Sophia set down her silver fork, her gaze lingering for a moment on the small dish of seaweed paste that had been served as a side.
It was a gray-green, salt-bitter, heavily fishy mush — something the Avalonians apparently treated as a staple to fill their stomachs. To Sophia, who had grown accustomed to Mason's flour and mashed potatoes, it was nothing short of an assault on the taste buds.
"Willow."
Sophia's lips parted just slightly, her fingertips tapping the edge of the table in an almost imperceptible rhythm.
"At your service, Your Majesty."
Willow understood immediately. She rose with unhurried elegance.
Under the curious stares of the proprietor and the surrounding tables of diners, Willow slipped out to the carriage waiting at the door.
A moment later, she returned carrying a small, finely crafted wooden pail and a bag of tightly bound silk cloth.
With a gesture from Sophia, Willow assumed command of the tavern's crude little stove.
"If you would kindly step aside."
And just like that, under the proprietor's stunned, slack-jawed gaze, Willow took over the kitchen.
She opened the wooden pail first. Inside was packed the finest lard — white as snow, smooth as jade.
In Avalon, where the only available fat came from the organs of sea fish and carried a pungent fishy reek, this pure land-animal fat — the moment it hit the heat and began to melt — detonated a richness so dense and overwhelming it bordered on violent.
Next, the silk bundle was untied, revealing a supply of premium refined white flour — cultivated in Mason's laboratories and processed through dozens of meticulous grinding stages.
The powder was fine as cloud-stuff, shimmering in the firelight with the enticing luster unique to high-energy carbohydrates.
"Wh... what is this?"
The proprietor's eyes went wide. He barely dared to breathe, terrified of blowing away those precious particles of flour. The Kingdom of Avalon could barely grow any wheat — only a few scrubby, malnourished mixed-grain varieties. Even the grain the old Orr convoys had once traded them was garbage-tier. When had anyone here ever laid eyes on refined white flour like this?
Willow's hands were perfectly steady. She coated fresh sea prawns in a thin, light batter and lowered them into the roiling lard.
Sizzle——!
That was the sound of civilizations colliding.
In this insular little town where cooking meant boiling, steaming, or stewing and nothing else, the Avalonians had never witnessed frying — that supremely extravagant, supremely irresistible culinary technique. When the starch underwent its caramelization reaction under the penetrating heat of the lard, the smell that resulted — a fusion of scorched fat richness and the fragrance of land-grain — detonated like a silent bomb. From the Saltwind Tavern as its epicenter, it swept outward on the damp sea wind and rolled across the entirety of Cape Town.
Five minutes in, the fishermen who had been hurrying along the streets stopped walking.
Ten minutes in, women who had been salting fish set down their salt jars and drifted toward the tavern as though sleepwalking, following the scent.
A quarter of an hour in, the entire entrance of the Saltwind Tavern was packed so tightly not a needle could pass through. Avalon's townsfolk jostled and craned their necks to see inside, every single face wearing the same expression: stunned, desperate hunger.
"Gods above..."
A burly man with a basket of pearls on his back murmured in a daze.
"I can smell it... I can smell the scent of paradise. That's a smell that only exists in dreams!"
Inside the tavern, the atmosphere had gone strangely, completely quiet.
Sophia sat in the seat of honor with perfect composure. The dish Willow had dubbed "Golden Crispy Prawn Fritters" had already been placed on the table.
Golden, shatteringly crisp shells encased tender, juicy prawn meat. Every bite came with a satisfying crunch.
Irene was stuffing pieces into her mouth while peering at the dense, heaving crowd outside the window, mumbling around a mouthful:
"Your Majesty, I think we've been surrounded.
"Look at the proprietor — he's barely managing to keep breathing. His eyeballs are about to fall directly into the oil pot."
Delilah, for her part, kept one hand on her sword hilt. She was equally focused on gnawing through a crispy prawn fritter — but those crimson eyes of hers swept the frenzied crowd outside the window with cold, predatory calm, causing the front row of onlookers to instinctively shrink back and pull their necks in.
Willow stood behind Sophia, gently refilling her tea with quiet grace — as though the cooking display she had just performed, the one that had fundamentally restructured this entire town's understanding of food, had been nothing more than a trivial, offhand gesture.
