Chapter 135: Three Things
Following a winding, cobblestone pathway lined with lush, fragrant winter blossoms for approximately a hundred strides, Lucia's eyes isolated the slender, graceful silhouette standing in the quiet distance.
On this night, Queen Marika was draped in a sweeping gown woven from pure black brocade. The heavy silk hem of her dress fluttered subtly in the gentle evening breeze, its tone as deep and lightless as the void of midnight. In striking contrast, her bare arms shone as pale and flawless as pure white jade. Across this watch, her fingers held a pair of exquisite mithril pruning shears, carefully trimming the stray twigs and leaves of an ancient, gnarled tree dominating the center of the bower.
"Your boots have arrived?" the Queen chuckled softly, her cadence as clear, melodious, and soothing as a mountain spring flowing over smooth stones.
"My greetings to Your Majesty," Lucia spoke, offering a subtle, disciplined court bow, his countenance remaining entirely calm.
Having navigated so many volatile storms and high-fatality crises across the past six moons—the absolute majority of which were macro-level structural shifts his own hand had actively engineered—he no longer registered that cold, uncertain anxiety that had gripped his heart when his feet initial cleared the capital toll gates, even when standing before the undisputed ruler of the world a secondary time.
Upon that vast, world-encompassing chessboard that had once seemed to obscure the very heavens, his divinity might still lack the absolute leverage to engage the Queen as an entirely equal player across every lane, yet his standing had permanently desisted from functioning as a disposable pawn conformed to be manipulated at the caprice of alternate scepters.
"Pray, settle your frame wherever your comfort dictates."
The Queen turned her posture around, casually tucking the mithril shears into a thick, creeping vine entwined around the tree trunk, before gesturing for Lucia to join her at a smooth, polished stone table resting within the center of the courtyard.
Once both sovereigns were seated, she casually lifted a wooden flagon from the table that appeared to have been meticulously carved from the hollowed heart of an ancient, sacred tree. The vessel tilted subtly across the air, and a rich, amber stream of fragrant, spiced wine poured smoothly into the silver chalices below. With a light, effortless flick of her pale fingers, an invisible, fluid current of divine mana lifted the two filled cups, depositing them softly onto the stone surface before their respective stations.
Queen Marika offered a serene smile, her voice light. "This defines a delicate fruit wine my own hands brewed using the rare, sweet harvests gathered from various secluded bowers across this garden. Operating at your current lifecycle, a single chalice should present zero complications to your constitution, correct?"
"Your Majesty honors my presence entirely too much," Lucia responded, a soft shake weaving through his head as a subtle smile parted his lips. He lifted his chalice toward her station in a silent, respectful toast, before tilting his head back to smoothly drain the sweet, amber fluid in a single, disciplined swig.
The true biological age governing the Ancient Dragon race could mathematically never be calculated simply by counting the suns that had passed since their shells fractured. Her teasing commentary referencing Lucia's youth operated in functional reality as a subtle, diplomatic inquiry—querying whether his scepter currently possessed the absolute, non-negotiable authority required to fully represent the High Citadel of Farum Azula across these high-court proceedings.
However, both sovereigns possessed a flawless comprehension of the reality proving that since it was explicitly Lucia himself who had cleared the gates to enter the Eternal Palace on this night—rather than Sister Lansseax—there manifested zero structural requirement for the Queen to question his standing. Instead, her vocabulary served merely as a light, courtly prelude to soften the atmosphere before the storm.
"Pray, hand-deliver your judgment... how does the blend settle upon your palate?" The Queen tilted her head subtly, her brilliant blue eyes fixing onto his countenance with an expectant, amused warmth.
"Sweet, yet exceptionally crisp; intensely fragrant, yet entirely devoid of heavy, clouding intoxication. Both the raw, sacred ingredients themselves and Your Majesty's personal brewing methodology score as utterly breathtaking."
