The elven queen had several children, and they had many more children in turn. Elves do not age. They only die if they are slain.

There were many living generations of the queen's descendants. Some were closer to her than others.

Loraine was the youngest of these descendants, separated from the queen by several generations. Her parents fought and died in war. She was raised in the house of the queen herself, who treated her not as a distant relative but as a human would treat their grandchild.

Perhaps, after all these years, the queen had become lonely. Her husband, immediate children, and direct grandchildren had long been murdered, some even by each other.

She had given Loraine the best tutors, the best elixirs, the best of anything a noble elven child should have. Loraine had proven herself to be worthy of them. She lacked skill at magic, but more than made up for it with her wisdom and grace.

So the queen had been all the more angry when Loraine had left the kingdom with her childhood best friend, the son of a tailor.

Loraine had always been insatiably curious. She soaked up any and all knowledge like a sponge, then went looking for more.

It was little surprise, then, that she had eventually wanted to see the world for herself.

And see it she did.

She travelled everywhere with her friend, who later became her lover. They hid their race and experienced so many of the cultures the world had to offer.

That was until the tailor's son had been wounded in combat, slashed by poisoned knives that were meant for Loraine. Loraine had done everything to save him. She had failed.

High elves had more resistance to poison. Perhaps, if she had taken the knife instead, her royal blood would have protected her. Perhaps she would have survived.

Instead, her best friend had died in her arms. She had been running through the forest, trying to carry him to a healer, when he had realized his end was coming. He asked her to hold him, and she had.

"This wasn't your fault," he had said, smiling. Those were his last words.

Loraine fell into despair. In a haze of grief and guilt, she wandered emptily, not bothering to take the precautions that had kept her safe over the previous decades. There was no revenge to be taken; her friend's murderers hadn't survived their fight.

She simply walked, sleeping on the ground and foraging for food, until rumors spread and she was caught by slavers.

Because she was valuable, they took care to keep her physically healthy. But inside, the repeated torture, the loneliness, and the guilt took its toll. She was proud, and the humiliation angered her, but even that anger was fading.

In the room of soul stones, the queen had seen the light of her granddaughter's life flickering. As a parent, she had wanted nothing more than to assemble her entire army and send them out to search for and rescue Loraine.

But she wasn't just a parent. She was the queen.

It is considered a crime for an elf to leave the kingdom. They are allowed to return, but not without punishment, suspicion, and careful supervision and investigation to ensure they haven't been corrupted by humanity.

The queen had already nearly caused a political scandal by refusing to have Loraine branded a criminal. It had been very uncharacteristic of her, dividing the court. Due to certain ancient laws and treaties, sending elves out of the kingdom to pursue her in this situation or otherwise interfering with human countries could have caused instability to the point where it would endanger the kingdom, or even start a war.

She might have been able to get away with some more subtle maneuvering, but the eyes of the Temple of Iron were always watching. Even she couldn't predict what they might see and do. The stakes were too high.

So the queen, bound by duty, could do little but watch the flickering light of her granddaughter's soul, praying that the last person alive who she loved would return.

Then, a miracle happened. The light in the stone had brightened and stabilized.

And her child returned with a human mage in tow. A mage wearing the body of her son and threatening her with war. A mage who had saved her granddaughter's life.

He thought himself quite clever, the queen could tell. And he wasn't wrong. But he was arrogant. The queen had lived for many millennia, long enough to see several human civilizations rise and fall. For all that time, she had kept her post as the highest seat in a country full of ancient, proud, and powerful mages.

No politician alive could be considered her equal in experience.

She wouldn't be so easily forced to dance to the tune of a human child, even a clever one with a strong hand. And while he was clearly practiced at messing with people, publicly approaching a government was different.

The anger she had showed originally had been real. She still had emotions left and the one evoked by the desecration of her son's corpse had caught her off guard. It had been a rare moment of weakness.

But when her head cooled and her vision cleared, she had noticed something was off.

It was nothing the boy did wrong. He had clearly been trained to hide his intentions and did so with remarkable talent and skill. It wasn't surprising that he had been able to play Loraine.

The queen wasn't Loraine. She was far older. Her intuition told her the boy was bluffing.

Even if he hadn't been, she had ways to make it harder for him to carry out his threats. If it came down to it, she wasn't afraid of a game of cat and mouse.

She believed that he wasn't a black mage. She believed that they shared a common enemy. That was not enough for her to make such exceptions for him.

He had saved Loraine.

The way he did it was nasty and manipulative, but he had brought her child back to her. He had given her what she wanted most in the world: her granddaughter alive and well.

So she gave him a chance.

She played along with him, taking a hard stance while allowing him to make his threats, forcing him to explain himself to her court.

And so he was allowed to stay for the good of their nation.

His rights were cemented by an official agreement with the government. Considering the circumstances, she allowed him far more generous conditions than she had to, although she did so subtly.

It wasn't entirely due to gratitude; she thought that he might be of use to her kingdom in the future, especially if trained.

Of course, if he had messed up, he would've ended up in a bad situation. She couldn't blatantly allow a human mage to stay based on favoritism and intuition, especially one who had approached them in such a manner. The pride and cultural racism ingrained in her nation was far too deep.

Even if people had their suspicions, she hadn't ostensibly done anything wrong. She could plausibly claim her hand was forced.

This was how the elven queen ran her court: through deception, guided by her own motives, doing what she thought good for her nation while maintaining the illusion of caring for justice. She was an effective ruler.