Hailey had by this point fully descended into some kind of feverish creative state, her mind racing to figure out how to capture this scene in words.
Spring. Cape Town.
Her Majesty deployed the most terrifying technique imaginable: 'Olfactory Dominance.'
She did not subdue anyone through force. Instead, with white flour and crystalline fat, she directly demolished the Avalonians' confidence in their own food culture.
I understand now! Her Majesty is demonstrating Mason's true power. The moment the Avalonians realized that their beloved, treasured seafood can only ascend to the level of a Divine Miracle when wrapped in Her Majesty's starch and fat — they had already, spiritually, become her subjects.
Looking at the tens of thousands of hungry eyes outside that door, I know: this kingdom no longer needs to be conquered by force. What Her Majesty brought was not food. It was a chain called irresistible longing.
Cape Town's scale was genuinely minuscule — a handful of rubble-paved alleyways you could see from end to end with a single glance.
So when that overpowering aroma — ultra-pure lard fused with the scorched fragrance of wheat flour — came billowing out of the Saltwind Tavern's chimney, it didn't linger in the town center. It rode the damp sea wind like an invisible golden wave and swept directly across the entire stretch of scattered rocks where the fishing nets had been spread out to dry.
Out on those rocks, a dozen or so fishermen — their skin weathered to the texture of ancient tree bark by years of sea wind — were straining to haul in heavy nets.
The air should have been, as it always was, a permanent cocktail of bitter salt, rotting seaweed, and the raw fishiness of fresh scales.
But when that thick, nearly-solid wave of fat-richness slammed into their nostrils, the lead fisherman's hauling motion jerked to a dead stop. The coarse rope carved a red line across the callused palm of his hand.
"Wait... did you smell that?"
His clouded eyes went wide. His nostrils worked frantically, as though he were trying to inhale this scent he had never encountered before all the way down into the very bottom of his lungs.
"That smell... no. That cannot be a smell that exists in the mortal world."
"So good... in all my decades of living, I have never smelled anything like it."
The younger fishermen stopped moving too, letting the waves slap against their trouser legs, every one of them staring toward town as though they had been hit with a paralysis hex.
"It's not salty. It's not fishy. This smell... it's warm and rich, like a pile of drying wheat sweating oil."
"Am I hallucinating from going too long without a full meal? I think I can see an enormous, delicious creature running across the sea toward me!"
"Could it be that the Sea God grew tired of eating raw fish and has personally started cooking in a little restaurant?"
In their understanding, the most lavish feast the Kingdom of Avalon could offer was simply more sea salt and more sea fish — rarer seafood, bigger seafood, nothing more. This smell — saturated with the dominant power of the land — was, to them, nothing less than a Divine Miracle on the level of cognition itself.
Several of the weaker-willed fishermen had already abandoned their freshly hauled catch, their eyes glazed, drifting toward town as though their souls had been hooked and dragged along by that scent.
Sophia swallowed the last bite of prawn meat at her leisure and, watching the near-pilgrimage unfolding outside the door, turned her head slightly and gave the proprietor a faint smile.
"Proprietor — what do you think? How do you think goods like these would fare in your Kingdom of Avalon's market?"
The proprietor's already crumbling psychological defenses collapsed entirely in that instant.
The market?!
Forget the market — you could take over the world with this!
"My Lady... honored merchant..."
The proprietor's voice was trembling, barely above a sob.
"That mine of yours... are you perhaps in need of someone to wash dishes? Moving rocks is fine too.
"I — I want to see it for myself. What kind of divine kingdom is it, where gold and silver and white flour lie scattered on the ground?!"
The corner of Sophia's mouth curved into an arc so slight it was almost imperceptible.
"WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?!
"Who in Cape Town is responsible for creating this... this unholy disturbance?! You have disturbed the very peace of the Sea God!"
A rough, imperious voice — one that couldn't quite conceal its own agitation beneath the authority — detonated at the tavern entrance.
Immediately after, a dozen or so guards shoved their way through the crowd, holding rust-spotted spears and wearing crude armor stitched together from polished shells and sea-beast carapaces.