Lucia offered an un-reserved, high-tier praise, before allowing a minor frown of calculated confusion to cross his brow, his eyes scanning the lush foliage. "Speaking of the environment... the calendar clearly verifies the world occupies the absolute dead of winter, yet this bower remains so vibrant, warm, and bursting with life, looking exactly like a sun-dappled spring meadow. Does this sanctuary flourish as the direct result of Your Majesty continuously maintaining a high-tier Sacred Life Barrier across the stone?"
On the opposing flank of the table, the Queen unleashed a soft, melodious burst of light laughter, a casual wave of her hand dismissing the concept. "The high incantations of the faith are indeed remarkably convenient regarding the rapid revitalization of withered flora and the hand-delivery of divine blessings; however, maintaining a total life barrier over a spatial footprint of this density across long-term cycles would demand a massive, continuous expenditure of divine mana—an exercise that would score as thoroughly counter-productive across any ledger. What your eyes are monitoring defines simply the structural operation of several permanent, subterranean arcane arrays engineered to regulate local temperature and atmospheric moisture. By manually controlling those environmental metrics, the chill of winter is seamlessly transmuted into the warmth of spring. Where arises the necessity to expend a single thread of my high divine arts?"
Lucia's cognitive engines stirred subtly upon absorbing her explanation. Utilizing his acute spiritual perception and heightened draconic senses, his mind had long since decoded the faint, continuous circulation of glintstone mana undulating through the subterranean bedrock beneath the garden. He had intentionally wove the inquiry explicitly to test Queen Marika's authentic, un-veiled perspective regarding the functional relationship separating the sacred incantations of the Erdtree and the two major schools of sorcery.
The Queen's response emerged as profoundly, unexpectedly pragmatic. Her vocabulary had literally categorized the long-term deployment of divine incantations for minor environmental tasks as "a waste of divine power that fails to balance the cost." If such a transactional statement had cleared the throat of a senior scholar hailing from the Grand Academy of Raya Lucaria, it would have scored as entirely standard courtly rhetoric; yet, by what logic did a living God—the supreme vessel who commanded the absolute essence of the Elden Ring and utilized the totality of The Lands Between as her personal reservoir of divine authority—release such a secular, economical opinion?
To her divinity, creating and maintaining a life barrier covering a garden of this scale would demand an effort no greater than a light snap of her fingers, correct?
This striking, ideological contradiction separating her high divine status and her mundane, functional methods once again reinforced the profound, unsettling contrast dividing the Queen's cold divinity and her mortal-like humanity.
Across the stone, the Queen had just finalized sipping the remaining fruit wine from her silver chalice. She narrowed her brilliant blue eyes, her features mapping a moment of quiet, near-intoxicated satisfaction, before softly setting the cup back onto the marble, her baritone dropping into a relaxed cadence. "It registers as an exceptionally rare privilege to harvest a few brief suns of uninterrupted leisure across the entire cycle of the year. Whether turning our focus to the high peerage lounging within their gilded salons or evaluating the common weavers treading the lower streets, the arrival of the New Year constitutes a splendid window to execute a rest."
"Nevertheless—" She cast a sharp, half-smiling glance that held a subtle, dangerous glint to monitor Lucia's posture, "four sovereign demigods have mysteriously, violently materialized to disrupt the brackets of this winter's Battle Festival. My intellect queries whether my subjects ought to register an immense honor regarding the unexpected presence of so many royal champions, or record a profound frustration following the sudden, chaotic cancellation of their beloved tournament?"
In structural reality, the situation across the metropolis rose vastly more chaotic than a basic feeling of helpless frustration; the absolute totality of the capital ring was actively teetering on the edge of a massive civil upheaval. Under the swift, panic-driven containment protocols executed by Earl Loshil and the Arena Association, the public viewers had been completely blocked from auditing the cinematic, high-fatality skirmishes involving the royal demigods down in the dark. Following the catastrophic disruption within the central drainage channels, the grand festival—which had legally been scheduled to continue its matches until the dawn watch of January first—was abruptly, prematurely terminated two days ahead of the calendar. The Association had hurriedly, clumsily declared the mercenary warband holding the highest points as the arbitrary champion, bringing the continental spectacle to a sudden, highly suspicious closure.
