Mordecai took advantage of the time it took to get everyohrough the shortcut to do two things. The first was to double-check his uanding of the information Traxalim had given him. It took only a moment to cast the spell, which let him verify that Matriarch Aia resorongly with his bloodline, and her grandchildren a little less so. The princess was the weakest, but strong enough that it added a to a question he o ask.

  While his avatar reoccupied with that, his core rocessing something else. Laganthros were quickly rearranging the feast hall while he designed a able for this group. He started with a circur table, then expa with three even lobes, making it suitable to sit three groups of four. They didn’t have that many people, but it kept everything evenly distributed and avoided slighting any group.

  He had enough time to enhahe design in his head before creating it, so he quickly specified the wood to be of the hybrid cherry-maple tree he’d mao grow, specifying the wood to perfect smoothness but still fresh enough to give off a pleasant if unique st. Wood this ‘green’ would normally be horrible for furniture, but he didn’t have to worry about it sting more than a couple of days.

  An iny of silver in a simple loop design followed the border on top of the table, while the edge was inid with a band of gold. Inside of each silver loop, he pced a different gem or attractive crystal with its rgest facet flush to the table’s surface, then lihe socket with a mirror coating of silvered gss and added a tiny, faint light source. Since he was creating this as a whole piece, he didn’t even have any tool marks around the cavity that enclosed each gem. Iy, he’d rather have used mithral, but right now that was difficult enough to work with that he didn’t have the time

  By the time everyone was through he had verified with Kazue and Moriko the seating arras and took the lead by walking toward the head of the kitsune . “Matriarch Aia, please, allow me to escort you to your seat.” Mordecai said while Moriko stepped up beside Princess Orchid.

  “Yhness, please allow me to do the same.” Moriko said in kind, making it clear that there was a seating pn. Kazue had the easiest job as she just had to snag her mother’s arm and guide her along.

  As eaan was escorted to her seat, their respective retinues followed. The matriarch was seated at the tip of one lobe, with Takehiko and Shizoku fnking her, and likewise, the princess was seated at the tip of a sed lobe with Paltira and Xarlug fnking her.

  Their owing had taken a moment more thought, but it wasn’t plex either. Kazue and Mordecai were going to sit equally off-ter of their lobe, with Akahana at her daughter’s other side and Moriko at his other side. It was teically a bit presumptuous to pull Akahana more into his circle than the ’s circle, but the arra was mostly to make sure each leader was aowledged as sud no one seemed ined to deny a mother sittio the daughter she’d retly reunited with after a grief-filled loss, so he was fident the faux pas would be ignored.

  Once everyone had their seats, and while Mordecai and Moriko were heading to their own, Kazue spoke up. “Our staff will be bringing out tea and some snacks in a moment, when they do, please feel free to let them know of any requests or requirements. Please keep requests general, our variety is still a bit limited, but we do have some very special treats in store for you.” The first of those treats was the hohat came with the tea, a small gss for each person to dole out as they liked. On its own, the honey was only mildly medial, but it still had a unique liveliness from the liquid-crystal ar it had been made from.

  Mordecai waited until everyone had a ce to taste their tea before he began. “I believe there are several questions people would like to ask, so let's take turns. I would like to start with oo crify a situation that I suspect I am the only o fully informed on.” Well, teically he could have just mentally queried either of his wives, but it made a good warm-up for the table. “Princess Orchid, as I uand it your lineage is mostly human, but you clearly have kitsuures and are ag on behalf of Azeria. I am a little bit lost as to the details here.”

  “Oh,” Orchid replied with a bit of surprise, then took on a thoughtful look. “Well, first I’d like to make things a bit easier by dispensing with the o call me princess. It’s not incorred I am not insisting, but while I am a daughter of the current king, I am indeed ag as a member of Azeria. As to how that came to be, that’s a story with its roots in the founding of our kingdom. The Azeria d its forest were reized by our sed king as a sory within the kingdom, and the royal family has always maintained close ties with the . One of the effects of these ties is that every two or three geions a princess, or more rarely a prince, is Marked to be trained by the .” She paused here and sighed. “This brings up a tahat o be crified before we tinue. I assume you are not familiar with the kingdom’s Marks either?”

  “No, I ’t say that I am, Orchid.” Mordecai replied, and saw a brief smile of approval on her face even as he caught a fsh of guilt from both Moriko and Kazue as they realized they’d fotten something potentially important. He indulged in a brief bit of smugness over their link, it was hard to keep up with telling everything that may o be known and accepted the apologetic feeling they replied with as Kazue id her tail across his p and Moriko slid her foot over to press it against his. He didn’t hold their earlier frustrations with knowledge exge against them, there were several times when it would have been good to give them information sooner, and he was making an effort to be better about it, but this wasn’t something anyone was going to be perfect about and they certainly were not faultless. Their aowledgment was more than enough to satisfy him oopic.

