Chapter 700: Petty Offerings

The silence that followed in the Great Lodge could only be described as deafening.

The only audible sound except the crackle of the central fire-pit was the ragged, shallow breathing of twenty foreign envoys whose noses were still ground into the stone floor.

Elder Sarn felt a cold drop of sweat trickle down the bridge of his bleeding nose, mixing with the dust of the floor. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird.

Lone, weak tribe.

Elder Sarn’s heart slammed against his ribs like a trapped bird beating its wings against stone.

Especially the icy, sarcastic edge in Veylara’s voice, it cut right through the stagnant heat of the hall, chilling the blood in his veins to slush. Lone, weak tribe.

The phrase was a barbed whip, mocking every calculated whisper, every speculative border arrangement, and every arrogant assumption their clans had harbored while watching the Veynar bleed against the Coalition.

Sarn knew that one wrong syllable... a single phrase that carried the slightest whiff of presumption, diplomatic scheming, or past arrogance... and that divine pressure would drop and pulverize them all into grease.

Gathering every shredded scrap of courage left in his seventy winters, Sarn slowly, painfully lifted his face.

His nose was split, blood mingling with dirt to form a crimson paste along his upper lip, his aged eyes trembling as he looked not at Veylara’s face... he lacked the suicidal courage to meet that sapphire glare... but at the bones forming the base of her throne,

"M-Mother of the North... Sovereign of the Orrath..." Sarn croaked, his voice cracking into a dry, gravelly wheeze.

He had to swallow three times just to coat his tongue with enough bile to form words. ""Forgive our unworthy eyes! Your humble servants... have crawled here... only to offer our complete, prostrated reverence to the true Master of the Great Orrath and bring our heartfelt congratulations and our eternal well-wishes upon the glorious dawn of the Veynar!"

Beside him, the feathered emissary of the Wind-Runners frantically nodded his head against the stone, his breath catching in ragged, terrified gasps.

"Y-Yes, Divine One! We came bearing tokens of peace!" the envoy babbled in desperation, terrified of being excluded from the plea, his hands frantically pushing the woven baskets of river salts, dried herbs, and rare quartz forward across the floor.

"Tribute! Eternal tribute from the our clans! We have long known the nobility of the Veynar, but our eyes were blind to the sky! We bring everything we have to celebrate your ascension!"

For small, isolated tribes trading on riverbanks, these were considered respectable neighborly gifts.

But the Scaled-Kin envoy didn’t even bother presenting gifts. His leathery, three-toed hands remained splayed wide against the stone, his blue throat-frill flattened completely against his scaly neck in total surrender.

"The marsh borders... the reed beds... we yield them all! No hunter of the Scaled-Kin will ever set foot across the northern river! If the Great Sovereign commands water, we will dig the trenches! If she commands game, our spears will hunt for her cookfires!"

Veylara’s gaze drifted down toward the pile. Her hand remained casually propped beneath her chin, her finger rhythmically tapping the bone armrest with a dull, hollow clack-clack-clack that sounded like the footsteps of an approaching executioner

Her eyes barely grazed the goods before her lips twisted into a slow, mocking sneer.

"Just this much?" she murmured, her voice dripping with venomous amusement. "You dare offer me the scrapings of a dry ditch?"

These words were akin to death whispering in their ears, but Veylara didn’t stop. She leaned slightly forward on her bone seat, resting both elbows on her knees, her sapphire eyes gleaming.

"How strange," she continued, her lips curling into that cold, amused sneer. "Four moons ago, when the winter frost was thick and our hunting bands traveled to the river fork to trade for your lake salt, your elders demanded three prime stag pelts for a single handful of brine.

You told my hunters that salt was rare, and that the Veynar had better get used to eating bland meat if they couldn’t afford the price."

Sarn’s soul practically left his body. His face went gray as river mud.

"A-A mistake! A grievous, unforgivable mistake of foolish youths!" Sarn stammered frantically, smacking his forehead against the floor with a wet THUD.

"The salt is yours! The entire river is yours! From this winter forth, our clan will deliver thirty sledges of salt to your gates every season without a single scrap in return! We will drink muddy water before the Veynar go without!"

"And you guys?" Veylara’s gaze shifted to the shivering Wind-Runner. "If I remember correctly, when the Marauders were attacking along our western border last summer, We were short staffed and I sent scouts to your tribe asking for bird-messengers to track them.

Your clan chiefs barred the high trails, claiming the Wind-Runners took no part in these disputes."

The feathered emissary practically dissolved into tears, burying his face so hard against the stone that two iridescent plumes snapped off his headband. "Spiteful fools! The chiefs who spoke those words were blind, Sovereign! They will be stripped of their ranks! We surrender the canopy! All our scout-birds, all our high trails are open to your warriors! We will be your eyes in the clouds! Just... spare our nests!"

Behind them, the two massive Horned-Folk envoys copied the Scaled-Kin envoys and didn’t even wait to be questioned. Their giant, muscular frames... broad enough to shatter stone walls... were quivering like frightened pups.

"The horn-clans offer thirty prime elks!" the larger one blubbered into the cracks of the floor, his heavy horns scraping the rock. "We will clear the trails for your patrols! We will haul the logs ourselves! We will brand your white tiger upon our clan totems!"

The hall became a chorus of groveling, each envoy desperately trying to outbid the other in offering, frantically peeling away their ancestral pride, and their wealth just to purchase the right to walk out the front door alive.

.........

A.N: Wooohoooo! We have reached 700 Chapters!!! It’s truly magical that we have come such a long way.

Thank you so much, no matter how much I persisted this couldn’t have been possible without the support of you all especially, those few generous guys (You know who I am talking about.)

I’m uncultured so all I’ll say is thank you much, you have saved this poor author from eating cold winds. Please accept my 90’ bow.

I’ll continue working hard through thick and thin and provide you guys with more and more exciting story.

And I can promise you that as long as you guys continued the support, I’ll push myself to the absolute limits and help our boi Sol reach the end of this journey.