The martial citizens of Leyndell had historically fanatically revered raw bravery and martial honor above all else; having been so glaringly, insultingly deceived by the Association's editorial manipulations across this watch, their hot-blooded nature was mathematically guaranteed to reject the outcome. It was strictly because the Golden Temple and the Upper District sat positioned so far removed from the lower residential sectors that the incessant, roaring chaos erupting across the lower plazas failed to reach these quiet bowers. The massive, long-established arena franchises possessed the private security to manage the enraged crowds, but un-counted dozens of smaller, independent betting houses were actively being violently overturned by the furious Golden People across the night.
"Your Majesty," Lucia spoke, his cadence dropping into a flat, un-shakable, and crystal-clear frequency as his silver-blue eyes locked directly onto the Queen's un-blinking blue gaze, "my scepter will unequivocally hand-deliver a completely satisfactory, non-negotiable accounting targeting the events that unfolded down the channels tonight. However... parallel to that report, my divinity concurrently demands a clear, un-varnished explanation from Your Majesty's throne, and—operating explicitly on behalf of the High Citadel of Farum Azula—my scepter intends to present a formal diplomatic proposal to your scepter."
"An accounting... an explanation... and a proposal?" The Queen blinked her long eyelashes, a faint, deeply intriguing smile curving the corners of her lips. "Profoundly fascinating. Un-roll the ledger to my face."
Lucia smoothly flipped his gauntlet, his palm facing the sky. Instantly, a delicate, glowing arcane circle materialized in mid-air, radiating a brilliant, azure glintstone light. Three distinct streams of fluid mana shot forth from the center of the array, rapidly condensing their energetic signatures to materialize three physical objects that landed with a soft, metallic thud onto the surface of the stone table. This specific class of spatial storage magic, which seamlessly incorporated the foundational principles of spatial compression, constituted one of the most basic functional disciplines taught within the introductory curricula of the Royal Private Academy.
Queen Marika's gaze drifted downward to focus on the marble surface, where the three physical items sat aligned in a precise, un-breaking row—
The initial item defined a magnificent, highly ornate scrying badge forged in the unmistakable, intricate aesthetic style governing the Carian Royal Family, its silver face deeply inlaid with dozens of high-purity glintstones of various geometric dimensions.
The secondary item comprised a thick, long bone spike covered in razor-sharp, flesh-ripping serrations, its ivory surface heavily encrusted with dark, dried, and ancient crimson stains—within the porous structure of which one could faintly, unmistakably decode the lingering traces of a binding blood-magic array.
The terminal item was a heavily shattered, horn-ringed brass mask, forged from what appeared to be the skeletal remains of an ancient, accursed beast, its jagged edges crowned with protruding Omen horns. The broken lower jaw section was intricately etched with a distorted, leering smile that, when the mind filled in the missing fragments, projected an intensely creepy, sub-human, and thoroughly nauseating sensation across the air.
The Queen's serene, immortal expression hardened for a microscopic fraction of a second—yet her internal composure re-mastered its baseline so rapidly that Lucia almost simulated the delusion that the brief, volatile emotional fluctuation had been a mere optical trick of the moonlight filtering through the leaves.
She released a long, soft, and profoundly quiet sigh that dissolved into the fragrant air, slowly lifting her gaze to meet the eyes of the silver-haired Ancient Dragon Prince fronting her table. The gentle, mock-maternal warmth that had previously lingered within her eyes completely, systematically evaporated, replaced by an unprecedented, cold, and world-shattering seriousness as her voice dropped into an absolute register:
"So... these three physical items format the absolute totality of the three matters your tongue came to deliver?"