Tyrant of the Ruined Sun-Chapter 177: Eastern Intrigue 4

We all instinctually took a cursory glance at one another, a brief, spontaneous action done to gleam what we could in the heat of the moment of each other's overflowing thoughts, and though momentary and fleeting, we all saw the concern reflected in the others eyes.

Not for Tianlan of course, or his empire perse; since it was quite the opposite, as the desolation of a mighty nation such as his would've ordinarily been news to celebrate, but not now.

Not when we had just hitched our wagon to his, so that we could better battle the coming storm from the Luminous Empire during this most titular time of the Banquet of Concordia, when the whole world's eyes are not far from our every accomplished action, and the western wolves are at the door.

For the old saying is undeniably true, a weak ally is far more frightening than a powerful foe.

"Do you wish now that you had not offered a marital alliance between our two houses, Ruinous Dragon?" He asked then with a slight apathetic smile, knowing full well that a part of all of us did, before further commenting "I won't blame you if you did."

I remained quiet for a second afterword, my mind in a state of rapid calculations and a spiral of clashing thoughts, before confidently replying "It's unseemly to flatter yourself quite so much lord, I am not so easily frightened."

I am a man who has stared down the omniscient eyes of that rat Nicholas in a hundred hopeless wars that dyed the world an anarchistic tapestry of liquid red, burnt black and frozen pale blue melded with frigid white, and never once did I flinch or shy away from the challenge. All the while invisible blows of bartered secret plots and vile, abhorrent cabals, delivered on the tips of poisoned blades and whispered on the edges of serpentine tongues were superfluously made; before I finally succumbed to my inevitable demise, with my weapons in hand, and my body a bloodied sieve of valorous testimonies of my hateful defiance, upon the ashen ruins of my home and last bastion.

Before such harrowing despair and a forlorn struggle, what waves could his vouchsafing words cause in my heart bar a few fading ripples that stirred the still water for a moment before it again returned to it's peaceful, yet eerie serenity.

Meanwhile, Tianlan merely remained frozen for a moment, his eyes boring into me, as though trying to see past some thin veneer of valour I had hastily constructed to disguise my disquiet of his unexpected revelation, but no such falsehoods existed within me for him to observe, as he conceded to moments later, as he slouched back on his seat, before smilingly saying with an eased voice "Good to know." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

I nodded in reply, happy to have reached a quiet consensus on the matter, before I then asked again, my tone devoid of any further chances to compromise or delay "Now, will you finally answer me what is it you're after, and why you have gone to such lengths to put on a show of closeness between our two houses by encouraging your daughter and son to leave with my brothers, while also very publicly displaying your favour for the union of our lines by arriving at the head of such an ostentatious host? Because it clearly can't be just for the sake of frightening your political enemies, or even to recruit my aid in defeating them, isn't it?"

The last sentence I'd uttered was not spoken out of confidence of his reluctance to do just that, but as an early deterrent if it was indeed what he intended, as neither I nor anyone else in the empire has any desire to become entangled in the messy political affairs of the Eastern Silver Court; doubly so when you consider the empire's lack of energy to become embroidered in such a conflict that could very easily slip into the bloody terrain of civil war, which in my learned opinion is the most gruesome and barbaric of all wars.

Especially so when you factor in the inevitability of the trajectory of the coming bloodshed, which would primarily focus on the southern theatre, as Hamilcar's expedition remains the empire's top priority and main path of expansion for the foreseeable future, and also the western and north-western fronts, where the Luminous Empire and their worryingly expanding list of allies, protectorates, vassals and puppet states in the western nations continues to exponentially increase with every passing day.

Tianlan merely smiled at my words though, as he repeated my own words back to me, saying "It's unseemly to flatter yourself quite so much lord, I am not so easily vanquished." He paused for a moment, allowing the silence to momentarily aid in the appreciation of his satisfying rebuttal, before continuing "The purpose for creating such a spectacle for my arrival, as well as my insitance on my children being seen exiting the hall with your brothers, was indeed primarily for the goal of sending a threatening message to my opposition back home, but it was also done in service of your own goals lord; for by now, the whole castle must be awash of rumours and conspiracies of what most likely transpired in these halls, and all of them would have one thing in common."