The shell armor looked hard enough at a glance, flickering with a cold, bone-like sheen in the dim firelight — but these guards' footsteps were noticeably unsteady. Anyone with a trained eye could see that even as Avalon's supposedly top-tier "defensive" equipment, it would shatter like porcelain against a black musket's bullet. Its defensive value was nearly nothing.
Two figures strode into the Saltwind Tavern in the guards' wake.
The one in front was a half-elderly man wearing an outdated silk vest, radiating an air of supreme nonchalance — the kind of man whose greatest daily pleasure was picking his teeth behind a chipped and paint-peeling office desk.
This was Cape Town's Mayor.
He had been in the middle of his afternoon nap when that "heavenly" aroma had jolted him awake. In his half-dreaming state, he had briefly imagined he had been transported back to one of the King of Orr's grand banquets.
The other figure was Old Pierre — a great salt merchant who was wealthier even than the King of Avalon himself, and who controlled fully eighty percent of the kingdom's fishermen and salt fields.
His small, cloudy eyes held a sharp, ruthless cunning. Having spent years trading with the Kingdom of Orr for low-grade grain, he understood the true value of fat and starch better than anyone else in Avalon.
"No matter where you've come from, daring to make trouble on my turf—"
Old Pierre roared the words while already making the hand signal to his guards to move in and seize the visitors.
His daily life was comfortable enough. He couldn't afford white flour, but he was content with Orr's trash-grade grain. Still — the moment he crossed the threshold of the main hall and that wall of aroma — built from premium lard and top-grade refined flour — hit him square in the face, the second half of his sentence was stuffed dead by what felt like a fist of cotton wool.
Gulp.
That was not background noise. That was the Mayor's throat — producing a swallow so resonant and clear it was practically an announcement.
That face of his, which normally hung slack with boredom in its permanent expression of detached indifference, was now twitching violently — betrayed completely by the scent of land-grain fragrance and scorched fat.
Old Pierre — who had been mentally calculating what fine to impose on these interlopers — staggered where he stood.
Those sharp little eyes of his went perfectly round in an instant, locked with a death grip onto the bowl of "Golden Crispy Prawn Fritters" — mostly demolished by Daphne and Irene already, but still radiating an alluring, golden-brown glow.
That aroma was not merely the smell of food. It was the accumulated wealth and Order of a thousand years of land civilization.
His hands — roughened from decades of handling coarse sea salt — trembled involuntarily.
As a man who understood the secrets of rulership far better than Avalon's own King, he knew better than anyone: in this barren stretch of coastline where the only currency was sea salt and the smell of fish — whoever controlled food like this could stand up right now and declare a change of power over the entire Kingdom of Avalon.
"This... could this possibly be... the gift of the land that those Orr bastards never once deigned to offer us in trade?"
Old Pierre murmured to himself. That face of his — which had, only moments ago, carried the arrogant confidence of a man above others — was now flooding rapidly with a fawning, near-fanatical adulation.
"This most esteemed proprietress — what miracle could possibly cause this humble establishment to radiate such... such soul-shaking brilliance?"
He pressed forward, his voice dropping to something between reverence and desperation.
"You must be merchants from Orr, surely — or perhaps from...?"
Sophia raised her teacup with unhurried elegance and took a small sip of the concentrated wild berry juice she had brought from the Northern Border.
She wore no Black Rose token at her hip right now. And yet the aura she radiated — that absolute, unruffled composure — had already reduced the packed little tavern to a sacred, reverent silence.
So they've finally arrived.
One who governs people, one who governs money.
In this insular little nation, they are the very apex of power.
And yet in Sophia's eyes, they were dressed worse than the attendants in her own Palace.
Look at that shell armor. It tells you everything about what Orr's monopoly did to this place — turned it into a genuine hermit kingdom.
Sophia looked at Old Pierre's eyes — the ones currently glowing at the oil pot like a man who had spotted sunken treasure — and let a knowing smile pull at the corner of her mouth.
Her assessment of the Kingdom of Avalon quietly climbed another notch.
An enclosed kingdom even more convenient to work with than anticipated — desperately short on carbohydrates and fat.
