The Grand Scheme

After the brief interlude, the dinner soon officially began. Delicious dishes made from rare ingredients from all over were brought up one after another. In particular, the master chef from Stormveil whom the queen had specially mentioned presented nearly ten famous dishes with strong ancient Storm Dynasty characteristics in a short span of time.

As early as the beginning of the Era of Stars and Moons, when the storm forebears founded their dynasty in the south of The Lands Between, they had upheld the faith in the Elden Ring that originated from the Ancient Dragon Dynasty. Like the dragons, they regarded the Dragon God Hlaris as the god of their race, while also revering the Dragonlord Placidusax as the ancient Elden Lord. The Storm Kings who truly ruled the dynasty merely considered themselves followers of the Dragon God and the Dragonlord.

After the completion of Sky City Farum Azula, known as the "Eternal Beacon," great numbers of Storm Knights followed in the dragons' footsteps and migrated there, where they multiplied generation after generation and remained to this day. As for the Storm Knights who stayed behind in the dynasty, they scattered across the continent after the wars of unification. A small portion were organized by the Ancient Dragon Dynasty and returned to Sky City, while many more became the famous "Banished Knights" of later generations.

Overall, the Ancient Dragon Dynasty and the Storm Dynasty could be said to share the same lineage in faith and culture, and their popular cuisines were much the same. Inviting such a chef showed that the queen had indeed put considerable thought into welcoming Lucia.

The court musicians in the side hall played beautiful melodies throughout. Cups clinked during the meal, and most of what everyone talked about were ordinary amusing anecdotes, making the atmosphere rather harmonious for a while. Before long, Marika drew Lansseax into a conversation about the training of the next group of Ancient Dragon Knights, while Radagon listened patiently at the side, occasionally offering a few suggestions regarding the knights' training plans. Godrick ate alone in sullen silence, while Lucia chatted with Miquella across Malenia.

Perhaps because of Malenia, Miquella seemed to hold considerable goodwill toward Lucia. Unlike the perfectly measured exchange of question and answer he had with Queen Marika, in his conversation with Miquella, Lucia truly felt a kind of relaxed delight akin to being among family and close friends.

Malenia, who sat between them, had instead temporarily abandoned her curiosity about Lucia the instant the food was brought to the table, turning all her attention to dealing with the various exquisite dishes. Her small hands wielded the silver knife and fork with vigorous energy, and before long her cheeks were puffed into round balls by the food.

"Eat slowly. No one's going to steal it from you!" Miquella gently rubbed Malenia's little head.

"Mmph..." Malenia nodded haphazardly. Taking advantage of a pause while swallowing, she quickly glanced at Lucia, then after a little while turned to steal another look before hurriedly acting normal again.

Lucia found it amusing and reached out to stroke her hair as well. "Why do you keep looking at me?"

Malenia looked at him, the expression on her small face shifting. At last, she mustered enough courage to lean over and lower her voice. "Lucia, you..."

"Can you breathe fire?"

Pfft—Lucia coughed violently, nearly spraying out the drink he had just taken.

He wiped his mouth with a napkin, brought his face close to Malenia's, then suddenly wrinkled his nose and raised his brows, putting on a ferocious expression. "I can! Not only can I breathe fire, I eat people too. I especially like eating little girls like you!"

Malenia froze on the spot for a moment.

Just as Lucia thought he had successfully frightened her, she suddenly burst into a giggle, stretched out her intact left hand, patted Lucia on the head, and said with a smile, "Little dragon is so cute!"

Lucia's whole body stiffened. He petrified for a full three seconds before turning away amid Miquella's barely restrained laughter.

Pinching his slightly reddened earlobe, he could not figure it out no matter what. Thinking back to those days when he had clawed his way through The Lands Between, he had seen more grand spectacles than he could count, and the demigod corpses he had cut down were enough to circle the royal capital several times—so how had he still been teased by an eight- or nine-year-old little girl?

The banquet continued for quite some time. Malenia received Miquella's criticism, delivered while he struggled to hold back his laughter, and in the end did not dare provoke Lucia again.

