Chương 140: 06. Dragon Advent 3

Walking through the inner corridors, everything was firelight, footsteps, and the echo of armor. Tideguards flanked us front and rear, formation so tight this felt less like an escort to a royal audience and more like a march to an execution block. Wave Garrison troops spread through the outer perimeter, maintaining cautious distance while never taking their eyes off Ignicia—afraid to get closer, unwilling to look away. I understood their position entirely.

Even in human form, anyone who had seen her circling above Cliffhold Fortress would find it nearly impossible to view this red-haired woman as a simple envoy come to deliver apologies. And her dark cuirass and battle-torn skirt were making absolutely no effort to reduce anyone's threat assessment. Halfway through, I noticed with familiar dread that our direction was wrong. Not wrong, precisely. Too right.

Predictably, before long, that door appeared—the one I had visited frequently enough recently to consider requisitioning a permanent cushion for my usual seat. The private consultation chamber. Of course. My current life could be summarized as: spend days managing Imperial border disasters in the field, spend evenings returning to the capital to be interrogated in this room.

The only variable tonight was that instead of Jessi sitting beside me, it would be a fire dragon princess who could accidentally incinerate the entire space if she lost her temper. When the door closed, the layered sounds of armor and fading bells outside were cut in half—but the pressure became more concentrated, not less. No battlements here. No crowds. No rings of spears. Just Valerian III, myself, Ignicia, and one room's worth of international complications with nowhere left to go.

I was about to settle into the familiar seat when Ignicia stopped abruptly. She looked down at the high-backed chair in front of her, brow drawing together, expression shifting immediately to open hostility. Not critiquing the craftsmanship. Not objecting to the style. Pure, unambiguous hostility. She glared at the chair. The chair stood there, entirely innocent. I observed this for two seconds and immediately understood the problem. For humans, a high-backed chair was simply furniture.

For her, there was nowhere to put the tail. And I would stake whatever remained of my evening's survival prospects that if anyone helpfully suggested Your Highness might prefer to sit at an angle, they would find themselves and the chair exiting through the window together. Valerian III had evidently reached the same conclusion.

He stood there, pressed two fingers briefly to his temple, and produced the expression of a man who hadn't started talking yet but already wanted to execute someone—circumstances currently preventing it. I recognized that look. I'd caused it before. After two seconds, he spoke.

"Replace the chair with a stool." The nearby guard visibly hesitated but didn't ask questions, immediately removing the high-backed chair and substituting a low stool. Ignicia examined it, then reluctantly stood down from what had clearly been preparation for furniture combat, and sat. I sat as well, my emotions too complex to summarize. Last time I had been in this consultation chamber, Jessi had occupied the seat beside mine.

This time, the person beside me was the Dragon Kingdom's fire dragon princess, Ignicia Dracunia. And my position—seated directly between her and Valerian III—demonstrated with geometric precision exactly one thing: If tonight's conversation collapsed, the first person to be crushed in the middle would almost certainly be me. I had barely settled into my seat—still calculating whether I would leave this room intact—when footsteps approached outside. Not the quiet steps of servants bearing tea.

The kind that made your spine straighten before you'd consciously decided to. The door opened. First to enter was the Imperial Guard Commander who had nearly flayed me alive with his stare in the courtyard—Gallus Eberhart. More precisely: Julian's father. Right. Now I finally understand exactly where Julian inherited that particular "give me an acceptable answer immediately" expression. Behind him came Chancellor Gilbert.

Unchanged—cold, self-contained, a man who appeared to have locked both his emotions and body temperature in a cabinet somewhere. If someone told me he reviewed official documents in his sleep, I would find this entirely plausible. The third person I hadn't seen before. Slightly older than Gilbert, dressed with a plainness that bordered on deliberate—but that plainness wasn't absence of presence. It was something considerably more inconvenient: the quality of a sheathed blade.

You might not notice him immediately, but once you did, it became difficult not to wonder what he spent his ordinary days cutting for the Empire. When all three had entered, the consultation chamber became considerably quieter. I sat beside Ignicia, watched the door close, and had the distinct sense that the air in this room had made a collective decision not to be breathable tonight. Valerian III looked at me first. That look was level—level in the way that was more alarming than open reproach.

