“Impossible… The cycle of life and death is a law etched into the stars; no one can rewrite it, no matter their crown or creed. The dead of the Sprite kind are cut from the world, like a Collapse Point struck to shards, with no seed of return.” The Queen didn’t mean to crush them, but she feared obsession would coil around them like ivy.
She’d seen too many humans chase immortality like moths to a lantern, trying to stretch life and twist cause and effect like reeds against a flood. That promise is the sweetest lure, a mirage on hot sand—immortality, and return from death.
“But…” The Queen’s tone turned like a wind shifting over a lake. “In the old tales, the Wind Sprite was born between the Ancestor Master’s Divine Lance, drinking the essence of sun and moon before touching earth and becoming immortal.
If we can find that legendary Divine Lance, like a needle of lightning in a storm…”
Eyes flashed bright as noon on fresh snow, and Medith slapped her thigh, awakening like a bell ringing through fog. “Right—like a lantern flaring at dusk! How did I forget that?
Since the Divine Stone is real, the Ancestor Master must have been real too—otherwise where would the roots of the legend come from?
Book of Gods, Divine Stone, Divine Child, Heavenly Edge—they’re solid as mountains before us! One day, when we reach the Void of Truth, we can bring Melia back from night to dawn!”
Sss—A dizzy wave washed their minds, then joy burst like a flock taking wing.
“Great news, like spring breaking ice—Melia can be saved!”
“Great… Sister Mel… do you hear? We found a way to save you…” Tears ran from Rita like rain on warm stone. A breeze brushed by, and the hyacinth tilted, as if the field itself answered.
“But… it’s only possible in theory, a bridge sketched in mist; no one can guarantee—”
“No matter what, I’ll try.” Medith cut in like a blade of wind. “Melia died because I chose wrong, like steering a boat onto hidden reefs. I’ll spend my whole life, burn it like lamp oil, to mend this break.”
The Queen sighed, a wind through reeds; no one in the world could shake Medith’s resolve, so she could only let it be like water finding its level.
“That means another cross on my back, another stone in my pack… right, Melia…” Medith smiled at the brand on her right hand, a coal glowing under skin.
“Ah! What’s this scar?” The Queen gripped Medith’s right hand with aching pity and brushed the ugly blood-red welt, like smoothing torn bark with gentle fingers.
“It’s a small punishment for being a lousy lover who ignored her beloved’s heart, and it’s a witness to Melia and Medith’s bond, like a knot in red thread,” Medith said, calm as a still pond.
The Queen blinked in brief confusion, then understood. Her white teeth showed and her face bloomed, a snow lotus opening to the moon.
…
“So… the trade line’s been cut like a severed artery, and even the Eastern Nation’s ‘allied army’ won’t step into Verdant Spirit Mountain’s bounds…” Medith finally knew why the main road of Verdant Spirit Mountain bristled with Elven soldiers like pines along a ridge. It seemed the Queen and the Elvenfolk in the city took her word as law, like ships following a lighthouse.
“Sigh!” The Queen let a thousand words fall into a single breath, like dew collapsing to one drop. The route she’d carved with blood and patience was jammed by a sudden rockfall; the taste was bitter as wormwood. She had finally dared to lead her people beyond these narrow walls like a cramped shell, and now she had to give up?
“Actually, we don’t have to. I came back, besides holding Melia’s funeral, to see the city with my own eyes, like checking the wind before a voyage. About the trade line, I’d guessed the knot, and I’ve set a counterplan on the board.”
“We keep the route open as usual and beat the drums with loud notice, like banners snapping in sun. We use the Free State’s resources and name; I don’t think that’s hard.
Best to draw in throngs of foreign nobles to settle and sightsee, like cranes gathering by a lake. We can craft policies just for them; tie them with silk cords, and, with Haidra’s established strength, nail the order in place.
Then we’ll sit on a mountain of gold and a sea of silver, with resources like rivers that never run dry. Talent will come unbidden like migrating swallows. The Wind Sprite lineage will ring across ten thousand miles, like wind chimes along a long pass. Your Majesty can widen your domain’s map, and even draw more scattered kin to the banner.
As for Haidra herself, I believe she knows exactly how Paris rose to his seat, like measuring a blade by its scabbard. Her power will be a great bridle on Paris. With foreign nobles leaning in like trees around a courtyard, even if Paris’s killing intent leaks like cold steel, he won’t dare strike.
Unless he tears the mask and makes himself an enemy of the whole continent, Xurenxus City will become the fifth nation, a fifth star on the map. You will be the greatest Elven Queen in our history, with the widest reach like a river delta—bar none!”
Medith’s fervent speech raised goosebumps like millet on skin. The Queen’s Scepter trembled in her hands like a leaf in spring wind, and a never-seen longing lit her face like dawn.
