Chapter 273 - Deligation Of... Everyone

Sonder stood for a long moment, taking in the elven castle before her. 

Even Vell, who had seen it long ago and many other things since, paused. He said nothing, but his gaze lingered. 

The emissary let them look. Their destination wasn't the castle itself but guest lodgings farther along the ceremonial path.

And they were not alone. Others followed the path. Some crossed ahead. More trailed behind. 

The first were elves. Tall, ethereal, with pointed ears; some long, others longer. 

Though they came from different peoples, tribes, and bloodlines, each carried the same quiet authority. 

Most had pale, almost transparent skin, but some were as dark as ebony and the night sky, their eyes bright with starlight. 

Their clothes often marked their roles: diplomats in elegant robes and formal wear, warriors in ceremonial armor. 

Their gazes passed over Vell and Sonder. Some offered shallow nods, polite and practiced. A few averted their eyes. Others held their stares a little too long. One or two would have spat in Vell's path but found the strength to restrain themselves.

"Different elf kinds," Vell murmured to Sonder. "Some of them haven't shared a word in centuries."

Sonder nodded. Their presence was powerful but also distant. Beautiful, yes, but very cold and veiled, like statues behind warped glass.

"That's what a queen can do," Vell said quietly. "Even in death."

They passed under an arched corridor woven with flowering vines. 

On the other side, they stepped into a vast, open-air garden of immense beauty, rivaling the garden of the Celadon forest.

There were others. 

Dwarves stood in a tight cluster by a bed of glowing stones. Not from the Great Mine, by the look of them. These were of an older kind and bore symbols many dwarves would recognize. Their beards had silver rings braided into them to mark their seniority.

Humans: minor lords from bordering realms and a few ambassadors from the fractured kingdoms to the south.

There were even Orcs. Tall, broad, and dressed in ceremonial vests of wolf fur. One of the shaman castes wore a ceremonial mourning mask, carved from wood with wide antlers. 

Centaurs paced lightly at the edge of a flowerbed shaped into a perfect ring. Their hooves clicking against the stone pathway. One of them huffed and glanced skyward, restless, having waited a while already.

And others. Rarer still.

Dryads, nearly invisible, as their bark-textured skin and blossom-wrapped arms blended perfectly into the garden. 

A delegate of the oceanic courts drifted nearby. Towering and cloaked in robes of dark foam and kelp thread, surrounded by a veil of floating water to let them move and breathe freely on land.

High above, in the branches of a great tree with white leaves, perched the lone king of the Eosan, bird-people. His feathers were of all colors. He watched in silence from his perch.

There were others, too. Many others. Races Sonder didn't know.

Sonder turned to Vell, speaking in a hushed voice. "Where are we, exactly?"

Vell looked ahead. "Somewhere that doesn't really sit on a map," he said. "The elves decide where this place is. The rest of us just arrive."