Although Godrick had taken advantage of his old father's absence to occupy a seat of honor for once, eating alone with his head down while no one paid him any attention was far too awkward. Before long, he used fatigue as an excuse to take his leave from the two sovereigns and depart.

Only when the night had grown deep did dinner finally come to an end. Even Malenia set down her knife and fork in satisfaction. Under the queen's guidance, everyone rose and headed to the sitting room in the inner hall to take their seats.

"That administrator you recommended before, the one named Clareville—" the queen said to Lucia with a smile. "I looked over his record last night and remembered that he had served as a court Perfumer in the royal capital some years ago. He is a very fine young man. It was only because a mistake occurred while he was preparing aromatic medicines for the soldiers at the front that he was demoted to Kallen in accordance with the law."

"However, his reputation in the position of Kallen's administrator has been excellent, and this time he was able to break out from amid the rebel army to report the news to you, sparing Kallen from the disaster of collapse. That can also be considered a great contribution. I have already had the formal appointment letter for his promotion to governor sent over. It should arrive within about a week."

"Yes," Radagon replied mildly. "Lucia, we must thank you not only for turning the tide and saving Kallen's twenty thousand citizens from the rebels, but also for uncovering a rare talent for the dynasty."

Lucia gave a polite slight nod and said, "Protecting common civilians is the inborn mission of every demigod. In this matter, there is no distinction of nation or race. As for Governor Clareville—since he is a talent your country personally cultivated, I believe he merely lacked a stage on which to show himself before. Even without this incident, he would have had his time to shine sooner or later. Why should Your Majesties thank me?"

After he finished speaking, Queen Marika fell silent for a moment. Then she sighed as if troubled and supported her smooth, jade-like forehead. "If only that child Godrick had even half your awareness, Lucia, who knows how much worry we would be spared..."

Lucia smiled faintly and did not continue further on the topic.

As early as when he had sent that recommendation letter overnight, he had already anticipated today's situation. Although the struggle between the old and new factions of the Golden Dynasty had shown a trend of intensifying over the years, at the very least for the moment, Queen Marika and the old faction under her still held a firm upper hand. Since the new faction had already controlled the key military town of Kallen for three full years, by emotion and reason alike, it was time to replace them with a member of the old faction.

Under such circumstances, Clareville, who had come from the court Perfumers and had sat in the position of Kallen's administrator for a full five years, earning the deep support of the city's people, undoubtedly had sufficient qualifications. As for the lack of backing and influence—what a joke. Even ignoring the great merit of stabilizing Kallen's turmoil, the recommendation of Lucia, an ancient dragon demigod, was the strongest backing there was.

Although all the high-ranking members of the Golden Dynasty, including the two sovereigns, understood that Lucia had first saved Clareville's life and then done him the favor of raising him up, and that appointing Clareville as governor was no different from directly handing a portion of the dynasty's control over Kallen into the hands of the ancient dragons, since this young demigod had accepted the Golden Dynasty's invitation two weeks ago and given the Queen Eternal more than enough face in the matter of the two nations' great ceremony, no one had the right to quibble over a minor detail like the governorship of a single city, Kallen.

In truth, similar situations were by no means limited to this one person and this one matter. Ever since the Dragon-Tree War ended peacefully and the Golden Dynasty's decades-long wars of unification drew to a close, such trades and balances had frequently appeared in the dealings among Leyndell, Caria, and Sky City.

In this age, when the Erdtree awed the world and the full moon and ancient dragons each held their own domain, the demigods stood at the pinnacle of the world like pillars holding up the sky, while heroes gathered beside their thrones and swore to defend their sovereigns to the death. Thus, The Lands Between displayed an unprecedented balance, stability, and prosperity.

Mortals were born bathed in the radiance of the Erdtree, and after death, under the escort of the Erdtree Guardians, they returned to the Erdtree's embrace. All things moved in cycles, each link interlocking with the next, converging ever toward an unchanging peace and stability. The fundamentalism of the Golden Order was thus given its finest interpretation.

It was foreseeable that as long as there was no earth-shaking change powerful enough to overturn or even destroy this balance, the world would continue to operate in this peaceful state, on and on, forever.