Since the old King of Orr sealed this place off to control information, then today, This Queen will personally come and illuminate the blind spot on this ocean's map.
"Willow — serve our two distinguished guests a portion of what will eventually become the most basic supplementary meal offered by our... Mason's—"
Sophia caught herself.
"—our Northern Dawn Merchant Company's future menu."
Willow stepped forward with composed grace.
Under the wide, frightened, desperately hopeful stares of the Mayor and the great salt merchant, Willow gently opened the small wooden pail packed with snow-white lard.
That pure, land-animal fat hit the heat and erupted its rich fragrance all over again, exploding through the room.
And then Willow moved.
This time, she did not crack open any new prawns. Instead she took the remaining refined white flour, worked it evenly with water, and rolled it into small, round, plump dough balls.
Sizzle——!
The moment those dough balls tumbled into the lard, the dozen or so shell-armored guards — who had been standing there clinging to their rusty spears, straining to maintain some shred of Avalon's military dignity — simultaneously, in perfect unison, produced a single collective sound:
The sound of an entire squad swallowing saliva.
It was, if anything, more impactful than a volley from a special black musket squad.
Watching those chests inside the shell armor heaving with barely-suppressed hunger, watching Old Pierre's eyes fixed on the flour bag — Hailey had her chin resting on the table, pen tip trembling with excitement as she watched these two men who had entered with such imperious swagger now weeping and eating as though their hearts might break:
Her Majesty deployed the highest tier of silent magic: 'Conquest by Fat.'
In a place that knows only sea salt and the smell of fish, Her Majesty's lard and flour are the gods' own dimensional strike against the ocean.
When the fishermen suspected they were all hallucinating together, when the apex of power in the Kingdom of Avalon capitulated completely — what Her Majesty brought was not food. It was a chain called irresistible longing.
Looking at Lord Pierre's eyes fixed on that flour bag, I would bet anything that if Her Majesty simply nodded, he would hand over the keys to Cape Town on the spot in exchange for a single bucket of that flour.
Though I, Hailey, haven't had much of these fine things myself either — but Her Majesty promised that after this year's harvest, no one will ever go hungry again!
Irene watched Old Pierre's expression — the look of a man who was about to lick the plate clean — and delivered a gleefully vicious follow-up.
She flipped both pink twin-tails back over her shoulders, hopped up onto her chair, and slapped the table with the triumphant delight of a cunning little fox who had just won everything:
"Oh! If it isn't the great salt merchant himself — the man who controls eighty percent of Avalon's fishermen and salt fields!
"Weren't you looking very impressive just a moment ago?
"What's this — our boss's little snack has you thinking it's something out of a divine kingdom?"
She grinned, one small canine tooth flashing.
"Our boss never speaks off the cuff. When she says she has mines at home, she has mines — and not just the shiny golden kind. All kinds of mines. If you keep her happy, even what falls off the sides would be enough to build yourself a brand new stone mansion right here in Cape Town!"
Old Pierre had not a single trace left of the monopoly magnate's swagger. His gaze had settled on Sophia, paying absolutely no attention to this little woman's mockery.
"What is it that you want?" Old Pierre said.
The Mayor, for his part, was less a mayor and more a man who happened to be occupying the mayor's seat — in the entire Kingdom of Avalon, aside from the King himself, Old Pierre was the one who truly held the power of final word.
Sophia set down her teacup. A knowing smile passed through those pale golden pupils.
"Monsieur Pierre — shall we talk about your people? Don't you think the Kingdom of Avalon deserves to say goodbye to that bitter seaweed paste? Wouldn't you like every one of your subjects to have a chance to taste something golden like this?"
Old Pierre looked at Sophia for a long, searching moment.
As a man who had clawed and scrambled his way to the top in the Kingdom of Avalon for decades — its true "shadow king" — he sensed it sharply: the weight this young woman carried, that profound, unshakeable composure in the face of anything, was something no mere mine owner could accumulate. It ran far too deep.
"This place is too noisy. Might I invite the proprietress to step somewhere quieter?
"I have a private reception room."
Old Pierre bent at the waist, and the probing edge in his voice had already transformed into something that was clearly deference.
