The palace of Luminareth had been grown, not built, and it wanted every visitor to understand the difference.
Myrasyn led them up the last living stair with her fresh crown of braids and her restored dignity, and the moment her foot touched the palace terrace, horns of shaped heartwood sang out across the canopy.
Two full columns of royal guards stood in polished pale armor along the approach, ears high, spears grounded in perfect unison.
"Announcing Her Majesty, Myrasyn, Queen of the Elves!" a herald called from the terrace steps. "And her honored guests! The Son of the First Elf, Beloved of the Requiem, Conqueror of the Continent, Quinlan Elysiar! The Granddaughter of the First Elf and Princess of the Eternal Tree, Rosie Elysiar! Lady Seraphiel and Lady Kaelira of the Holy Son’s family! Head Maiden Isveth of the Faith!"
The herald had clearly been coached, and very recently: no elven registry on the continent contained half of those titles. They weren’t even true, at least as far as conqueror of the continent went. Someone was piling on extra flair for their guest.
And Quinlan knew exactly where the flair had e from. On their way to the palace grounds, Myrasyn had hurriedly pulled a soldier aside without breaking stride, whispered something behind her hand, and sent the woman sprinting ahead like the fate of the realm depended on it.
Mystery solved.
Rosie, perched on the queen’s shoulders with tiny flowers threaded through her curls, waved at the assembled guards, chin lifted, reviewing them like she owned every spear in the column. Several spears dipped out of formation before their owners caught themselves.
Beneath her passenger, Myrasyn was stealing a glance at him. Sideways, quick, gone again, a queen absolutely not checking whether her arrangements had landed, ears angled his way and betraying the entire operation.
Quinlan reached over and patted the Queen of the Elves on her fresh crown of braids, right between his daughter’s dangling feet.
The terrace stopped breathing. A tray rattled somewhere among the maids, one guard’s spear clattered on the ground, and down both columns, discipline fought raw jealousy to a standstill in a hundred elven hearts.
Their queen. Patted. Like a village girl.
"My mother’s descendants truly know how to impress," he grinned.
"T-this much is merely proper hospitality," the queen replied, cheeks blooming, making no attempt whatsoever to escape the hand.
The herald visibly fought for her posure and won by a hair.
The wele that followed involved more bowing staff than Quinlan could count, under a ceiling of woven canopy that filtered the morning into green-gold panes.
Refreshments arrived in the hands of maids who shook exactly as much as the salon stylists had. The Holy Son’s effect on the citizenry had not weakened one bit after stepping through the palace grounds, and word of his walk through the capital had clearly beaten them to the palace.
Then a whole gang of stewards appeared at the queen’s elbow with a stack of scrolls, and the morning’s warmth died a bureaucratic death.
The Queen of the Elves looked at her palace, her canopy ceiling, her assembled staff, and accepted her fate.
"How long will all that important nation business take~?" Seraphiel asked sweetly.
Myrasyn looked at the cheeky elf. The cheeky elf looked back, all innocence.
The queen understood precisely what was being asked.
"...You will likely have a day of free time," she grumbled.
Two sets of elven ears perked at once. Kaelira’s rose in a way she would have denied, and Seraphiel’s practically vibrated.
"However." Myrasyn raised one royal finger. "You are guests of my crown, in my capital, and I refuse to let anything happen to any of you. You will have an escort."
She turned to the guard columns. "Elowen. Step forward."
A guard detached herself from the nearest column and crossed the terrace at parade pace. "Your Majesty."
"You will acpany the Holy Son’s family today. Their safety, their fort, and their satisfaction are your charge. Guard them with your life."
"With my life, Your Majesty." Elowen’s fist pressed harder against her breastplate. She turned and bowed to Quinlan next, deep and precise. "Holy Son. It is the honor of my bloodline."
Quinlan merely nodded back, smiling lightly as he accepted the words.
"Then it’s settled." Myrasyn began peeling Rosie off her shoulders like she was defusing a live bomb, misery already creeping back into her face. A whole day of the dryad princess, lost to policy making.
Rosie, dangling mid-transfer, made her decision.
"Rosie wants to e."
Everything stopped.
"...e?" Myrasyn repeated. "Little one, it’s just paperwork."
"Rosie wants to see how queens do it." The little girl’s eyes were shining with purpose. "Rosie’s roots hold a very large land now... Soon the entire continent. She should learn how ruling works, so she can do it properly and help her Daddy!"
Silence held for a heartbeat.