"Lord Rosa," he began slowly.

"Allow me to state my own assessment first." Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Something deeply ominous stirred in my chest. Predictably, the next sentence arrived exactly where I feared.

"If you intend to return again in future, I strongly suggest avoiding the variety of timing that causes the entire capital to suffer a collective nervous breakdown." I very nearly buried my face directly into the table. This was, objectively, generous. Anyone else probably wouldn't have been offered a next time at all.

"... Your servant will remember that, Your Majesty," I said quietly. Remembered, noted, filed—the problem being that not a single moment of tonight had been timing I had actually chosen. It was then that Gilbert turned his gaze toward Ignicia, his voice carrying its characteristic flatness—the kind where even the barbs were arranged in neat, orderly rows.

"So the Dragon Kingdom's Princess traveled all this way simply to deliver a few bags of treasure?" An excellent question. Because that was precisely what everyone in this room—myself included—had been wanting to ask. Ignicia sat on the low stool, her tail finally freed from territorial warfare with human furniture, her mood visibly improved by half a degree. She looked at Gilbert and answered without a moment's hesitation.

"Of course not." She paused, her directness entirely undiminished.

"I apologize for my timing, and I apologize for entering the city in the manner most likely to cause mass human cardiac arrest." She said apologize with the expression of someone who had identified no actual fault requiring reflection.

"But the more I considered it, the more I believed this was something you needed to hear first." Valerian III didn't interrupt. He simply lifted his teacup and took a measured sip.

"Please continue."

"This Princess dislikes talking in circles," Ignicia said.

"So if what follows displeases you, endure it." The moment those words landed, I knew nothing that followed was going to be comfortable. Predictably, her next sentence pressed the ceiling of the entire room down by another degree.

"I believe the East is preparing to move. Soon. And substantially." The man I hadn't yet met finally spoke.

"Oh?" A single syllable, then—as though remembering he hadn't introduced himself—a slight inclination toward Ignicia.

"My apologies. Robert, President of the Privy Council." Ah. That explains the particular quality of inconvenience he radiates. The man whose profession is organizing the Empire's complications. Robert looked at Ignicia, his tone remaining within diplomatic bounds.

"I don't question Your Highness's intelligence. However, based on current intelligence—while the Imperial borders show turbulence, the interior remains stable. If Your Highness claims the East is preparing significant action, could you provide more concrete evidence?" Ignicia seemed mildly impatient, but answered nonetheless.

"Are you aware how closely the Yanxia Empire and the Sea Dragon Clan have been cooperating recently?" Robert didn't answer immediately. It was Gilbert's expression that shifted first—barely perceptibly, but it shifted. Ignicia didn't wait for them to process it. She continued directly.

"Three days ago, the Sea Dragon Clan sent an envoy into Black Dragon Pass. Nominally to discuss a marriage alliance between our nations." She delivered this with the flat efficiency of someone reporting unrelated administrative business.

"Black Dragon Pass subsequently exploded. You already know that part. I set that fire." No one in the consultation chamber made a sound. But that silence wasn't acceptance—it was everyone present dismantling her last few sentences and reassembling them into new configurations. I sat beside her, noting with resigned familiarity that I had apparently grown accustomed to her delivering statements capable of igniting two nations' borders in the same tone she might use to announce dinner courses.

Ignicia glanced at them and continued.

"The situation is clear enough now. Yanxia Empire, Sea Dragon Clan—whether one is using the other, or whether they've had some arrangement from the beginning, I don't particularly care." Her golden pupils contracted slightly in the candlelight.

"What matters is that they're walking the same road. That part is not negotiable." She gave them no time for extended deliberation. She pressed one hand flat against the table.

"Use your imagination. Yanxia Empire's heavy war chariots. Sea Dragon capital warships. Add Dragon Kingdom aerial corridors to that equation—sea, land, and sky converging simultaneously. At that point, will you still prefer to sit here debating which party bears more innocent intentions?" Very characteristic of her. Not persuasion—she simply drove the worst-case scenario directly into the room and left it there. Robert didn't immediately counter. He simply drew his brow together slightly.

"I understand Your Highness's warning," he said.

