Chapter 554 — The Duty of the Sacred Covenant

"I am not the same as you. I trust in the power of the state," Luo Yan said mildly. "You did not come here merely to discuss such things with me, did you?"

"Of course not," the elven twins said, their voices overlapping with a certain rhythmic quality. "We wished to ask you: have you... given up on Ansul?"

"Of course not. It is simply not yet time to act," Luo Yan said. "Cost and benefit have not yet reached their optimal balance... The blood of the Ansulish has not yet run dry..."

The elven twins came to Luo Yan's side and strolled about the Emperor of Tifeng as though taking a leisurely walk, uttering exclamations of wonder: "Still calm..." "Precise calculation..." "Full of confidence..." "Inconceivable..."

At last they spoke in unison: "You are truly an inconceivable man—after facing the truth directly, to remain so clear-headed even to this day."

Luo Yan watched the elven twins' ill-mannered, even insolent behavior with cold indifference, as though watching a farce. At last he waved a hand. "If there is nothing more important, do not waste my time here—there are high-ranking rangers and elven messengers in this palace at present, and they will show no mercy to the Exiled."

The elven twins finally stopped their "stroll about the chair." Smiling, facing Luo Yan, they backed away step by step toward the hearth. "Ah, your threats are most effective. We are happy to oblige..."

Their figures gradually thinned in the air, bit by bit merging with the firelight behind them, and before they had wholly departed Luo Yan spoke: "Do not forget what you are to do."

"Rest assured, the End of All Things values its credit more than you do. The blood of Ansul will continue to flow..." The elven twins' figures had already vanished; their voices continued to come from the firelight, ever more distant and ethereal. "We shall take only what we need. The rest belongs to you..."

At last the elven twins' figures and voices vanished utterly, and the faint magical fluctuations in the room subsided completely.

Luo Yan Augustus remained alone in silence in the room, and only after a long while did he murmur softly to himself: "There must be... a powerful empire..."

He rose and went to the hearth, now stripped of any magical response and reduced to ordinary flame. He watched the leaping, shifting tongues of fire in the grate, then bent down and carefully set the fire screen with its sharp spikes before the hearth.

At that same moment, in Sacredfrost Rest, the royal capital of Ansul, a grey-brown giant eagle beat its wings and split the vast sky.

The citizens of Saint Sunir were familiar with griffins, for griffins were the messengers and aerial conveyances most often employed by the upper nobility and the royal house, yet few humans knew the giant eagles from the south—those enormous birds of prey swept over Iron Cross Street and Crown Street like dark storm clouds, their tail feathers and breasts adorned with ribbons of green and silver-white, flying straight toward the direction of Silverhold, stirring the curiosity and attention of countless witnesses.

Only those with the sharpest eyes caught, in that fleeting glimpse, the figures upon the eagles' backs—elves.

On the upper terrace of Silverhold, Victoria Wilder stood quietly gazing at the sky, watching those great birds that had flown across more than half the continent settle upon the griffin platform on the castle's flank—there were no perches here for giant eagles, so the griffin platform had been cleared to accommodate the elves' mounts, and the white-feathered griffins temporarily driven off to the North Tower were now thrusting their heads from the tower windows, screeching shrilly at those gray-brown giant eagles.

"The elven messengers have arrived."

Beside Victoria, Grand Duke Baiyu Franklin murmured to himself.

"It seems things at the Great Wall are truly dire," Victoria said, a chill in her tone. "The absurd part is that until yesterday those nobles were still debating in council what scheme lay hidden in the Southern Duke's warning."

And on the griffin platform, the elven messengers were lightly leaping down from their mounts one after another; among them a short-haired female elf glanced with some displeasure at the griffins clamoring atop the tower: "Northern griffins swear most foully."

"Griffins have always been the finest at cursing," another messenger said helplessly. "I fear our giant eagles have taken their nests."

The short-haired elf pursed her lips and turned to look at her own giant eagle, which likewise tilted its head, meeting its master's gaze in mutual bewilderment.

The short-haired elf could not help but sigh: "All that size for nothing—it cannot even argue."

"Coo-coo?"

"I tell you, there must be something wrong with this eagle of mine—its accent is truly thick..."