Then two of the most powerful women of the elven world lit up like sunrise. The queen’s misery evaporated so fast it should have left a sound. Isveth’s hands came together in front of her lips, and a slow, reverent breath left her.
"She wishes to learn governance," the Head Maiden whispered. "The Holy Granddaughter wishes to learn governance at our side."
"We will show you everything," Myrasyn promised, resettling Rosie on her shoulders with the reverence of a coronation. "The lawbook, the ledgers, the petitions..."
"Yaay!"
Quinlan watched his daughter get carried off toward a full day of elven bureaucracy, waving over the queen’s crown braids at him, thrilled about spreadsheets, and elected not to warn her that she’d hate her life five minutes in.
Some lessons you had to forge yourself.
"Daddy!! Rosie will learn everything so Mommy Jasmine can ask her for guidance!"
"Good luck," he called back, and quickly made a solemn prayer for the girl inwardly.
The council doors of living wood swallowed queen, maiden, and princess whole.
...
Elowen had a plan.
She walked half a step ahead of her charges through the palace gardens with her spine straight and her purpose clear, laying it out with the crispness of a morning briefing.
"If you have a location you desire to witness, we shall go there. But if you don’t, I have the perfect itinerary already assembled."
She began listing just like that: "The High Arbors first, while the light is eastern. Then the Weaverbloom district, the finest boutiques and craft-halls in the capital. The forest promenade at midday, and I have taken the liberty of arranging a canopy luncheon-"
"We’re going to the royal smithy," Quinlan interrupted.
Elowen’s itinerary died mid-sentence. Her stride, to her credit, only faltered for half a step. "The... forgive me, Holy Son. The royal smithy?"
"Mm."
"There is no royal smithy in Luminareth. Metalwork is a filthy..." Her eyes moved to Kaelira, caught themselves, and moved back. "The only royal smithy is the dwarven one. In the dwarven capital. Under the mountains."
"That’s the one."
Elowen stopped walking entirely.
"Holy Son. The dwarven capital is a sovereign... Considering the current circumstances, they’ll attack us on sight..." She started over. "The passage of an elven royal escort into dwarven territory requires diplomatic clearance, formal notice, a negotiated route, and by rights several months of..."
"Yeah. That’s why we’re not asking anyone for permission."
Sera patted the guard on the pauldron in passing, sympathetic, and kept strolling with her arm hooked through Quinlan’s. Kaelira, meanwhile, had gone very still on his other side, violet eyes wide and shining.
The royal dwarven smithy. The forges she’d read about under a blanket as a girl, in books that were themselves contraband.
"Quin," she said, quiet and tight, the words clipped short to keep the eagerness from spilling over. "Don’t joke about this. I thought we’d wait for Myrasyn to make the arrangements..."
"I’d never make a joke like that at your expense," he smiled, then added, "I’ve made my own arrangements." He raised the Soul Reaper, and the morning filled with pale fire.
"You prepared?!" Kaelira’s eyes widened. He knew she’d want to visit and he did that for her...?
"[Awaken]."
They came out of the saber itself, moving as if they’d been standing there all along and the world had only now caught up.
Three dwarves in riven war-plate, their edges wrapped in ghostly pale flames, their eyes calm points of the same cold light. The one at their head wore a mander’s mantle over his shattered cuirass, his beard bound in iron rings, a war-axe resting easy across his back.
Elowen’s sword cleared its sheath before her mind caught up with her hand, and then stopped, because her mind had caught up with her hand.
"Master," the mander said. His voice came from somewhere deeper than his chest, gravel over old coals.
"As discussed, I want to see the royal smithy without being attacked."
"Yes, Master."
"This is an invasion," Elowen said faintly, to nobody. "I am escorting an invasion."
"Think of it as a field trip," Quinlan grinned, already following the dead toward the roots of the city.
The entrance lay beneath Luminareth’s oldest quarter, down stairs that wound between roots thicker than towers, where the living wood gave way by degrees to worked stone.
The transition was gradual and then absolute: one turn wrapped in the warm smell of sap and green things, the next standing in cool mineral dark, elven curves surrendering to dwarven angles, the ceiling suddenly carved in interlocking geometric bands that repeated with fanatic precision.
The first ward-door stood where the deep road proper began: a slab of black stone the size of a house wall, its face carved with a single dwarven rune and brimmed with dormant power.
This was the kind of barrier that armies broke themselves against.
Thorgar walked to it and laid his dead hand flat against the rune.
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