Chương 242: 43. Appraisal 3

The wind on the platform had teeth. It sliced down from Latpan's highest reaches, snapping at hems and trailing cloth until they made taut, ringing sounds, and dragging loose anything that might otherwise have stayed hidden behind someone's eyes. In a place like this, it was very hard to play dumb.

Nobles, inner court ladies, attendants with lowered eyes — every one of them understood that this appearance was no accident, and certainly not the Princess feeling a whim to drag a foreign man up here for some morning air. This was a statement. And I was the answer being held up for everyone to see. Ignicia let go of my hand, but didn't step away. She simply stood at my side as before, shoulders level, expression cool, as if waiting to see who would lose their composure first. I saw the first one move.

An older inner court scribe, robes a sober dark color, a narrow metal registry tag hanging at his chest, his beard trimmed with obsessive precision. He bowed to Ignicia first, then turned his gaze to me. The pause was brief — brief enough, but long enough to make it clear he was choosing his words with care. This was the first cut. Not sharp. But the most common kind. Because a form of address is, in itself, a position. If he called me Envoy of Eckhaus, I still stood on the human side of the line.

If he called me Lord Cedric, that was mere courtesy. But if he stood here, in front of the inner court and the assembled nobility, and pinned a different name onto me outright — then today's appearance would be sealed as something else entirely. The old scribe did not disappoint me. He bowed a fraction deeper, his voice as steady as someone reading from a text written long before either of us was born.

"Your Highness," he began.

"As for the inner court registry and the morning order of precedence — shall we, in accordance with His Majesty the Emperor's decree from last night, revise the placement for—" He paused there. Then completed it.

"—the Rider?" There were plenty of people on that platform, and yet the instant that title fell, the silence that followed was so complete it felt as though someone had reached in and stilled the wind itself. The Rider. Not Dragon Knight. Not Dragon Tamer. The name the Emperor had set with his own mouth the night before, spoken for the first time in public by the capital's inner court. I heard someone behind us miss a beat in their breathing. Ignicia didn't so much as lift an eyelid.

"As directed," she said. The old scribe bowed again.

"By your command." No hesitation. No follow-up question. Not even a trailing note that suggested he was still waiting for confirmation. That single phrase — by your command — pressed the first layer of doubt down flat for everyone present. I let out a silent breath. Good. First cut, taken. The second came immediately after. A noblewoman stepped half a pace forward from the right.

Not young, but dressed with a precision that carried more weight than ornamentation ever could — a deep blue gown beneath a sheer gold shawl, very little jewelry in her hair, which paradoxically made her seem more significant than those around her. She bowed to Ignicia with textbook form, then turned to me, her smile so faint it barely qualified as one.

"To hear the name only last night, and already meet its bearer this morning — truly a fortunate day for the capital." Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried perfectly.

"This foolish old woman would simply like to ask one thing—" Here it comes. I watched her without moving.

"My lord Rider — do you stand here today as Her Highness's escort, or as a member of the Eckhaus delegation?" That cut was cleaner than the last. Because she wasn't asking about my identity. She was asking about where I stood. If I said delegation member, whatever the Emperor had handed down the night before would be cut in half. If I said only Her Highness's escort, I'd look like a man angling for a position at her side. On the surface, either answer seemed workable. In practice, both were traps.

Before I could open my mouth, Ignicia had already looked over.

"You're asking the wrong question." The woman's expression didn't change, but she lowered her head at once.

"Then may I ask Her Highness to correct me." Ignicia stood in the wind, her tone as flat as someone correcting a simple error in a document. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"He stands at my side as Cedric Rosa," she said.

"That is not something for any of you to divide up on his behalf." The woman was silent for half a breath, then bowed considerably deeper.

"I misspoke." I couldn't help but sigh quietly to myself. The Dragon Kingdom's capital really wasn't a place where people needed drawn blades to pin a stranger to the ground. A few well-placed sentences did the job just fine. Fortunately for me, the person standing beside me today was Ignicia, and not some gentle, malleable princess. She didn't even need real anger to grind those circling words to dust. I thought that might buy us a lull. The third wave was more direct still.

Two young attendants came forward carrying trays — one holding water and a cloth, the other a pair of thin black gloves. Heads bowed the whole way, steps measured as if ruled with a line, they knelt together the moment they reached me. What I noticed first were the gloves. Thin, but not ordinary material. A fine line of dark gold ran along the edges; the backs bore a dragon motif so faint it was barely visible. One look told me these weren't made for servants. I didn't even need to ask what they were for.

To cover the scale on the back of my left hand. Without raising his head, the attendant kept his voice very low.

"The inner court has prepared gloves, my lord. Should you need to walk about today, they may spare your hands the worst of the high wind." Spare your hands from the high wind. A dignified excuse. An even more dignified motive. If I put them on, that was an admission the scale was something shameful. If I refused, it would look like deliberate display. This level of probing didn't even require a noble to open their mouth — a tray carried by an attendant did the job perfectly well.

I looked at the gloves and, for a moment, didn't move. Ignicia didn't even glance at them.

"Take them away," she said, flat and cold. Both attendants pressed their heads lower at once.

"Yes, Your Highness."

