Kinya mulled over this action for many, many days. He knew if he were ever found out that he would be executed on the spot but he had already dirtied his hands. What was one more body?
"Have you sent for Ahmed?"
Flames licked within its wooden confines as the stars overlooked their housing.
Their new housing gifted by the empress befitting of their new status as a lower nobility but nobility nonetheless.
They had two gardens now, seven rooms, and three floors if the floor level where the camels and sheep were housed is considered a floor. But compared to the former two-floored and three-roomed housing--it is still of great surprise his son was able to marry as well as he did.
A separate residence connected to their housing was Koloda's but Kinya and Unnatti had saved up for the grand majority of this throughout their lifetime. They were, at the moment, poor for all intents and purposes.
And the brothers were glad that it worked out in such a way that they didn't have to fake their accounts.
He and his brother had been drinking spiced apple tea popular among merchants in the upper borders. Their investments over the years giving way to a flourishing information route. It was better to be called overly greedy than overly clever any day of any week.
"I did."
"And Babatu Cissé did the rest of the work for us."
"Bait to a fish."
This merchant route was also in the direction of the ever-mysterious Mawaddah clan residence. Courted with camels and horses as guards and trained soldiers within the inner protection with both alphas and omegas covered from head to toe. They were an enigma.
When he and his brother first landed in their escape from the Jung Dynasty's slaughter of their house, they crossed the nearest borders and found themselves under the protection of the Mawaddah clan.
And they, in turn, became members of their family.
Of course, to outsiders, they wanted to save their sister. Even to their spouses, they dedicated themselves to this lie because it was a half-truth, not a complete lie. They did want their sister returned, but she did not. Now that the politics of the empire were twisting and snapping, they were the reasonable escape, and they could come to this agreement.
The two brothers laughed and then clinked their cups.
It was always to gather enough power to protect their family. The long-term way will always be through peace. And it would always be a benefit that his brother would be reunited with his son.
"We should send a message for her to prepare for the transfer."
"Should we worry over the captain's actions?"
"Berman?"
The elder brother laughed.
"We let him go then."
"Brother, we won't even have to lift a finger."
Lisib could read his brother's confidence like oasis water on a cool evening. He trusted his brother and then relaxed in the midnight air.
Waiting for the approaching dawn of their enemies.
Enzo twiddled his fingers and sighed loudly.
It was only him in his brother's room. And it was the only quiet place warded off from the other soldiers, who he had earned the respect of through many years of wheedling and cajoling, where he would be able to think away from pretenses. He was exhausted by their ignorance.
A wrinkled scrap of parchment flew through the opening of the housing, the makeshift window, and Enzo unwrapped it to read:
I have found the information you seek.
Ochoa is the spy.
And the French have blood ties with Sonhrai.
The Prince has no ledge to climb up off of.
Do not trust the Commander.
The Molokhiyya and El Mahdy are involved.
My hands are tied.
He felt anger flush through his veins as he tossed the scrap in the oil lamp and watched as the paper soaked in the grease. It twisted and writhed as it sunk under the weight and then he flicked the switch. Click. Click. Click. Click.
The small piece of paper was consumed in the fire.
Only the Imperial family and the nobility remembered the relative closeness between the Rouya, the Berman, the Bouchers, and the Casas. The reason they were sent, one by one slowly over a decade, was because of their blood relations. A Berman married into the Rouyas a few generations back, leading to the Great Sylas Rouya, the so-called Golden-Haired Hero of Sonhrai. The Casas and the Bouchers were recent acquaintances through marriage as Maximus French, the former Commander of the Empire of Carolingian and present War Minister, is a cousin of the present Boucher family head. Maximus French had a sister, an older alpha woman, the one who raised him when his brother held the weight of the Casas clan on his shoulders, Sarai French.
She had also been as close with Beckett Berman II, making them more like brothers, and his brother more like his father.
Anyone may wonder what this has to do with anything. It was a boring and droll tale of intermarriage and political intrigue between noble families told a thousand times.
Except, in this case, this was a situation long-since set into planning.
He heard boots shuffling and a conversation outside the door. Enzo quietly crept closer and then placed his ears against it.
"You can't be serious?"
It was Commander Berman.
"He needs to be added to the tree--officially."
The voice who responded was his son, Beckett the second.
Enzo could hear Commander Berman growl, "The boy is a bastard. An omega, no less."
"He's Sarai's only living blood relative."
"Boy," Commander Berman hissed. "You should know better than to think with your cock. Maximus asked us to make no overt moves. How would he feel adding someone to his registry in response?"
"Glad that he has more family members breathing."
The Commander laughed. "The root of it all is surely my mistake. I dedicated my soul to this cause, ignoring marriage and having an heir with luck. But an heir who cannot beget heirs isn't an heir at all!"
"I surely--"
"Of that, I surely doubt."
"And yet, you use a relieving servant again to do so."
"You're incapable of rational thought."
"And you're errantly cruel!"
