Chapter 574 - Long Gone
Time passed and the atmosphere inside the tent slowly became better when Evie started telling them about her knowledge on the monsters, and their weaknesses and how to defeat them most effectively.
Evie immediately realized that these Lords were not pleased with the reason why the King had summoned them was all to introduce her, the light fae queen. She could see distrust and displeasure clearly shining in their eyes.
And thus, Evie started to get their attention by first starting on this topic that she knew would gain their interest right off the bat. Lord Cairus had also told them what he had seen outside just before they entered, as he was the last Lord to enter the tent. What Cairus had recounted surprised them greatly, even Azrael and Kione were shocked at Evie's knowledge about the monsters. How on earth did the light fae queen knew so much about the monsters that were in their realm?!
"Pardon me if this is inappropriate to ask Queen Evielyn," the Lord of Emeria, Lord Asnar, spoke. His deep and gravelly voice echoed inside the tent. He was one of the two lords Evie had remembered seeing in her vision. His power, Evie noticed was already the strongest among all of the lords who were present. She could sense the air around him and that look in his eyes. Yet, in her vision, this man was even more powerful than he was now. "How come you have such detailed knowledge and understanding about the monsters that only exists in the Under Lands?" he was really curious but at the same time a little suspicious on the matter.
His question made the atmosphere suddenly still and went extremely silent. As Evie met the man's gaze, she realized that he was the most displeased among all of the lords. The way he looked at her was quite extreme that Gavrael began to prickle and glare hostilely at him. His doubt for Evie was just too obvious and was almost not held back at all.
Evie held onto Gavrael's hand right below the table and calmly replied to the lord. "Are you trying to tell me, Lord Asnar, that just because I am from the surface, that it's impossible for me to know about the matters of the Under Lands?"
Kione smiled at Evie's reply while the other men were surprised at the Light Fae Queen's calmness and steady demeanour. Her queenly bearing was clearly seen and was perfectly balanced by her graceful reply to Lord Asnar, not slighting him a bit with her words.
The lord's face became darker at Evie's response, seemingly displeased that she had managed to keep her cool. He had thought his visible displeasure at her would cause her to be riled up and perhaps retort in a discourteous manner. That way, he would have just cause to ridicule her.
"I know you are having doubts despite the fact that some of the information I revealed had just only been proven a little while ago."
"We are not having doubts about the truthfulness of your information, Queen Evielyn," Asnar sneered slightly, lifting his chin up defiantly. "But I do have a strong doubt about how you even found such a very important information we ourselves couldn't even find for so many years of fighting against these monsters."
"You couldn't have found out about this information because the dark faes had never tried hard enough to look for the easiest way to kill the monsters. Sometimes, familiarity does not automatically equate an unsurpassed understanding of an issue." Evie met his gaze, not even a hint of intimidation nor pressure was seen in those amber eyes. In fact, her eyes seemed to have become more intimidating.
"Are you trying to insult the dark faes, Queen –"
"No, Lord Asnar." Evie cut him off, causing everyone to look at Evie with shock. Even the other lords dare not talk to Asnar like this. Only the king was able to cut this lord halfway through his sentence when he was speaking. What was with this queen? Why was she not intimidated at all?
"I am saying that the dark faes had never bothered to find the monsters' weakness." Evie continued, calmer but more confident than ever. "Why? Because you can kill the monsters without much difficulty due to your magic and abilities. You never had found it necessary to find their weakness since you guys always win over them for the countless years you've been battling them. That's what I meant when I said you didn't try hard enough."
The lord and everyone else who were listening fell silent. They knew that was true. In the past years, killing monsters was treated like a method of training for them. And she was right, they did not find that it was necessary to find their weakness at all. Because to them, they could win against the monsters without knowing any of that. So it did not quite matter. It only changed lately when the monsters had started to overwhelm them by their sheer numbers. Now it was necessary for them to find a more efficient way to kill the monsters as fast and as easy as possible to keep up with their numbers. Also, they needed to retain their stamina as along as possible.
"You are correct," Lord Asnar said, his expression a bit better now. "But still, you didn't answer my question, Queen Evielyn. I am curious how did you manage to find out all this information. Or is there a reason why you can't tell us?" he could not resist jabbing at her whenever he can.
Evie stared at him. While she was in the palace and getting ready to come to the camp, Evie had been thinking a lot, trying her best to analyse her vision. She realized that if she wanted to change the future, the first thing she must do was to find a way to unite all the races in Lirea.
The huge gap of time from now to that war was too much. It was just too long. And she could not help but think that maybe, the unification of the races had happened too late in the vision's timeline and that was why the darkness had managed to swallow almost the entirety of Lirea. Perhaps, if she could unite the races much earlier, that would bring about a really big change.
However, she knew doing that to achieve that would be very difficult. Trust and loyalty would be the hardest thing to earn especially after all the history of prejudices and wars between these races.
In her vision, she had seen the utter trust and loyalty in the eyes of the warriors as they looked at 'her'. Their loyalty was so strong as she watched them willing to give up their lives to protect 'her'. Even this grumpy and haughty lord before her right now… Evie had watched him sacrifice his life to protect 'her'.
However, Evie was not planning to gain their trust just so they could one day protect her. No, that was not her aim. She wanted them to trust her as soon as possible because she believes that it was the first step to make unification happen.
Sweeping her eyes over all of these lords, Evie spoke, "Because I am able to see glimpses of the future through my dreams."
Everyone had their eyes widened except for the ones who already knew.
Evie had found out that she could not say what had exactly happened in the vision that she saw. However, she could talk about the other smaller or more general details. She also could not say that she had seen what happened in the future. So she used the other fact that she could see the glimpses of the future in her dreams.
"Y-you're saying you found the information by seeing into the future?" one of the other lords blurted out. This question, Evie could not answer directly, but she made sure that her silence would tell them that her answer was yes.
"That's… just shocking… this is like… like the long lost keeper of the ice dragons, isn't it?" the other lord exclaimed as well. "We also have a clan long time ago who can see the future through their dreams is it not?"
"Yes, we do. But that clan was long gone. One of the mad kings in the past had massacred the clan purely out of jealousy that they were the master of the ice dragons."
A lord let out a deep and hopeless sigh. "If only there was at least one of them who had survived."
"That's impossible. They're long gone."
As the lords were a bit depressed discussing on this topic that the most powerful clan next to the royals were annihilated long time ago, Evie spoke up.
"What if… what if I tell you that there's still one who managed to survive?"