Jonathon did think that Enzo's delivery was a bit heavy-handed, but it worked. The guards shared a look before one of them wandered off to find the maidservant.
To his knowledge, Prince Sylas was on the market and no fiance was on the horizon. So he leans over and said, "Who's your contact?"
Enzo smiled. "No one. I made it up."
"You--"
When the guard reappeared, he was alone and ordered them to follow him inside the palace into the interior grounds. The wide, expansive space was empty beside pathways leading into more warded-off sections, servants doing laundry in darkened corners, and guards being trained by legionnaires.
"Wait here," the guard said and then scowled.
Jonathon was sure that if the guard believed he could get rid of them and hide the bodies that he would.
He grabbed Enzo's shoulder and said lowly, "You can't make a gamble on another gamble."
"I didn't gamble," Enzo dusted his hand off politely. "The two main factions of the consorts are fighting for the throne. Sylas is a prized prince far above any of the others, even the princesses. If he has a secret, which everyone does, he's going to worry that someone is going to find it and use it against his family."
Jonathon was both extremely worried and extremely attracted by Enzo's confidence in the situation. The conflict forced him to have to confront it. He couldn't understand what the man was thinking but he was also becoming predictable in that way. Perhaps, in time, he will be able to understand him in such a way that he wouldn't have to worry. For now, though, he had to be clear.
"The first thing he's going to do is instigate whether we do or don't know the secret. And we don't. What will we do then?"
"We already have an idea. Look, over there. It wasn't the servant who appeared but the master. The secret must be dangerous."
The Prince had to take several deep breaths as the other's lips turned up and his eyes lit up as if this were a game and he was winning.
In the distance, he could see several servants and someone dressed in midnight blue, thinly woven coverings over his face and shoulder flowing over his body entirely in geometric shapes not unlike the shape of stars. The blue and gold swatches of colors weaved on the robe opened on his face as he reached them.
An omega Prince who appeared well put together and calm as he laid his hands across his stomach in courtesy with a lukewarm bow. He then waved off all his servants but one as he spoke, "Speak, what do you know of my courting?"
"Foreigners," Enzo said immediately. "I know not of the tribe or clan but I know they're of the north and warring peoples. They'll supply your empire with soldiers and war horses."
Sylas snorted but then paced back and forth as a wayward servant entered the fray, passing a message to the now agitated Prince.
He hissed, "I knew it. As soon as my sister ignored the warnings, I knew they would work on me next. She's never understood the importance of politics. They'll break and dilute us with marriage if they can."
"It's the benefit to being royal," he said to Prince Sylas emphatically. "And an alpha."
Sylas huffed and then gave a quick perusing glance before laughing. "And who are you again?"
With the books linked over his shoulder, he hunched forward and may have appeared a bit less noble than intended. Educated, surely. But briming with nobility and the grace of posture?
No.
He could feel sweat trickle down his temple.
"Ah," Jonathon tosses a look at Enzo, who merely shrugs. He bows in the standard way of his people with his hand over his chest, wobbling under the weight of the books. "I am Prince Jonathon II of the Empire of Carolingian. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I have heard great things about you. Named after a former soldier of ours and a beauty indeed."
"Oh, that's--" Sylas answers uncomfortably. "I can't say the same, can I?"
"As people," Enzo cut in. "And individuals who live outside of the state of your empire. There is no real reason you can't be friends. Neither of you personally have done evil to others."
The uncomfortable nature was broken as the early bell for this season's Ouagadou
"You both didn't come here just to tell me about a future betrothal." Sylas laughed. "With all this talk of war and peace. I was always going to be a bargaining piece. But why come to me at all? I have no power. And now, little stake in a game I may not be playing with these people in the coming years."
"Oh, but I disagree," Enzo replies and then wanders into the path leading to the Great Hall. The large doors were closed with several guards in the way. He stretched out his hands and appeared to draw shapes with his fingers. "At one point, this Great Hall was only this courtyard here. These walls were wooden posts, and the grass was grooved dirt. The omegas and alphas both sat on the ground shoulder to shoulder. Their power came not from their clans or their spouses but from their abilities and skills to lead. Some were war leaders. Some were orators and recorders. Whether they had deep roots or entered the halls rootless, they took it upon themselves to speak. Those others were like you and I."