Old Pierre's reception room was situated inside a stone fortress perched at the edge of the sea cliffs.
The room was furnished with a considerable number of expensive red corals and enormous shells. To those accustomed to Mason Palace's refined confections, this still held a certain novelty.
The dried fruit arranged on the table had obviously endured an extremely long sea voyage before arriving here — cheap fruit, sun-cured to shriveled leather.
The door closed. The room now held only Sophia's party, the grave-faced Old Pierre, and the Mayor, who couldn't seem to keep himself from fidgeting.
"No outsiders now."
Old Pierre came straight to the point, a fox-like shrewdness glittering in those cloudy eyes.
"Someone of your standing crossed those death-trap mountains — not for the sake of selling a few bags of white flour.
"Who are you, really?"
Sophia did not answer directly.
Her slender fingers traced the dry, shriveled fruit husks on the table. A playful arc rested at the corner of her mouth.
"Monsieur Pierre — before we discuss who I am, perhaps we should first discuss your people."
Sophia's voice resonated through the stone chamber — cool, clear, and penetrating.
"Avalonians have all the seafood they could ever eat, and yet your gums bleed for no apparent reason. Your skin ulcerates and refuses to heal. And on long ocean voyages, strong, healthy fishermen weaken and die without explanation.
"You call this the Sea God's curse, don't you?"
Old Pierre and the Mayor went white as sheets in an instant. Old Pierre in particular instinctively reached up to touch his own slightly-loose teeth, and let out a startled cry:
"You — how could you possibly know all of this so precisely?!"
"Irene — would you care to enlighten these two knowledge-deprived souls?"
Sophia's instruction was delivered with easy calm.
Irene had been waiting for exactly this moment.
These hopeless illiterates!
The one and only, world-renowned Chief Great Inventor of Mason has arrived!
She hopped onto her stool, pink twin-tails bouncing merrily, her face wearing the supremely smug expression of someone looking down at a pair of total country bumpkins:
"Heh heh — this is no curse!
"Where we come from, we call this nutritional imbalance.
"You eat nothing but seafood every single day, which means you're lacking the fats and green fruits and vegetables that come from the land. What you're missing is a miraculous substance called Vitamin C!"
Irene was gesticulating vigorously in the air as she spoke.
"Seafood is delicious, yes — but it cannot supply the trace elements needed to maintain your body's acid-base balance. Just one bucket of tart, sweet wild berry juice, paired with Mason's exclusive leafy greens and a proper source of fat, and this so-called 'curse' — under Her Majesty's care — would be nothing more than a mild cold, curable in a matter of days!
"And it's not just Vitamin C. Because so many foods are simply absent from your diet and your ingredients are so monotonously limited, the number of things your bodies are lacking is already enormous."
Old Pierre and the Mayor stared, completely bewildered, as one foreign-sounding term after another fell from Irene's lips — each one landing like a proclamation from another dimension.
That sensation of extreme, total knowledge deficiency made them feel more diminished in Sophia's presence with every passing word.
"Your isolation has left you sitting on a treasure of golden salt while trading your lives away for nothing."
Sophia watched their worldviews visibly crumbling before her, and decided it was time to administer the final, decisive blow in this psychological game.
She leaned back slightly, her spine perfectly straight, her gaze drifting out the window toward the sea.
In that instant, Willow and Irene moved in perfect, unspoken concert.
Willow's expression became solemn. Both hands — as though cradling the most precious sacred object in existence — slowly lifted outward from some invisible starting point.
Irene shed every trace of her usual irreverence, matching Willow's rhythm with a gravity that mirrored her own.
Together, above Sophia's head, the two of them performed a single, silent mime: lifting a fold of silk, withdrawing a crown, and settling it, slowly and reverently, into place.
Their hands held nothing. And yet — in that moment — the sovereign dominance that blazed from Sophia's entire being, and the near-sacred quality of reverence radiating from these two top-tier retainers, caused Old Pierre to blink — and in the flickering confusion of that instant, somehow see it: a crown of absolute authority, blazing with the light of the Black Rose and set with countless stars, descending with absolute certainty onto Sophia's silver hair.
"Hssss——!"
