It was all over, but life had to go on.
For the Broken Mountains People, especially those in Golden City, the question of how to go on had suddenly left them at a loss.
Everything familiar around them now felt strange. The streets no longer held finely dressed nobles swaggering about and shoving people aside. In their place were soldiers carrying odd long muskets, men who looked like seasoned fighters.
They looked intimidating, but they were surprisingly easy to talk to. Earlier, Granny Annie had slipped on packed snow in the street, and they had carried her to the Wealth Church for treatment. It had not cost her a penny. When they learned she had no children, they even brought her a sack of grain and coal.
Oh, poor, lucky Granny Annie. Without those strange soldiers, a penniless old woman who could not move would have been found frozen to death in her bed the next day.
Then there was the Golden Palace. In the past, anyone who went near it—or even looked at it too long—might have been beaten by soldiers. Now, people said, the officials from Floating City worked there.
The neighbors were all talking about how their lord was now a Blue Dragon. If they met the Blue Dragon, should they call him "my lord" or "Lord Blue Dragon"? And since the streets were too narrow, would they have to tear down houses so he could crawl around?
The layabouts and their gangs, who used to roam the streets all day making a nuisance of themselves, were gone too. People cheered their disappearance, but it was hard to hate them when they saw the elderly relatives left at home with no one to care for them.
While everyone worried about their future, the officials from Floating City