Jonathon perused the courtyard as Enzo spoke to Sylas' curious gaze. The archways split into six entrances instead of four, but there were only four pathways, including the one leading from the main entrance of the palace. The six archways were bolted shut doors. He imagined they opened up in certain hours of the day or doors used for a specific purpose. One of the doors, he could tell, was modeled after a kind of window sill in antiquity. A layer of gauze waved in the wind over it, but he could tell it wasn't built into the stone like a window but a door. An exit or entrance into what he could only imagine as thin interior halls. The crystal mosaics of the ceiling in the exterior halls glittered in the sunlight as the minutes shifted.
"I don't believe you and I have anything in common. I think you're here in jest or in subterfuge. Neither of which are to my interests."
"I have nothing to gain in lying to you but everything to gain in an alliance. Once you hear our proposal, you may change your mind."
Their eyes met like swordsmen at battle. Words were silently being meted out as their brows furrowed, and then a sigh escaped Enzo.
"And yet, I have nothing at all to gain in a political dance with you."
"Then, pray tell, why are you so concerned with the politics of your sister?"
Sylas glared. "She's my sister, my blood. If she falls, so do I."
"And that is how I feel about our Prince," Enzo adds. "He has as much to lose as you do in this case of whether the military will end its occupation."
"Does he?"
Sylas glances at him briefly and then eyes the stack of books strewn across his shoulder.
"My life is, quite literally, at stake," he returned. "If the military continues to occupy this land, my father's people will have me executed and replace me with my half-brother. At this juncture, we are on the same side."
Sylas winced at how blase his response was, but as a royal, death felt both distant and ever undeniable. Everyone died but royals tended to die young--if they were allowed to be born at all.
"There is--a new situation that's occurred in our family," Sylas said carefully and then lowered his voice. "Do you know what the Shu Imperial Agreement was?"
Named for the myth of the Sky god, Shu, in Sonhrai for creating the world in sacrifice and for the Zhuong, it meant wise and virtuous. It was another way to bridge a gap between the two warring peoples.
Jonathon spoke this time, "A beloved consort from the Zhuong and one from Sonhrai carried the heir of the other Imperial leader. It was proposed to be a way for them to meet where the other ends."
"Yes," Sylas said and then frowned. "My father was the one chosen. Twins were born but under inauspicious stars. Things became heated between my father and mother. And the faction of Imperial Consort Malik gained in strength as ours began to abandon us. We've still yet to recover from then. My younger sister was supposed to help heal the damage, but now--"
The Prince frowned at that too.
He knew this sort of set-up. It was the kind his father and his mistress had been setting up against his mother and him for the past year.
"They had been--banished, and our Imperial mother had pretended away the entire thing, forgotten it over time," Sylas finished. "Until today, I've been given word that they'll be arriving here soon. Both of them. They'll be meeting up for an audience on the occupation of the military and the final decision on how that will be handled as support. My sister only believes in forgiveness and not the political ramifications."
"I thought one had married up north and the other into Zhuong," Enzo questioned. "How could they have found themselves back here?"
"Purposefully. Intentionally. Part of me thinks it's sentiment," Sylas said pointedly. "Another part of me worries that it's vengeance and hatred. They were abandoned. My father hadn't even gotten to hold them for more than a few minutes before they were taken. His sense of regret will blind him, and my sister won't even question their sincerity."
"You're the only line of defense in case it all goes wrong," Enzo said thoughtfully. As he began to pace around them. Another servant shuffled on by and from servant to servant until it reached Sylas' ears. "And it will, whether by their own hands or adversaries shaking with the opportunity."
Sylas sighed and then added, "They've arrived. We're to meet them before the audience but my father has moved ahead of this. He's already welcomed them in."
"Did Imperial Consort Malik try to stop them?" Enzo said.
Jonathon tried following the intricacies of this dynasty but he was now dizzy with all these new figures to add to his memory. He had only known his part in this scheme. Everything else he hoped would simply fall into place.
"No, but he did try to embarrass my father with their existence."
"It speaks to the fact that Imperial Consort Malik is worried."
"If things were switched and Imperial Consort Malik was chosen, they never would've arrived alive."
"Will this test the affection between your father and the Empress? Perhaps he's worried that this will make them stronger and not weaker."
Sylas was quiet.
He remembered when his father used to take longer routes around the southern neighbors where he imagined his mistress is from. If only his mother wasn't blind to the ambitions of their maiden family when it came to the military.
Jonathon broke through and said, "It will but this could also be used to help your father and your brothers gain strength. The weak spot in any armor requires reinforcement. If not, the soldier will have to worry every moment they're out in battle if someone knows where that weak spot is. This will always come back to haunt your family if not dealt with."