"But I still don't understand what Your Highness hopes to accomplish by sitting here today." That question was considerably sharper than the previous one. Because intelligence could be shared, warnings could be received—but political positioning was never established simply by announcing I came here out of goodwill. Ignicia clearly didn't appreciate that line of inquiry. She turned and looked at me—the look of someone regarding a designated interpreter for explaining why humans were so needlessly complicated.

"You humans and your endless suspicion," she said with genuine impatience.

"I come here in good faith to warn you, and your first instinct is to question my ulterior motives?" I sighed.

"It can't be helped, Your Highness." She raised an eyebrow. I continued with complete honesty.

"Because we are fragile humans who must simultaneously guard against multiple varieties of death." I looked at her, then added: "And you personally destroyed the Sea Dragon embassy in the process. From the Empire's perspective, this isn't a simple warning—it's a very public slap delivered to the Sea Dragon Clan's face. If we didn't question your motives at all, that wouldn't be trust. That would be collective cognitive failure."

Ignicia stared at me, clearly wanting to object that this was unpleasant—and finding she couldn't locate the specific inaccuracy. In the end she only made a dismissive sound and declined to bite me. Valerian III finally set down his teacup.

"Your Highness." He looked at her, voice carrying no warmth whatsoever.

"I don't understand. What benefit does any of this bring to the Dragon Kingdom?" Ignicia was silent for one breath. This time, she didn't lead with fire. She didn't hurl words like weapons. In a rare departure, she actually appeared to think first.

"I don't like hands that reach too far," she said.

"Eyes on your own bowl, not grabbing at everyone else's. The sea, the sky—doesn't matter who." Hearing that, I found myself almost wanting to laugh. Not because it was absurd. Because after everything—Black Dragon Pass detonated, Typhon Fortress nearly mobilized, the capital's ancient bell rung for the first time in a century—what had been driving her through all of it turned out to be something almost disarmingly straightforward. Not protocol, not documents, not interest calculated to its final decimal.

She'd seen a hand reach past where it belonged. So she burned it. She wasn't administering justice. She was biting off a hand she didn't like the look of and didn't want growing any longer. Gilbert's voice inserted itself without warning.

"Given that our nations have established mutual embassies and exchanged credentials—a foundation of goodwill already exists." He looked at Ignicia, tone maintaining its particular quality of polished menace.

"So—is Your Highness's visit today perhaps in pursuit of a more stable political arrangement?" He paused.

"Such as—a marriage alliance?" The moment those words landed, I watched Ignicia's expression drop like a stone. Not embarrassment. Not hesitation. The pure, unambiguous irritation of someone who was seriously considering overturning furniture if those two words were mentioned again.

"Marriage alliance?" She made a sharp sound, eyes going cold and bright simultaneously.

"Those are precisely the two words I find most irritating in any language." Right. That reaction was entirely consistent with the trail of scorched earth she'd left getting here. I had begun to think this particular landmine could be stepped past—when Ignicia suddenly turned and looked directly at me. The gaze arrived without warning. Even I went still for a moment.

"However," she said, "if you people absolutely insist on assigning someone to negotiate with me—" Something profoundly ominous began forming in my chest. Then she raised her hand and pointed at me with complete, businesslike efficiency.

"Cedric." The room went still. Not ordinary quiet. The kind where four people remained visibly seated, yet the consultation chamber felt as though someone had extracted half the available oxygen. I went rigid for exactly one second.

"... Your Highness?" She didn't look at me. Her eyes remained fixed on Valerian III and the three men beside him, her tone carrying the self-evident certainty of someone announcing obvious administrative logistics.

"I have no interest in your princes, and I have no interest in your marriage alliances," she said.

"But if you intend to continue discussing any of this with me—the Yanxia Empire, the Sea Dragon Clan, Black Dragon Pass, and whatever other complications you humans enjoy filing into documents—then send Cedric." She paused, as though concerned these particular humans hadn't fully processed the statement.

"From this point forward, I speak only with Cedric." I very nearly choked on my next breath. Wonderful. A moment ago I had been thinking that the first person to be crushed tonight would probably be me. As it turns out, "probably" was no longer the operative word. It had already begun.