Me... rejected?

Adelaide hadn’t expected such a clean cut. Her thoughts stalled like a sparrow mid-flight, then dropped to the worst possible ground.

“Is it... because the Sacrifice Domain is common here?”

Queen Dreamlan shook her head, the motion light as a leaf in wind. “Please don’t mistake me. We Elves have no limit on lifespan, so a few holders of the Sacrifice Domain still walk this world. But our bodies aren’t built like humans or the Nacha Tribe. We don’t carry spare blood to harvest. Even here, your blood is singular, like a lone star over a dark lake.”

She let a breath slip, a quiet breeze through reeds. “In pure use, if we count your total supply, your blood rivals the Savia Rose itself, a rare treasure set on velvet. But...”

Her sigh brushed the room. Adelaide’s heart, lowered a half millimeter, climbed back to the cliff’s edge.

“But the Savia Rose is far from just a flower. Its worth isn’t only the healing it brings to Elves. The World Tree that nurtures it is the core node of the Sealing Array. And the plucking is, in truth, a once‑in‑a‑century ritual to recharge and mend the Array.”

Adelaide’s brows pinched, a shadow folding over her eyes. She remembered those two Elves saying the harvest would overload the array. “So... the Savia Rose is just a byproduct?”

“Yes.” The queen paused, picking her words like petals. “The problem isn’t the Rose’s value itself. Do you know the title ‘Flower Dancer’?”

Flower Dancer. Adelaide had heard it once, a lantern seen in passing, but knew nothing more. Pretending here was useless. She shook her head.

The queen explained, voice smooth as tea poured over porcelain. “The Flower Dancer is a special honor. The Savia Rose blooms once every hundred years, a festival for us akin to your human new year. During that celebration, candidates must pass three trials of beauty. Then God’s people—permit us the pride—cast their votes. The one most universally deemed beautiful serves as Flower Dancer, and she, with her own hands, plucks the Rose when the festivities end.”

Adelaide frowned, a ripple across a pond. “That sounds like... just a celebration? I mean, if Your Majesty wished...”

She didn’t say the second half—open a back door for me—but Queen Dreamlan heard the unlit line and shook her head at once.

“Forgive me. I’m willing, but I lack the reach. They call me ‘queen,’ yet I only woke from dormancy thirty years ago. I don’t have the power or the mandate to decide the fate of the Savia Rose.”

She lowered her eyes to her cup. The dark tea, like a bronze mirror, held the reflection of a helpless smile at her lip.

“Besides, the Flower Dancer election isn’t just a festival. It spans the entire nation. From newborns to our oldest living generation, every Elf must cast a vote. Right after comes the once‑a‑century Chair election. Tell me—what do you think that means?”

Understanding struck like a bell. Adelaide finally saw why those two Elves had mixed talk of the Flower Dancer with party elections. The conclusion set a stone in her chest.

“...So it’s essentially a nationwide poll before the election?”

“I’m glad I’m speaking with a keen lady.” The queen’s smile held the warmth of a candle. “You’ve got it. In our history, only Bingxia of the Illuin Family won the Flower Dancer’s title and then failed to become Chair. Her beloved wife died the following year, and Bingxia abstained. That’s the sole time the Dancer’s favored family diverged from the winner. Aside from that, the family favored by the Flower Dancer has always won the Chair the next year, without exception.”

Adelaide lowered her gaze and let silence pool.

Steal it? No. Trade her blood? A fantasy sketched on fog. Every path felt walled, Varie’s mockery solid as stone. It looked impossible.

After a long breath, she spoke with a brittle smile. “I was naive. I boasted, and that must’ve been a poor show.”

Queen Dreamlan shook her head again, the motion calm as falling snow. “Don’t say that. You still have a chance at the Savia Rose.”

Adelaide’s head snapped up, shock bright as a struck spark. “But only the Flower Dancer can...”

“Yes. Only the Flower Dancer can claim the Savia Rose. But I never said the Dancer must be an Elf.”