"Leave! Or I will send you on the first boat on return."
It had taken much convincing and bribery to get them across the seas and into the camp. Enzo knew more than anyone else how difficult it was to arrive here.
Beckett wasn't going to ignore orders.
Sure enough, he could hear the hesitant footsteps leaving and Commander Berman's angry mumbling disappearing in the opposite direction.
Judging by the note, he had to reach the Prince and find out a plan of escape. It appeared the only way the young Prince would survive would be away from Commander Berman's tight fist.
Once he no longer heard footsteps or voices, he hurriedly snatched the oil lamp, took the note to heart, and slid between the housings where the sand dipped out of sight. He weaved left and right out of the guards and soldier's eyesight and snuck around the trees until he reached near the prisons.
There was a corner of the military camp where alchemists once studied, but it had now fallen into deep disrepair. The separation between the paths leading to the prison was blocked by thick foliage and sand that couldn't be traversed. So, he used his shortcut; he entered the broken-down hut and shut the door behind him. The place was full of cracked bottles, moldy herbs, and a pile of wood at its corner. In this very corner, Enzo reached over and pushed the dusty wood out of the way showing the metal handle of a door leading underground.
This door was the shortcut to the prisons. He used his oil lamp to lead the way through the dark cavern. When he arrived at the end, he shoved the stony door open and it groaned with dirt and dust falling from its angles.
The Prince was unphased by such an entrance. He sat surrounded by books, parchment, ink, and what looked like scribbled notes. His eyes briefly fell over his before falling back to his writing where he scribbled more down.
"Are you aware that your life is in danger?"
"Castillo Reviere informed me," the Prince sighed and then crossed something off his parchment. "One of yours, I presume. Father believes the Reviere branch was abandoned by the Rouya, but how would such a man be able to contact the Mawaddah clan then? How would he be available, conveniently, to be such a pawn? And then there's you."
Enzo pursed his lips.
He was unsure where the direction of this was going. So, he replied, "I'm a soldier in a long line of soldiers."
"I believe that, really," the Prince said, but sounded like he believed anything but. "It's only strange how the Prime Minister reacted to you. Like he was used to your antics. Even the bookstore owner acquiesced to you, unlike how they would for a foreigner. Especially an occupying one. It's almost as if, if you weren't paying attention, well, that they already knew you. "
"My brother has been the captain for over--
"Fifteen years," the Prince clicked his tongue as he added his notes to a pile and then started writing on a fresh sheet. But you arrived only a short while ago. So, I asked around, and everyone kept repeating that you arrived here as a child, actually, but then sent back. Weird, though. When Castillo Reviere went through the manifests, he couldn't find any receipt or proof that you had ever departed. So, where were you for ten of these fifteen years?"
Enzo chuckled. "Castillo has no access to the manifests."
The weaver was obtrusive but not nosy. He wasn't going to stick his nose in a business he knew he shouldn't be in. It was a trap.
"He did when Captain Casas wrote up a request for the ships in port to make way for his shipments," the Prince clarified. He began to scribble again. "They had to give him access to the schedules and thereby manifests of the ships in port. A little bit of access is all access, isn't it?"
Enzo froze.
He found it strange when his brother said Castillo Reviere had left so easily. And even stranger when the weaver made notice that his shipments were being blocked. It didn't even make sense at the time. They had just been at port. How many ships could've possibly arrived in such a short time outside of regular hours? The answer was little to none.
"You know each other?"
"Yes and no."
"Yes and no?"
At this, the Prince shuffled his parchment papers together in a stack and then tucked them into a bound book, wrapping it with string several times over. The Prince continued on, "I know of the former Captain Saavedra. And when his death struck, my father had my mother and me listen to the pleas of the people, as if it were a punishment. But I didn't need to look too deeply to find an answer. Captain Saavedra's son wrote a letter to my father, given to me instead, requesting for help. Castillo Reviere was our point of contact."
"Castillo isn't so brazen."
"I never told him I was the Prince," the Prince finished. "I only said that I had money. Too much money to count and a small request: to tell me the major rumors in town."
Enzo felt his brow twitch.
If anything were to convince the weaver, a line like that would do it.
"We have to leave now."
"We will," the Prince said as he continued to tidy up what little had brought with him. "But I think it's best if we wait for the signal."
Enzo paced the prison stone floor with loud, scratching footsteps, his sandals echoing in the enclosed room. He said, "I hope you know what you're doing."
"I'm taking a bit of a bet."
And the Prince grinned as he hoisted his now stack of books onto a fine thickly layered strip of leather that wrapped around those bound books for ease of transport over his shoulder. Sweat coated his brow, but the grin still sat across his face.
A brief flash of their recent tumble near the relieving quarters settled in mind, while, outwardly, he blinked at the display of both youth and stubbornness.
The Prince was going to get himself killed at this rate, but Enzo wasn't fearful of a well-drawn bow. If the game was set right, it would surely send true.
There were safety measures set in place.
They were fine.
Had to be.