"I couldn't care less about them," Sylas said imperiously. His well-manicured fingers fluttered in worry. "But, you're correct, and I would rather not hurt him and if something horrible happened to them--he wouldn't be able to forgive my mother much less respond as needed."
"If we're able to resolve the situation, then you must promise us a proper alliance," Enzo clarified. "I'm not doing this out of the kindness of my heart. We have needs that require resources that only someone of this dynasty can support."
Sylas' fingers fluttered again. He sighed and then said, "I will leave my servant, Amai, to inform you of the players in today's audience and their background. If we're able to make it out none the lesser, an alliance would be opportune either way."
A slightly older servant with thick brows and an imprinted frown was left behind as Sylas and the rest of his servants left the main courtyard.
Enzo had rushed over to the servant and begun questioning her about the important figures in these meetings, the clans, who liked who, and who hated who, while Jonathon looked up at the sun.
It was nearly midday when he felt a shiver in his spine and a chill crawling up his neck. What would happen in this audience would leave them alive but not unscathed. It reminded him of the day he saw his father leave the coliseum with such a pleasant but cold expression. His lips unfurled, and he remembered his father staring directly at him before he turned around the throne to leave.
To leave and plot his mother's death.
Although they stood in the hooded corner of the large courtyard, the unmistakable entrance of the Empress and her ministers behind her woke him up. The Empress was garbed in gold and silver, with a twisting robe that spoke to their dynasty's warring heritage. The crown above her head wasn't adorned with jewels but was sharply smithed with edges and angles that spoke to the age of their dynasty. It may have carried a new name, but a crown that old had to have been worn twenty times at least.
He couldn't hear much among the ministers' chatter and the snapping of their sandals until he heard, "Make sure the ambassador arrives."
Enzo had been committing to memory the faces Amai pointed out with a head tilt or a blink since pointing so openly would've been rude. The facial expressions he switched between as he translated the gestures were humorous and he remembered something else.
He had more to look forward to.
More things to hope for.
The servant bowed and then rushed off as the last of the ministers entered the Great Hall.
"Did you hear the Empress?" He told Enzo.
Enzo nodded slowly. "The ambassador of Zhuong arrived a short while ago. She plans to use them as a bludgeon to get rid of the Carolingian Empire. They have deep ties with the black-market and with what we know of the Commander and the Emperor--"
"Clever plan if the Zhuong Empire wasn't planning to take them out right after," Jonathon sighed. "Their empire doesn't believe in an end to expansion until there's no land to expand into."
"We must use counter-leverage against them."
Jonathon paused at that. They had no one anywhere near the networking or connections of the ambassador. "We don't have much time."
And then Enzo drew his gaze up at him and quirked his brow.
"You mean me? Me? Sylas barely even believed I was nobility much less a prince."
"Who else but the Crown Prince can represent an Empire? And no worries, someone, for sure, can provide proof of your appearance," Enzo clicked his tongue and then hummed. He said then, "It will only give us delay as your father scrambles to find a way to remove you of your position and all without appearing as if our empire is in a power struggle. In that time, we will surely have friends to help."
Jonathon said grimly, "Surely."
"Surely."
Enzo must've seen the worry in his brows. He leaned forward, patting Jonathon's arms with his thumbs as he spoke again, "You haven't told me what these books are. I tried asking the bookshop owner, but he kept evading my questions. The guards and Luciano couldn't figure it out either. The studies of dynamics and patterns? It sounds like someone's alchemy journal."
He couldn't let Enzo know the truth.
Besides, it all began with small, tiny steps.
The book was very clear.
"You need to protect yourself from suspicions," Jonathon said as his hands tightened on the leather straps. "They'll connect you with your brother and then the army. You'll need to detach away from them. The books explained some of the dynamics culture in this region."
"This region? And how will I do that, hm?" Enzo countered. "By becoming a merchant of greed like the Commander? A weaver, like Reviere?"
"By becoming my lover, openly."
Enzo's eye twitched, and he rolled his shoulders before he turned his head and said, "The Sonhrai Empire may be softer on certain relationships, but they aren't kinder in any shape of the imagination. Two alphas may still draw offending gazes."
"Something the Sonhrai will enjoy. My father will be pushed to action. And, those who believe we have nothing else to exploit will appear to exploit. Our positions will disarm them, figuratively and literally."
Enzo's mouth twitched at the joke but said, very seriously, "Berman?"
"We may not be able to conquer but divide?"
Enzo's thumbs fell away from his shoulder, sliding to hook into his robes, and then he leaned close enough to his ears, where a whisper became louder than his heartbeat. He said, "Shall we find a proper alcove then?"