Nick was unaware of the events outside. He was looking at the melting cheese with stars in his eyes while salivating. This was his favorite food! During the torture times in the Holy Order, this was one of the things he fantasized about to keep himself from loosing sanity and on occasions, hope.

At this point Zia was already standing besides him and on her toes looking inside oven’s mouth.

“Whats that?” She asked with her mouth full of saliva.

“Pizza!” Was the answer.

After few more minutes Nick asked Bruno’s help to take pizza out and told how to cut it. Then they put the ‘weird round bread’ on big plates and served on the large table everyone was sitting around.

Nick quickly explained that the proper way to eat this food is with hands, passed everyone a cloth towel and didn’t stand in ceremony. He wanted to taste them all, so he grabbed the closest piece and took a bite.

For the first time in years he cried. Obviously it was not as good as the ‘original Italian’, but this was the best a youth in a kids body without any special prior knowledge could make.

Tears already rolled down Nick’s cheeks when Zia followed his example. Although she didn’t cry, she felt like in heaven. There are very few children who don’t like pizza and she was no exception.

Everyone who tried a bite, started to wolf down the piece in their hands like an animal.

Nick, seeing all of that, said, of course, with full mouth, “Slowly, eat slowly! I can make more. Eat slowly and enjoy! I’ll cook some more!”

While the people inside where experiencing euphoria, the crowd outside was becoming more and more restless. The closest ones caught a glimpse that inside was some tasty looking feast and, since they knew Bruno, shouted to let them in. The further ones were in confusion and asked each other what was going on and if Bruno was in some trouble.

Soon there were already some people who were confident that this bakery was in trouble and when a passerby as a joke asked if someone is being arrested for revolting, a message spread through the crowd that there were people in bakery who were actually revolting!

The palace guards in civilian had hard time keeping the crowd away. And soon in the distance a squad of city guards appeared – someone had reported revolt and they came to arrest the perpetrators and disperse the crowd.

In few minutes the crowd was mostly dispersed and the city guard squad was already standing in confrontation against the six burly men with swords when suddenly a person in black appeared between the two parties. He took out a token and said few words to squad captain and the situation was instantly defused.

This small incident didn’t even go into eyes or ears of the people who had the honor of tasting first pizza on the Mainland continent. They just ate, drank and laughed.

Princess asked if she could bring some pizza back to her mother and the crowd unanimously donated the whole eight pizza. Bruno skillfully packed it as if he was managing a pizzeria for a while. As an experienced baker he quickly grasped the concept that geometrical structure of this dish was very important.

Since it was already late, Zia with her entourage had to leave. Although she wanted to stay and eat some more, Nick persuaded her that it was important to return timely so she would be allowed to visit another time.

When the palace’s delegation left, the poor guard who had to carry the boxed pizza had it worse than others – he got hungry enough already while waiting, but now, when the ‘magical’ food was in his hands, the aroma was simply unbearable. Still, the largest pizza delivery force in the history made it to the destination and Zia proudly brought pizza to her mother.

In the beginning queen Hua was skeptical, especially when she got to know the proper way of eating this dish. But after she tried the first bite, commanded with full mouth, “Quickly, call Alex! It’s an emergency!”

Needless to say, king was a bit annoyed when he saw the reason for the urgent summon, especially when it was called an ‘emergency’. He stood there, in the middle of the queen’s room and stared at his youngest wife and daughter with furrowed brows.

Queen Hua calmly looked back at her handsome husband. Indeed, it was a common knowledge that the king was the most handsome man in the kingdom. Even though he was already over forty, because he was Qi master, he looked much younger and could be easily taken as a thirty year old young man. In addition he was always neatly shaven and his dark hair freely dropped over his wide shoulders – a style that countless men in the world tried to imitate. And despite being a king, he never really liked rich and expensive closing, but preferred one that was comfortable and allowed him to always be combat ready. Of course, wearing trousers and shirt only accentuated his handsome appearance that his queen currently enjoyed.

While the king stared at the two, Zia quickly hugged him and queen Hua urged to try the food, thus he finally sampled it. What happened next was: in front of Zia’s large shocked eyes her parents fought for the remaining pieces of pizza while laughing and wrestling. In the end, when they joined forces and defeated the unique dish together, they sat in the big comfortable chairs quietly humming with dreamy looks on their faces.

“Which restaurant made this? Our cooks have never cooked a dish like this before.” King asked his queen.

“Nicky made it!” Zia proudly announced.

“Nicky?” King furrowed his brows.

“Dear, it’s already late, go wash up and go to bed. Tomorrow you’ll probably want to train again.” Queen smiled, hugged and kissed her daughter.

“Alright!” Zia hugged her father as well and ran off.

The royal pair sat in silence for a while. King Alexander was looking at his queen Hua with question marks written all over his face.