Old Pierre sucked in a sharp, involuntary breath. His pupils shrank to pinpoints.
This ceremony... this hierarchy carved into the very marrow of those who perform it...
She is not a merchant.
No merchant's attendants could ever produce that kind of motion — the motion of those who serve a god.
To have this many people protecting her body, to have a woman who commands truth itself bow her head, to have a handmaiden of such consummate grace perform the rite of coronation...
She is a Queen.
She is the true ruler of that land shrouded in mist to the north — and she has come here in person.
Hailey, huddled in her corner, pressed her pen tip so hard against the paper it nearly tore through:
Secret meeting in Avalon.
Her Majesty has no need of metal and weight to prove her identity. Because her very existence is the most expensive ornament this world has ever produced.
I understand now! Willow-jiejie and Irene-jiejie's virtual coronation was the final lesson given to these two natives — making it clear that to submit to Her Majesty is to receive not only grain, but the salvation of civilization itself.
Looking at Lord Pierre's trembling hands, I know: the balance of power in Avalon has tipped completely.
In the moment Her Majesty indicated the space above her own head, she was pointing not at empty air — but at the Black Rose, which is about to extend its reach across this entire ocean.
"Since both of you now understand — This Queen will speak plainly."
Sophia's tone was steady and even, carrying a decisive weight that allowed no room for argument.
"Avalon needs grain. Mason needs sea products. But Mason's grain does not merely fill stomachs — it will save the lives of your people."
In the stone chamber, the sound of waves crashing against the cliffs rang out with extraordinary clarity.
Old Pierre and the Mayor exchanged a glance — one full of shock and unease. For these two "natives" who had spent the majority of their lives without ever leaving this coastline, the name that had just been spoken was far too foreign.
"Mason...?"
Old Pierre repeated the word haltingly, brow furrowed so tight it could have crushed a fly.
"Please forgive our ignorance, honored Lady. In these misty waters, the only great power we have ever heard of is the one beyond the mountains — the Kingdom of Orr.
"As for Mason — could it be a nation even more distant than Orr? Something from the legendary edge of the horizon?"
The Mayor nodded frantically, cold sweat beading on his forehead and catching the light from his shell armor:
"Yes — and while your grain truly is a divine miracle, the King of Orr is a greedy, violent man. He has always treated us as his personal salt reserves. If we bypassed him to trade with you and Orr's army sealed off the mountain pass — or worse, came marching down that dirt track — our tiny Avalon would be ash in an instant!"
In their minds, Orr was the tallest, most unconquerable mountain in the entire world.
Listening to their fears, Willow — standing behind Sophia — let out a quiet, soft laugh.
The smile was faint, and yet it carried a chill that ran clean through the room: the effortless superiority of someone who has long since left such concerns behind.
"It seems geographic isolation has caused you both to miss some rather... entertaining recent developments."
Willow stepped forward, one fingertip idly smoothing the Black Rose jacquard along her cuff, her voice as casual as if she were discussing last night's weather.
"The so-called Kingdom of Orr was completely and permanently erased from this continent's map several months ago.
"That king's not-particularly-bright head is perhaps still reflecting on its mistakes somewhere at the old execution grounds in the City of Hill."
"It... it disappeared?!"
Old Pierre shot to his feet, nearly knocking his shell-backed chair over.
"But that was Orr — with its armies of thousands and its fortified defensive lines!"
"That place is now called the City of Hill of the Kingdom of Mason."
Willow gave a slight bow, her gaze settling on Sophia's cool, composed silhouette, her tone suffused with an adoration bordering on the sacred.
"When Her Majesty's will descended upon it, that so-called impregnable city was nothing more than a pebble beneath Mason's iron cavalry.
"The greedy, dangerous neighbor you feared? It is now the most obedient tax district in This Queen's Ministry of Internal Affairs.
"You have nothing to worry about."
The stone chamber fell into a silence like death itself.
Old Pierre and the Mayor sat like carved statues, their minds nearly crashing to a halt under the weight of information overload.
"Gods — help us.
"What kind of creature have I been sitting here doing business with?!
"The Kingdom of Orr — the unconquerable mountain that had ruled over us for generations — these women are calling its collapse a trivial little thing that happened a few months ago?!"
