insects to scout and observe, but most elves preferred cleanliness and rarely practiced that kind of magic, and when they did use it, they generally drove butterflies, dragonflies, and other lovely insects rather than something like a beetle.
The little beetle tilted its head, its compound eyes turned toward Evan, watching him in return. Shuang took another sip of tea, then lifted her head and noticed where Evan's gaze had settled — on the windowsill. She turned to look and spotted the beetle too, letting out a small "hm" of surprise. She'd caught it too.
"Wang, is someone controlling it?" she called out.
Her call drew the attention of every elf in the shop, mid-sip of tea or coffee. Morissa spotted the beetle and shouted, "Shailen, you old lecher, still spying on people in here!"
Morissa had a sweet, delicate face, and Evan hadn't expected such a fierce side to her — nothing like the elves of legend. Then again, he reasoned, elves were living creatures too. Who said they all had to be gentle?
The little beetle turned its head, and a faint voice reached Evan's ears alone. "Lich. You interest me. A lich, bold enough to walk into an elven city."
A flash of green flickered in Evan's eyes before settling at once. A smile crossed his face. It seemed the elven kingdom wasn't quite what the legends made it out to be either.
"Who is this Shailen?" Evan asked Morissa.