“Bah, can’t you stop being so serious for just a little bit?” Hua threw at him with a pillow, “Our daughter has made a new friend, his name is Nick.”

“Nick? How old is he and which family is he from?” King inquired.

“That’s the thing – he has no background and by that I mean – none at all! I was concerned at first. Well, I still am, but not as much anymore. Mostly because Ben was the one who brought him in and, what is more interesting, even when Ling asked, he insists that Nick is his nephew! We both know what happened in Lizia and that Ben has no family. I am pretty sure he is waiting for the right time to make a report to you directly and, since it’s not urgent, he is in no rush … You have been very busy since you came back …” She said the last part with a bit of pain in her voice.

“You know that I just returned. The relationship with the Northern empire is normalized, but there are always some problems with the barbarians. And now the both southern bastards – Sand and Lori are starting to create more trouble than usual. I believe there will be another war soon. And the pirates …” The king was in fact very tired. He just came back from war with barbarians and problems kept piling up endlessly. He had been away for too long.

“I don’t blame you.” Hua interrupted him, “There were some news that I wanted to share, but it was not important enough to call for you. I would have met you when you had more time, but since this weird dish appeared by a chance and brought you here, your wife would like to say a few things.”

She smiled and king felt his heart melting. She has always been his favorite, may be because she had this exotic beauty or may be because he fought the fiercest battle of his life just to conquer her.

“There were few minor events during the last several months and all of them somehow were related to,” she pointed at the empty box, “that boy named Nick.”

“He appeared with Ben one morning, without any background. Zia took liking in him and they became friends. Ling is still shadowing her, so you understand that if he allowed Nick to approach her and even to stay around, the boy is no threat. You know Ling, if there was a slightest possibility of that kid harming Zia, he would be long dead. Let’s move to the most important part – I think our daughter wants to pick up the sword!”

At this moment king’s eyes widened as he stood up, “Hua! We agreed ... we vowed that we will not teach her so she can live a happy life!”

“Sigh, you really are under a lot of stress.” Queen shook her head, “Sit down, I also want the same as you – wasn’t that the reason for our vow? It was all her idea! No one in the world even mentioned anything about swords or fighting to her!”

“So that boy Nick is influencing her that way?” King sat back down.

“I don’t think so. It should be exactly opposite. Because when it become a sensitive subject, I tasked Ling to pay attention to their conversations. And during the last ones he had before his retreat it became clear that the boy is total pacifist! He does not want to fight at all and does not even know how to fight!”

King furrowed his brows again, “So what are you saying?”

“Hmm. May be I should have started it from another angle. This boy who turned eight this year has theoretical knowledge of the Qi that not much worse than yours or mine.” Hua watched as her husband almost jumped up again, but managed to hold himself together, “Alex, I’m not joking. Another fact – they managed to get into your study. And that was last year – she was eight and he was seven!”

“What did they try to steal?” King just leaned back in the chair and tried to finally relax. The information that kept coming didn’t really allow that, but he was the king after all and had some self control.

“That’s the thing. First you have to understand that it was Zia’s idea. Second, they somehow managed to knock out guards – even Ling is not certain what did they use. Third, the boy didn’t even glance at anything, he methodically checked books on medicine and then went to detoxify himself for the next three months. The poison that came out of him could kill almost half of Aurora. Good thing we were already watching him and were able to neutralize the poison in our sewers on time – if it got out in the sea, we wouldn’t be eating fish anytime soon.” She shook her head, “And now the most important part. Without Ling noticing, Zia managed to sneak out a book – your stupid scrabbles about my sword! Out of all books she casually picked that one!”

King was trying to take deep breaths. This was too much of a coincidence.

“And then she came to me and asked for supplemental baths that could help clearing her Qi pathways. And it was her own initiative! Every day for almost three months she reads a book about swordsmen or some cheap sword techniques and takes the bath according to Lethe standards. Also, I think tomorrow someone will start clearing her Qi pathways and teach her Qi techniques! Alex, Do you understand what that means?”

After a period of silence king’s loud laughter filled the room, “Hahaha, our daughter is a genius! … But we have to keep our vows, if we don’t do that, we can’t trust even ourselves. We promised, that we won’t teach her, so we will stand by it. She wants to grow, then we will support her and, if it is destined, she might become even stronger than us. What do you think could become of a daughter of genius Qi sword master from the Sun kingdom and a Lethe kingdom’s sword prodigy? … But what to do with that boy?”

“What do you mean ‘what to do’? Nothing, obviously. He is her first friend. If you forcefully take him away it might scar her for life. Did you see the look on her face – she has no crush, they have a real friendship! That boy hasn’t even stolen a peanut from the kitchen, not to mention anything from the king’s study. Also, he is the only one who is capable of disciplining her. But you should find a time to talk to Ben. And I will keep you informed on how Zia’s progress goes.”

They kept looking at each other for a while.

Then queen Hua whispered, “Do you want to stay or you have to go?”