William had no trouble writing out long arcane formulae in specific detail, listing each ingredient exactly as needed and the steps to combine them into something useful such as a magical formation. However, now he was stumped. No matter what he did he felt like something was missing.

The king and queen of Ostana and a dozen others? Check. Also from Ostana, the ambassador Simon Dragonfoe and another retinue of a dozen. Lila wouldn’t say anything, but she liked to see her descendents, even if she would never tell them who she was. William considered inviting some others, but his connection to them would be rather hard to explain. He added a few prominent merchants to the list… and he supposed he ought to invite the current knight-commander and archmage. He wasn’t sure who would actually show up, but he made the offer nonetheless.

Then, from Eclea. The archmage, of course, and some from the council. A few other prominent citizens were added to the list, but in the case of Eclea William didn’t expect much. Likely only the ambassador, Vasanta Joshi, would show his face. William wouldn’t have been quick to trust himself, either. Even so, it wasn’t like he was going to have his wedding anywhere but at his own castle, nor was he going to wait a few dozen years for political tensions to settle.

Liaoyang had a whole mess of people he needed to invite. While they acted as one country in relation to external threats, Liaoyang was not a comprehensive whole. Instead, clans and city lords controlled their own territories. In a way, it was like the gevai had done while the Demon King wasn’t around- and sometimes when he was around. However, Liaoyang had slowly been moving toward a more unified government. If they could avoid fighting each other for a couple generations, perhaps there would be a dramatic change.

William wasn’t sure exactly how to invite people from the Order in a letter, and they might not be terribly happy with the soul destroying he’d done lately if they found out about it. Either way, he knew the older ambassador, Sun Xia, was part of the Order- he could bring some extras along if desired. With the Demon King destroyed their mission was done- whether they knew it or not- but they could easily come up with another goal. William just didn’t want it to be guarding against the new Eternal King or the gevai in general.

William did his best to avoid inviting an excess of people from Ustil. Though they were most sympathetic to him, showing too much favor to them could backfire. Even if they took it appropriately, other nations might not like the idea of two nations on opposite sides of them being overly friendly- and that was the case with all of the human nations when considering Ustil and Cruonia. Not that they really needed to worry about attacks from either, but it was best to try to avoid trouble proactively.

As WIlliam was working on the names of gevai to invite, he realized that not everyone would fit in the grand hall. It was already full at his coronation, and there would be more people coming to his wedding unless things went terribly wrong. The grand hall was built long before, when the populations were smaller- and the human population far outstripped gevai population even with similar amounts of controlled territory. Perhaps the wedding would have to take place outside. In that case, he needed gardens… and those could take years to develop. On the other hand, more humans would come if they didn’t actually have to enter his castle. Many expensive thoughts went through William’s head… thoughts he would have to discuss with Lorelei and his financial advisers.

At least William didn’t have to worry about growing old and dying before his list was finished or the planning complete. Even so, he thought it somewhat optimistic for the wedding to take place within the next half-dozen years. It was a good thing he didn’t actually have to plan most of it himself. It was also good that he wouldn’t have to do it more than once.

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William shook his head as he looked at the specially made wagon coming in. In the wagon was a single tree- a fully grown tree complete with the large area of soil and roots around it. The wagons were fortified with metal and magical arrays to support it, and extra wide wheels to avoid sinking into the ground. It was a stupendous expense for a single tree- but William comforted himself with the thought that the wagons wouldn’t be used just once.

Each tree took a wizard supporting it the entire length of its journey, from when it was dug up- after magically coaxing the important roots into the volume of dirt that would fit in the high-sided wagons. Along the way, they were watched for nutrients and water content. William supposed that having wizards taking care of plants so closely wasn’t a bad thing, but when it was done just to save time in growing… well, it made him realize how kings could become poor.

Trees were transplanted one by one around his castle, along with other plants that were now forming a grand garden in an area that otherwise had very little. Fortunately it wasn’t too hard to divert some of a nearby river to bring water. William wondered why it hadn’t already been done to make a moat, but he supposed the Demon King hadn’t really invested in large engineering projects. No one would dare attack his castle anyway, so it didn’t matter much.

Though William wasn’t sure if he could justify the expense, the resulting garden was at least something good. It wasn’t the most impressive garden, but at least it was something that only existed for the sake of beauty and not conflict. William made plans to continue to expand it after the wedding- but more slowly and with more seeds than transplants.