  “Well,” Orchid tinued, oblivious to the bypy, “There is a magic woven into our kingdom that permeates every bit of our territory, and it is as a as the kingdom itself. It even grows with the kingdom, though it has been hundreds of years sihere has been any expansion. I don’t know how it works, and I am not sure if there is anyone living outside of the gods themselves who does, but this entment has the ability to judge the loyalty of kingdom citizens as well as their ability and potential. Acc to rules that no one seems certain of it selects people to give special Marks that hem guardian, and resonates with a group that it wants them to train with. The marks give them an increased ability to respond to an immediate threat to a citizen in their viity, plus further abilities based on who they train with.”

  She gestured to her sort Paltira. “As an example, at the same time I was training with the kitsune, Paltira was training under a nearby dragon. Which has some details I’ll get back to in a moment.” She grinned wryly. “It’s a bit to take in all at once, most people grow up knowing bits. Anyway, in some ways the most important thing is that the Marks ’t be faked, at least not in the presence of ah a real one. We always tell if a Mark is real. But there are two other types of Marks as well. The first is my own, which is what determihat I was to bee a kitsuhough those particur details of the ‘training’ are not only known.

  Orchid gave a soft ugh. “And believe me, I was unhappy about it at first, I didn’t particurly like the idea of being shipped off to live in the woods without anyone I knew around, but it turns out my ‘aunt’ was trainiter than I khis brings us back to Paltira. The sed is a subset of the guardian marks and only occurs when there is someoio join the Azeria . It dehem as being particurly patible fh personal loyalty to that princess or prihis didly make me happier, being saddled with some wet-behind-the-ears temple priest that I had never met before, but, well, there’s a reason there are very few is of such Guardians beied incorrectly. And I am happy to say that we are indeed ‘patible’, and then some.” Mordecai retty certain that the brush of her tails against the man’s arm was not an act, and the monk seemed rather pleased himself.

  “So at the desigime, we were brought together he forest, the on by ourselves to travel the rest of the way to the . There I was trained in particur arts and skills to ensure I was ready to be a diplomat, spy, or whatever else might be needed for the kingdom or , and a dragoled nearby for the duration to train Paltira, so that we wouldn’t be separated for long periods while we were still learning to work together. My training also included being initiated in a rite that only works upon the marked, granting me all the abilities of a kitsune and making me part of the .” And now she turned a very serious look upon Mordecai, Kazue, and Moriko. “Everyone else here is aware of most, if not all the details I have told you. However, most people do not know about the transformation or the depths of my training. Here I am Orchid the kitsune, elsewhere,” She abruptly took on her human form, a petite parently in her early 20s. “I be Princess Orchid Apifera, as needed. I have chosen to entrust you with this knowledge in part to help build trust, and in part because I believe you have good reason to sider yourself to already have ties to the kingdom and .” Then she smirked briefly at Kazue. “Also, my cover of not being a ‘princess’ was already blown. Thank you, Kazue.”

  “Oops.” said Kazue, whed briefly but shook it off quicker than she would have previously. “I am sorry about that Orchid. I was just very excited to see you, and I fot myself. I’ve beeier about a lot of things, but I am still me.” And she gave Orchid her best sweet smile.

  Orchid shook her head with amusement. “If anything, you are being more charming and hard to be mad at. Though I am sad about the circumstance, I am very happy to see that this new life has given you the ce to grow into yourself more. Now, Mordecai, does that answer your question?”

  “Oh, very much so, and much more besides. The world has certainly ged a lot since my time before. And I assume you all have at least a basiderstanding of that issue, but if not, I will take my turn to expin.” He waited a moment, but the only person who had been about to speak up was Akahana, who was intercepted by her daughter.

  “Mom, I’ll go over it iail for you ter. Besides, I suspect you have some side questions that not everyone o hear.” Kazue frowned briefly. “Also, rex. I know that form isn’t as ve for drinking. You’re about as safe here as you would be at home, you don’t o worry about having foxfire.” Akahana looked a touch embarrassed at being called out but quickly shifted into a human form, who looked more like she should be the older sister of Kazue’s tailless form. Mordecai took from this that Kazue’s mother had not mastered hybridizing her forms as needed.

  After a moment more of people cheg to see if anyone had a question, Matriarch Aia spoke up. “I do have a minor question to satiate a bit of curiosity, before we delve into anything more serious.”

  Zagaroth