Adelaide blinked, words freezing like frost on glass. She watched the queen lift her cup, blow softly, sip, and only then found her voice.

“Wait. You mean humans can enter the Flower Dancer selection?”

“If I recall correctly,” the queen’s smile curved like a crescent moon, “when I set up the contest, I never limited species. I required only that the candidate be a woman. So yes, Miss Adelaide—if you wish, you can join. In fact, I’d gladly serve as your advisor. I’d help you become the beauty in everyone’s eyes and pluck that Rose, openly and with honor.”

Instead of joy, Adelaide felt the alert string in her chest plucked again, a taut note humming. Help offered so neatly rarely springs from pure goodwill. She narrowed her eyes and met the queen’s gaze.

“Then what price does one pay to hire a ‘queen’ as an advisor?”

She searched for any glint of malice. Queen Dreamlan didn’t look away. She handled the tea set with unhurried grace. When Adelaide’s cup was refilled, she answered.

“As I said, I slept for millennia. I don’t hold a queen’s resources or power today. Rest easy—this is a fair trade. One question for one question. One small favor for one small favor. How does that sound?”

Adelaide didn’t touch the cup, the steam curling like a pale ribbon. “Tempting. But it’s not fair. You already know what I want. I know nothing of your ask. How can I be sure ‘your small favor’ and ‘my small favor’ carry the same consequence?”

“You’re right.” The queen’s tone was as even as a level horizon. “To show my sincerity, I can present my question and request first. If you find them excessive, or beyond your reach, we can end our cooperation at once. No penalties, no strings. Will that do?”

Adelaide let the quiet breathe. After a beat, she raised her cup in a slight salute. “Please go on.”

“Good. Then I’ll begin with a question.”

She waited for Adelaide to finish her sip and set the cup down. Her smile was patient, like sun through leaves.

“Miss Adelaide, you’ve seen ‘that world’ too, haven’t you?”

Now she understood the pause. It was courtesy, a hand offered before a cliff. Even with no tea in her mouth, Adelaide nearly choked on her own breath.

“Cough—sorry. May I ask why you’d bring that up so suddenly?” She forced the air in her chest to settle, like calming a stormed sea.

“Because when I asked what tea you wanted, you answered ‘pu’er’ without thinking. I don’t believe humans in this world have that tea, do they?”

A flicker of shock crossed Adelaide’s face, a candle caught by wind. She knew she was being tested, but she hadn’t expected the test so soon. Panic fluttered—maybe I just heard it during the festival—without realizing her answer had already tied the knot.

Queen Dreamlan chuckled softly, a sound like silk. “You don’t need to hide it, Miss Adelaide. In fact, you can’t. Your accent is too obvious.”

“My... accent?”

“Yes. Haven’t you noticed? Your accent sounds like mine, but differs from most Elves.”

Adelaide’s eyes widened, a dawn creeping over memory. Aside from Queen Dreamlan, every Elf’s Chinese had felt slightly off, a chord just shy of tune. The strangeness was buried under the shock that Elves spoke Chinese at all.

“Please don’t claim you learned it from some desert folk. Your accent is too ‘standard.’ Talent or luck can’t explain that.”

“‘Standard’? By what measure?”

A fair question. If most speakers share a sound, that sound becomes the yardstick. By that logic, she and the queen were the outliers.

Queen Dreamlan only shook her head, calm as a lake before rain. “By God’s measure, Miss Adelaide.”

God...?

The word stalled Adelaide’s thoughts for half a heartbeat. The queen continued, her voice threading facts like beads.

“You must have wondered why we have Elven speech, yet use another language in daily life. The reason’s simple. A sharp blade slays well, but try chopping vegetables with it, and you’ll struggle. We Elves are favored by mana. Even if we use human or Nacha tongues instead of Elven, our talk easily triggers spells by accident. In excitement, a few words can stir a magic storm.”

“So you needed a language... insulated from magic?”