"And," her voice dropped, even and quiet, "if anyone prepares this sort of thing for him again, go and find out first who taught you to treat a dragon's bond as something shameful enough to hide." At those words, even the two attendants' backs went visibly rigid. Something shifted in my chest. I glanced at her on reflex. She wasn't looking at me. She was looking at the two kneeling before her, her expression ice-cold. This wasn't simply shielding me from an inconvenience.

She was defining something outright — the scale on my hand was not a stain, not a lapse in decorum, and certainly not something to be quietly wrapped up and treated as though it had never happened. It was a mark of recognition. The first step of a Rider forming a bond with his dragon. Once the two attendants had withdrawn, the mood on the platform settled noticeably heavier.

Anyone who'd still been circling politely, testing for soft edges, had surely read Ignicia's stance by now — this was not a morning that rewarded probing. But this was still the capital. And there is always someone who feels that once a blade has been handed to them, it would be a waste not to see whether it cuts. This time, the voice belonged to a man.

He stood further out, somewhere in his forties, a dark red sash across one shoulder, a family crest pinned at his chest — the bearing of a mid-to-upper-tier noble with a seat in inner court deliberations. He bowed to Ignicia with proper form, then gave me a measured nod.

"Lord Cedric," he said.

"Forgive my directness. Since His Majesty named you last night, none of us presume to dispute it. Still — the capital is not the harbor, nor a border camp. Once matters are placed on open record here, they cease to belong to only two people." I understood him. This one was far more direct than the others. He didn't circle titles, or positioning, or the scale. He went straight to the center of it — whatever lies between you and the Princess is now the business of this entire capital.

I looked at him and said, calmly: "I already understood that once, last night." He hadn't expected such a direct answer. Surprise flickered through his eyes, faint, and was quickly suppressed.

"In that case," he continued, "then you also understand that the capital will be watching — not only where you stand now, but how you intend to resolve the matter of Eckhaus." The instant those words fell, the eyes that had, until now, been merely observing from the edges of the platform finally, fully converged on me. Yes. This was what they had actually come to see. Rider, dragon's bond, the Princess walking me out by the hand — all of that was recognition from the Dragon Kingdom's side.

But I hadn't been born here. Behind me stood Eckhaus, the delegation, my king, the position I'd once held, the words I'd once spoken. If none of that reached a resolution, then no matter how long I stood at Ignicia's side, I would always be treated as an ambiguous interlude propped up by fire and circumstance — never something that could truly settle into the order of things. I was quiet for a moment.

Wind swept across the platform, tapping my cuff against my wrist, and the scale on the back of my left hand seemed to warm, just slightly. Then I spoke.

"I understand." Three words. Nothing elaborate. Nothing polished. But once they were out, something in my chest actually felt lighter. Because from last night until now, everyone had been forcing me to look at the same thing. I didn't have to like it. I didn't have to be comfortable with it. I could curse this entire Dragon Kingdom system as absurd, all I liked, inside my own head — but as long as I was still standing here, I no longer had the right to pretend this wasn't my road.

The nobleman watched me, as if weighing how much that I understand was actually worth. At last, he lowered his head slowly.

"Then, that will do." After he stepped back, the platform finally found a genuine pocket of stillness. The probing that had been floating in the air seemed to reach its first natural pause, replaced by something quieter, and more practical. I could feel it. Some were watching whether I still walked with an outsider's looseness. Some were watching whether I'd instinctively drop half a step behind Ignicia in a setting like this.

Others were watching her tone when she spoke to me, waiting for any flicker of impatience or regret. They were probably going to be disappointed. Because Ignicia was acting more like overheated iron than I ever could. Standing here today, she had no intention of leaving a single gap for anyone to work their way into. Even when a young lady official stepped forward to ask whether, by precedent, I should be assigned a temporary side seat for today's proceedings, Ignicia only gave her a flat glance.

"A side seat?" The official lowered her head at once.

"This one was only following precedent—""Then change the precedent," Ignicia said. Her voice wasn't raised. But several people who had still been watching cautiously from the sidelines went quiet all at once.

"From today, stop looking at him through the lens you'd use for a guest," she said, calm and even.

"He isn't a guest." Hearing that, something in my chest sank without warning. Not a guest. It should have been reassuring. Standing here, it felt instead like a line drawn in ink that couldn't be scrubbed out later. Because not a guest meant I no longer had the option of treating myself as someone merely passing through. I said nothing.

I stood beside her and watched the nobles and attendants lower their heads in acknowledgment, watched this capital begin, in the space of a single morning, to correct the way it faced me. That was when a set of footsteps — hurried, but never losing their discipline — came from behind the platform. Nearly everyone frowned at the same instant. Whoever was allowed up here at a moment like this wasn't carrying trivial news.

A courier in the short cape of the Foreign Affairs Bureau came forward at something close to a run, dropped to one knee before Ignicia, then bowed his head to me as well. His breath was slightly uneven — he'd clearly run the whole way — but he kept his voice level.

"Your Highness. Lord Cedric." He paused, as if he already knew this next line would rewrite the shape of every expression I had left for the rest of the day.

"The Eckhaus delegation's convoy passed through the eastern outer gate this morning." Still bowed, he finished the report.

"Lady Jessi and the others — they've finally arrived."