It took a little while to gather the family again, and when they were all present everyone rose and faced Moriko, smiling or looking eager, or in Gou’s case looking a little nervous. Moriko had to keep herself from fidgeting under all that attention, finding it harder to stay calm than when she erf a demonstration for a master. But out on the sands, she knew what she was doing at an almost instinctive level. This was all new.

  “Ambassador Moriko of The Azeria Mountain Dungeon,” King Yoshihiro began, “my wife and I would like to present you with a personal gift. We would be honored if at the end of this evening, you were to keep the opal neckce you currently wear.”

  A sharp thrill went through her at the words. She khat it had been possible, but hadn’t wao assume or to be greedy. Moriko truly adored this neckce, but she also had been coached about this sort of verbal dance. “Oh, your majesties, I appreciate the gesture, truly, but I couldn’t possibly accept such a precious piece of jewelry.”

  Queen Phaedra tilted her head slightly and narrowed her eyes. “Hmm, the words are right, but the flow isn’t quite there. Being advised by voices in your head dear?” She smiled and leaned closer to briefly put a finger on Moriko’s lips. “Let’s skip that ritual, you need a bit more practice, and it’s clearly making you unfortable. We see that you mean well, and you even almost mao keep that light of desire from your eyes when you were offered the neckce. We are gd to see that you will appreciate it however. And you will be keeping it.”

  “Yes Ma’am, er, Your Majesty.” However ge had been, Moriko had reized an order and slipped slightly in her habits.

  Yoshihiro chuckled softly, his voice deep and rich. “You’ll find my wife quite perceptive as well as strong-willed. I’m just gd she puts up with the formalities of court as much as she does.” The king eyed his children with faux severity. “And it’s clear that she’s influehe attitudes of our children.” The royals iion looked back at their father with varying degrees of pure innoot one of which was to be believed. “Hah, incible kids.” He waved a hand torincess Kagami. “Your turn, my dear.”

  Princess Kagami curtsied toward her father in aremely formal manner before breaking the charade with a grin as she looked baoriko. “Well, I have been able to do eveer than I hoped for you and yours. As eldest, I am presenting this gift to our newly allied Dungeon on behalf of our Kingdom.” She opened a cupboard under one of the sideboards to pull out an old-fashioned gyosho bako, a wooden box backpack. “This was the only spatially-expanded tainer we could spare that also had the capacity we needed.” Kagami’s grin widened. “I think your husband and wife will find the taio be a det gift as well, but it tains a lot of books and scrolls. It turns out the archivists were very excited at the prospect of preserving all their oldest materials iuity at a reasonably distant but secure location, and have carefully crammed this full of every single work of knowledge or fi that they have at least two more copies of.” She paused for a moment. “Well, I suspect there are works they have not included. The leadership of the archivists belongs to a branch family that keeps a bit of distance from the throne.”

  “Mmm, I fot t them up earlier.” King Yoshihiro rumbled. “Your family has expressed i iails of the in of our kingdom, and I expect that despite all the written works we have avaible, they will not quite be satisfied. While one might bme the fog of time for the ck of certaiails, there are too many clear records from the same period. It has bee obvious that something has been obfuscated, and my family has beeain for a long time that the branch family has the knowledge that was obfuscated, but we are also fairly certain that the separation of knowledge from the ruling power was deliberately done early on. People, including other royals, marry into the archivist family, but they take oaths when they do so, and only the archivists kly what those oaths are.”

  “It’s a shame too.” Princess Bridgette sighed. “Whatever secrets they hold are only revealed to those who have takehs, which generally only means people leave the family before they have accepted duties as an archivist. And, well, I am not certain I feel like marrying into them.”

  Priiriana smiled at her younger sister. “Bridgette thinks a particur young archivist is cute and charming, and he seems to be having trouble keeping his eyes off of her. But he’s already taken his oaths, so that plicates matters.”

  Moriko chose to not notice a young princess making a face at her older sister and focused ba Kagami. “Thank you for helping with this, Yhness,” she said, theated, uain if she should take the bht now.

  The princess noticed her hesitation and shook her head slightly. “We’ll have everything put on the carriage when you leave. Now, my sisters and I have already put our personal touches on gifts the other day, but our brothers have a couple mifts for you as well. Ailwin?”

  The older prince had moved to a covered side table and now motioned Moriko over before revealing what was uhe c. There were three ungzed but elegantly crafted off-white cy teapots and a dragon sculpture of vermilion-red cy, though the dragon was sitting in a small bowl of water. “I thought you and your family might enjoy this particur tea pet.” He said as he moved the dragon out of the bowl, shaking it briefly to empty some water out of the hole in its mouth, and onto a tray. “This style is certainly one of mihe prihen lifted one of the teapots, which had still steaming water in it, and poured it over the cy dragon.

