The scenery of the Royal City of Lordaeron is very beautiful. From the higher palace garden, you can directly overlook the entire city.
The solemn Holy Light Cathedral, the beautiful Central Opera House, and the bustling trade district give you a panoramic view of the city's vitality and antique heritage.
Princess Calia Menethil of Lordaeron has long been accustomed to coming to the garden every afternoon to enjoy afternoon tea while enjoying the magnificent city scenery.
Ten years are like one day.
From the time Calia was a child, her father Terenas, the king, has been instilling an idea in her.
"You were born for the Kingdom of Lordaeron and the Menethil family. While enjoying the privileges, you must also shoulder your responsibilities as a child of the royal family."
The responsibility of "children" sounds really good.
Terenas said that the responsibilities of sons and daughters are completely different.
Calia is the eldest princess of the Kingdom of Lordaeron. According to the rules of the feudal dynasty, she should have the right to inherit the throne, and she is very high in the line of succession.
However, Terenas never intended to train Calia as his heir, but placed all his hopes on Arthas, who was born two years later than Calia.
The queen of Terenas died of illness not long after giving birth to Arthas. The only direct bloodline of the Menethil royal family was Calia and Arthas.
Calia, who had never left the royal city... or even the palace, could not contact the outside world in person. However, through the legends and stories that the palace maids heard from the palace bards, Calia had a doubt in her heart when she was young. .
Since the queen exists in these stories, why does her father never teach her any way to govern the country, but just let her show her charm as a woman at banquets?
Growing up, Calia attended countless banquets, and she felt like an artificial landscape placed in the center of the banquet hall for people to watch.
There is no need to think, no ego, just maintain a fixed elegant posture and a fixed smile.
Calia, who was born 5 years before the Dark Portal, is just 17 years old this year, the age when flowers begin to bloom.
After countless generations of bloodline optimization, the descendants of Menethil's royal family are handsome in both men and women.
Since three years ago, within the Kingdom of Lordaeron alone, dozens of young nobles, large and small, have proposed marriage to Terenas, hoping to marry the increasingly beautiful Princess Calia.
Terenas understood the principle of waiting for a price and did not agree to any nobles in the country.
From the bottom of his heart, he hoped to rely on Calia's marriage to gain a strong claim to a human kingdom, which would help him unify the seven human kingdoms and recreate Thoradin's great cause.
But no one is a fool, especially the kings of the great kingdoms.
Terenas's ambition was obvious. No prince from other kings was willing to marry a Lordaeron princess who could explode at any time.
At the level of royal families in various countries, appearance and figure are no longer the primary criteria for selecting wives. The most important thing is whether they can help the princes after they succeed to the throne.
The Princess of Lordaeron has a strong backing, but the price she needs to pay to gain support from Lordaeron is so high that no human kingdom is willing or able to bear it.
Just after the Second Orc War, which was five years ago in the 7th year of the Black Gate, Terenas once had the idea of marrying Calia, who was only 12 years old at the time, to the heir of the Kingdom of Alterac.
There were two families closest to this position at that time. One was Lord Daval Prestor who jumped out of the cracks in the stone, and the other was the Barov family who had received Terenas' promise.
According to legend, the Prestor family is a distant relative of the Perenolde family, but this identity was actually fabricated from beginning to end. It was a false identity created by the rebellious black dragon headed by Deathwing using illusions.
After Deathwing was seriously injured and escaped, the black dragon prince Nefarian inherited this identity.
Due to all the troubles, Nefarian gave up Deathwing's original plan, hid back in Blackrock Tower to concentrate on his research on colorful dragons, and handed over the name of the Presto family to his sister Onyxia to run it.
As we all know, Onyxia was abducted by Sharlayan years ago.
In desperation, Nefarian sent a female black dragon to replace her, but she was eventually killed by Sharlayan and others in Stormwind City, and the identity of the Prestor family's black dragon was completely exposed.
After Davar Prestor (Nefarian) voluntarily withdrew from the succession competition, the succession to the throne of Alterac seemed to be certain, destined to fall into the hands of the Barov family, the in-laws of the Perenold family.
Many people still don't understand why Terenas gave up on a more secure marriage alliance and forcibly annexed Alterac in a hurry for quick success.
Alex Barov has a happy family. He and his wife Yin Luxia have two sons and one daughter.