"The clear incorrectness of the rumours describing the hateful manipulation and coercion done by the young prince against her highness, princess Ziyi, thus by dismantling the very foundations of Marius' plan to attack us." Darius continued Tianlan's words, his eyes narrowed even further and his tone an unfluctuating note of detachment.

"Exactly." Tianlan said, all traces of carefreeness in him now vanished, as he held himself now in a terrifying solemnity, and spoke with a tone of bone grinding gravity "I will aid you in whatever ways you see fit Lord Alexander. I will collaborate your every word and narrative, I will add my authority and voice to your own before any enemy who dares defy you in the dance halls of clever words or in the death infested hells of battlefields, I will be your most steadfast ally, and all I ask in return is one thing."

"Which is?" I trepidatiously asked, my heart pounding at the thought of what could possibly be of equal worth to such a lofty promise from the emperor of the Yue Dynasty.

"Your word, on whatever oaths hold meaning to you, that if worse comes to worst you will become a helping hand, a safe haven for my family; offering them asylum and protection without prejudice or conceit, allowing them to live out the rest of their lives without the fear of retribution or humiliation, while permitting them to continue our lineage in your own land if must." Tianlan finally said, his tone so grave the very air around us seemed to have grown in viscosity, beginning to make us feel as though every breath we took was a mouthful of gelatinous substance that clung to our tongues just as much as it clung to out throats, suffocating us.

And all this caused another wave of alarm bells to ring out in our heads, as it further revealed that he is losing to such an extent, that even among the thousands of men in his entourage he has brought with him this day, he has allowed bar one man into the hall where he is determined to dig and claw an escape route for his children and family to escape through if the need ever arises.

"You have it." I eventually said, staring into the eyes of the eastern emperor.

Yet as I did so, the memory of the Mercenary King's words he traded with me not two weeks ago, rang out in the forefront of my mind, making me think 'I had always assumed that those mercenaries were a ploy designed by Tianlan to purge his opposing party, but if what he said is true, then isn't it the opposite?'

As if thinking the same thing at the same time, both Darius and me looked at each other then, before I nodded to him, prompting him to, and without and further ado, to bluntly ask "Are you aware that a force of nearly one hundred thousand mercenaries has been hired by someone in the Yue Dynasty, and they have been positioned in nearly every major or minor city in the empire?"

Upon the felling of Darius' words, the hall became quiet again like a courtroom after the strike of judge's gavel, yet in contrary to our expectation Tianlan remained the picture of peace and unconcern making me momentarily rethink my earlier thought on him not being the mastermind, but then peripheral vision caught the sight of Tianlan's sole attending vassal, and his face showcased a very different tale.

General Menghu's face became a mask of graven granite of woe and shock, as even his stance became more tense uneased, making it clear, at the very least that if Tianlan was indeed the architect of that plot, he hadn't told this most loyal man of his.

Yet even though that is what my mind had interpreted, my instincts were signalling me otherwise.

So deciding to at least listen to the unpredictable, but often times useful cognitive abilities of intuition, I looked more closely at the two before me, as I confidently asked the master of the east "You didn't know, but you don't seem particularly surprised by the news."

Tianlan merely stared at me in reply for a few moments, before answering me with an odd question "Tell me O' mighty lord of the southern lands, the Ruinous Dragon Alexander, have you ever stood upon a frozen river?"

"No." I instantly responded.

"It's a surreal feeling," He replied. "You stand in place, your feet anchored comfortably on solid ground, yet unknown currents not of your choosing and hidden to your eyes speed past you to unknown lands, all the while leaving you wondering when the previously firm ground beneath you will give and mercilessly plunge you into those same frigid, abyssal currents, either dragging you to it's stinging depths to become feed for the fish, or if you're unlucky enough, simply kidnap you to foreign terrain, before tossing you aside, weakened and alone, to quietly await your death in a miserable fashion."

He paused then, as if searching for the words, before finishing "I said all that to say, that if you stand on that frosted land long enough, you begin to have an eye for when the ice is beginning to waver, and I have been positioned on it for so such a time, that I no longer dread the sound of it's cracking."