  As the hot water poured over the little dragon, a stream of water jetted out of its mouth. In Moriko’s head, Kazue squealed. The monk couldn’t help but ugh at the sudden joy in Kazue’s emotions. “I think my wife already loves it. They are a beautiful set. My master has a simir set, though his choice of tea pet is a touch more, well, juvenile. I guess he’s old enough to not worry about eople think of his little eais.”

  Prince Ailwin smiled as he tinued his demonstration by p a small stream of water into the bowl the dragon had e out of. The water flowed so smoothly that there was no spsh, only a light ripple across the surface. While magic could easily make either of these things happen, it was more impressive to create the effects with pure craftsmanship. “I believe that is part of why my father is looking forward to retiring after his sixtieth Birthday, once he abdicates and I have been running things for a few years, the public eye won’t be on him so mud he run off and do as he likes. I do believe grandfather is currently running a shop somewhere on the eastern coast, in one of the mert states. He seems to move about the Alliaions a fair amount, so it's hard to keep track.”

  Moriko wasn’t sure of the previous king’s exact age, but he had to be at least in his 90s. And this line of versation caught Mordecai’s i, promptio ask the prince, “How did the tradition of our Kings abdig early begin? I never gave it much thought, but I don’t think it’s on anywhere else that has a kingship.”

  “Ah, it’s not so much tradition as part of our ws, though there is little reason t it up. The legal requirement is seventy, but the reendation is sixty, and most do choose to do so then. This is part of the bance of power; where the eldest son is the throhe cims a portion of the daughters, who eventually return as advisors.” While they talked, Ailwiied the teapot and id everything out to dry so it be packed ter. There was a velvet-lined box nearby that also held a tea brush for taking care of the tea pet. “And should it be required, they are authorized to ehe restris on the royal family are adhered to, by the means they find necessary. Such as have only proven necessary a few times, as far as I know.”

  A few things fell into pce then, when including the observations Mordecai had made about Orchid. The representative was an advisor to the throutor and bodyguard to the children, and potential assassin of the king should the corruption of power settle in. An assassin who would probably be able to bypass any wards proteg the king. “Ah. Um,” Moriko said thoughtfully, “what if it’s not clear who should i the throne?” It hadn’t seemed odd to her before now that she’d never heard of any sort of succession war in Kuic before.

  Ailwin gave a slight shrug. “The power to make a decision lies in the hands of the current Matriarch. It has been a long time sihe has had to intervene.” He smiled at her then. “The details are all in the works my sister has arranged. It’s all teically publiowledge, but few care to look that information up. Now, let us see what my little brother has for you.”

  Prince Gou had approached with a small box in his hands, which he now held toward her. “I hope you like this.” Moriko took the box and ope curiously. Inside was a rge broo the form of a five-inch tall crystal vase. She lifted it out carefully and held it up to watch the multitude of tiny facets stilte in the light.

  “It’s beautiful. Thank you.” She said, though Moriko thought Kazue might appreciate it more. She certainly wasn’t going to say anything abifting it to her wife however.

  “It was crafted from a gifted scale, given by a visiting crystal dragon. It bears a minor entment, enabling it to keep o flower alive without need for water. For you, I was thinking it might do well in your hair. May I?” Gou asked, and Moriko nodded, handing the broo. The prince might be young, but he was still taller than her, making it easy for him to find a pce to carefully clip it into her hair. “There. It will look better with a flower of course, but I thought it might be better to let you or one of your spouses decide on a flower.”

  Oh, she was definitely going to give it to Kazue, but Moriko would happily wear it for now. That was quite a delightful gift. “That’s wonderful. If I ever get a ce, I’d love to give thanks to that dragon as well.”

  “Well, if I ever have a ce to introduce you, I will, but holy I was rather young when he came visiting, so I don’t know if it will be possible,” Gou responded.

  “We will see if we at least pass on your thanks.” Queen Phaedra said. “However, it is now time to for the evening. It was a delight having you here Lady Moriko, but we do have a bit of a schedule to maintain and ot be rising too te in the m. Would you like a ce to ge before you get into the carriage?”

  “Yes, I would appreciate that a lot, Your Majesty.” Moriko wasn’t going to try and carry everything while wearing her fancy dress through the pound. Nor was she going to ask for any help getting everything to her room if she could help it. Fortunately, the simpler dress she’d worn to the clothier would fit over her underyers, so only the outermost yers would o be packed into the carriage. Though if that backpack still had more room … by the time her ride had gotten her back to the pound, Moriko had found that she could indeed fit the rest of her presents into the gyosho bako, though there did not seem to be a lot more room in the expanded space. There were a lot of books and scrolls in there. Her nerds were going to be in heaven whe home.

  Zagaroth