Moreover, according to the investigation by Lordaeron's intelligence department, the two sons of the Barov family, Alex and Wilton, are out-and-out playboys who are very easy to control.
No matter who Calia marries, Lordaeron's ministers are sure to use this opportunity to intervene in the internal affairs of the Kingdom of Alterac and gradually take Alterac into their hands.
But Terenas chose the most radical method, which attracted strong condemnation from Stromgard and Gilneas.
Five years have passed in a hurry, and Princess Calia still has not been able to get married.
However, through the recent changes within the Barov family, some ministers found a way to clear the ground for Terenas' radical move.
The Barov family has publicly announced the abolition of Alex's inheritance rights and chose their youngest daughter Jandis, who has always been secretive, to inherit the family business.
However, as a party who almost reached a marriage alliance, Calia herself knew very well that Terenas did not think that far ahead at all.
He just didn't want Stromgard and Gilneas to get involved in dismembering Alterac, so he took advantage of his status as leader of the Alliance, which was in full swing after the victory of the war, to take action, thus leaving endless troubles.
Terenas became more stubborn as he got older. No matter how the nobles and ministers in the country tried to persuade him, he still controlled Calia's marriage and tried to find marriages with princes from other kingdoms, unwilling to give up his already unrealistic dream of unification. .
Terenas, who was becoming more and more stupid due to his persistence and personal ambition, did not notice that his daughter had gradually grown up and began to have her own ideas, no longer willing to be a tool for marriage and childbirth.
In the garden of the Palace of Lordaeron, Princess Calia, who was in the blooming season, had a gentle smile on her face and half-closed her eyes as she listened to the new story the maid had heard from the palace bard.
Most of the stories of bards have been beautified through artistic processing, and the stories of court bards contain many political purposes.
The latest story is adapted (randomly made up) based on the Battle of Alterac. The story highlights the godlike military skills and strong personal strength of Alexandros Mograine and Lightbringer Uther.
She had grown up hearing all kinds of stories, and Calia had long been accustomed to extracting the truly important information from a lot of nonsense legends.
"Count Sarlayan Deepshadow."
After the maid with a nice voice stopped telling the story, Calia opened her slightly closed blue eyes, smiled and nodded to her encouragingly.
After sending away the palace maid who was responsible for telling the story, Calia picked up the red tea cup and strolled elegantly to the edge of the garden. She stood in front of the withered flower railing and looked down thoughtfully at the familiar scenery of the royal city.
In the stories of the court bards, the name of Earl Deep Shadow does not appear often, and only a few sentences mention his identity.
Representatives of the evil high elven kingdom Quel'Thalas went to Alterac to win over the Alterac rebels on behalf of the Sun King Kael'thas Sunstrider, creating chaos in the rear of the Kingdom of Lordaeron.
After Crown Prince Alsace was placed under house arrest in his palace, Princess Calia gained the trust of Terenas, who was still recovering, and finally began to have the opportunity to contact state affairs, and thus got to know a group of ministers and nobles with similar stances.
Nothing is unachievable.
Princess Calia is that caring person. While she has worked hard to play the role of a vase over the years, she has never given up on exploring national affairs.
Most of the maids in the Lordaeron Palace come from various noble families.
Not only Lordaeron, but all major kingdoms including Quel'Thalas have adopted this set of selection rules.
Through her personal maid, she contacted some nobles who were willing to help. Calia secretly obtained a lot of intelligence from domestic and foreign sources over the years.
Naturally, this information will inevitably mention the neighbor next door whose presence is getting stronger and stronger - the Kingdom of Quel'Thalas.
Sarlayan Deep Shadow's name rarely appears in official documents, but he is mentioned from time to time in some information that cannot be put on the table. He attracted Calia's initial attention more than two years ago.
As a member of the peace faction, Princess Calia secretly gained a lot of support in this internal political struggle, and therefore connected with the Barov family. Unexpectedly, she heard the news again in this behind-the-scenes peace negotiation. Sarlayan's name.
"Will you personally rush to Lordaeron soon to interview your pen pal, Princess White Rose...?"
"Ha~"
Princess Calia shook her head with a smile, took a sip of black tea, and said to herself nonchalantly: "As a high elf, it is not easy to sneak into the Royal City of Lordaeron silently."
"Oh? Your Highness the Princess, do you think so?"
A pleasant deep laughter suddenly sounded beside Calia: "Actually, I think it's not that difficult."