“See, you grasp it at once.” The queen’s praise was light, like a breeze lifting a curtain. “God saw that flaw. To keep us from greeting a friend and flinging them skyward, He gave us a gift. A tongue utterly different from Elven, desert, or Nacha speech. A language not of this world, one that never resonates with mana. That language is ‘Chinese.’”

Chinese. It clicked, pieces aligning like stones in a riverbed.

Since arriving in the Elven realm, threads had begun to weave. The pattern felt smooth—then anger scorched it.

So that petty, prank‑loving ‘God’... is real.

With the guess she’d always believed but never proved now solid, fury surged like fire in dry grass. She didn’t explode. Even so, the teacup in her hand cracked, a thin mouth opening along the porcelain.

The queen saw and lifted a shoulder, a shrug as weightless as drifting ash. She went on.

“This God‑given language lowered the cost of speech, letting our scattered tribes finally join hands. Alongside the tongue, God offered a unified, civil path for cultures that had been split. What you saw in the streets today is that guidance, extended like a road into the horizon. Still, while we strive to follow His teachings, some distortion creeps in during practice. Most Elves’ accents don’t fully match what He taught. In fact, aside from those like me who received His instruction directly, no new generation Elf has reproduced that accent.”

She finished and watched Adelaide, expression poised like a player who knows the board three moves ahead.

“Therefore, since your accent mirrors mine, like two reeds in the same wind, you can proudly claim your pronunciation is ‘standard.’”

At that point, arguing further was pointless, like chasing smoke over a river.

She’d braced herself when she saw those fireworks bloom like brief stars; yet when it was called out, Adelaide still recoiled from admitting the “dream” was real, like swallowing a shard of ice.

Even so, with the die cast, she shut her eyes and drew a slow breath, like the tide gathering before a wave.

“Mmm… I had a ‘dream.’”

“I see. Thank you for answering my question, Miss Adelaide.”

“…Huh?”

Adelaide had steeled herself for relentless questions, like a lid strapped to a boiling pot; yet the Queen seemed satisfied and ready to move on. Panicked, she cut in, “Don’t you want to ask what happened in the ‘dream’?”

“I only wanted to confirm a personal matter,” the Queen said, calm as still water. “I don’t intend to pry into your privacy, so rest easy.”

“May I ask what it was you wanted to confirm?”

“Mm… how to put it.” The Queen thought for a beat, then her lips tilted, like a crescent moon breaking cloud. “White hair, red eyes, and a gift from the gods—I’m sure now. You really are like that annoying fellow.”

Who? The name flickered like a moth at a lantern. A dozen questions fluttered in Adelaide’s head, a tangle of silk threads; but she knew asking would cost her a chance, so she held her tongue like a blade kept sheathed.

“No objections? Then may I take it you accept my terms?”

“That depends on whether what you want is within my power, Your Majesty,” she said, steady as a drawn bow.

“Of course. Don’t worry. It’s simple—just pass on a message.”

“To whom?”

“To the Hero from the Nacha Tribe who came in with you—Varie.”

“…How did you know?”

“I gave her a single-person key that lets her pass the Sealing Array freely,” the Queen said, as if noting the time by the sun. “Naturally I know when she returns. And please don’t tell me you two are unrelated and your timing was pure coincidence.”

Adelaide’s mouth twitched, like a fish caught on a line. She remembered that lioness tilting her nose to the sky, bragging she could slip in and out with ease—so it was connections all along. Next time they met, she’d roast her for it, payback for that little ‘finger trick’ stunt. No—hold on. They knew each other? Then why hadn’t the lioness said a word?

“So, what exactly do you want me to say?” she asked, sifting their ties like sand through fingers, not expecting the answer to fall so cleanly into her palm.

“Tell her this: if she has the chance, please come see me.”

“That’s all? I can’t promise she’ll listen to me.”

“It’s fine. When you tell her, add one more line, and that is—”

—I miss you so much, Varie.