In the eyes of the Avalonians, Orr had been a superpower. Their news blockade meant they had no concept of how the outside world had developed — no knowledge that beyond Orr, many other powerful nations existed.
But even in their eyes, Orr had been populous, powerful — more than capable of slaughtering every man, woman, and child in tiny Avalon without breaking a sweat.
And yet it had been crushed this effortlessly by the nation of the girl sitting before them?
What kind of power is this?
They are not merchants who crossed the mountains. They are the masters of war — who leveled an entire kingdom and stopped by here on their way back for a casual incognito visit.
That virtual coronation was not a performance. It was fact.
The girl sitting in front of me personally ended an entire era — and we people living in our corner by the sea didn't even have the standing to have heard her name.
The Mayor simply collapsed straight back into his chair, the shell armor producing a jarring screech of friction.
Where had he ever encountered anything like this? Orr had already been an existence he didn't dare contradict — and it turned out there was a nation this powerful sitting above it all?
The way he looked at Sophia now was no longer the gaze reserved for a "wealthy patron with mines at home." It was the gaze of a man looking at a deity walking in the mortal world — one who held dominion over destruction and rebirth.
Old Pierre, for his part, had set down every last shred of arrogance. He was genuinely remorseful now, even, about the arrogance he had shown earlier.
He rose from his seat and performed, with complete sincerity, the most solemn formal bow in all of Avalon's ancient tradition.
"Your Majesty the Queen.
"If the grain you have described — grain that truly arrives in sufficient quantity, grain that does not leave us displaced and destitute..."
Old Pierre's voice was hoarse, carrying the gravity of a man who has decided to burn his boats.
"I will go and speak with His Majesty the King in person.
"No — I will bring you to him myself.
"In this country, the crown may sit on his head, but the real destiny lies in the hands of whoever can keep the people alive. I will help you persuade His Majesty together — though I suspect his answer is something I need not persuade at all."
Sophia gave a satisfied nod.
"A wise choice.
"Monsieur Pierre — I hope your King possesses the same nose for opportunity that you do."
Daphne quietly shuffled her position and sidled up beside Irene. Both small hands fidgeted with the silk cords on her staff as she lowered her voice, her tone full of bewilderment:
"Irene, I keep thinking... with Her Majesty's authority, if we'd simply flashed the Black Rose token at that checkpoint, or let General Delilah make her grand entrance — the Kingdom of Avalon would probably already be preparing its letter of submission right now, wouldn't it?
"So why did we go through all this trouble, pretending to be merchants with mines at home?
"What exactly is... an incognito visit?"
Delilah — standing nearby — pricked up her ears with the exact same feeling.
That ponytail of hers, still tilted fifteen degrees to the right, gave a slight twitch, her eyes radiating the pure military instinct of someone thinking: why not just flatten the place and be done with it?
This was her thinking too.
Those guards in their shell armor — Delilah alone, with one small squad, could have taken over this entire capital city in half an hour.
Was an incognito visit not making things overly complicated for Her Majesty?
Irene looked at these two companions whose political instincts were approximately zero, and couldn't help letting a fox-like, knowing smile spread across her face.
She dangled her foot in the air with the ease of someone who had all the answers, dropped her voice, and delivered her explanation with the reverent admiration she reserved for her sovereign's deepest calculations:
"Oh, you two just don't get it, do you? This is what you call a civilization thermometer!"
Irene cast a quick, sneaky glance at Sophia — who had her eyes closed in a moment of quiet rest — and pressed on with her lecture.
"Her Majesty isn't just traveling — she's giving the Kingdom of Avalon a full pre-employment medical examination!
"If the people turn out to be decent folk — like today, a little greedy but still respectful enough — Her Majesty is willing to offer them a gentle future: the golden prawn fritters, the snow-white lard, the healing fruit juice. That's called peaceful assimilation.
"But if the people turn out to be brutal savages — if we'd rolled into town and been met with looting, arson, and mouthfuls of filth..."
Irene grinned.
"Hah!
"Then the one sitting here negotiating trade right now wouldn't be Old Pierre — it would be Delilah's longsword, still not quite wiped clean of blood."
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