Tyrant of the Ruined Sun-Chapter 193: Morning of the Second Event

Following the fallout of the Storm Queen’s declaration, I preceded the anticipated tidal wave that was about to clash down upon us, and subtly turned my gaze to that of the stunned Elisabetta and her father, briefly nodding to them; silently signalling to her the fulfilment of my end of our agreement, as this maelstrom of gossip would devour any other disturbances for a while in the international community, allowing her little brother to return with little care into the fold of the Banquette.

Especially as I had also instructed Isaac to halt all operations that aimed to further maintain those rumours in the international community’s zeitgeist.

I then quickly returned my attention to the arrived torrent of surprised, probing gazes and the typhoon of half-hearted laudations, as their thoughts were more occupied in churning poison and toiling away in the deepest recesses of their vulpine minds, engineering finer schemes and ploys to better exploit the unexpected change of events.

Yet most in this hall either possesses an excess of wisdom or a lack of courage, and so they almost all arrived to the same conclusion, choosing nearly the exact same strategy as the rest, which was the tried and true method of leveraging flattery and gifts to climb into the good graces of the newly ascended couple; with only a suicidal few I could pinpoint within the crowd, mostly being unimportant princes or minor assistances of dignitaries from some forlorn realm, daring to so blatantly harbour darker thoughts in their greed ridden skulls, thinking they had another of the dragon’s weaknesses at hand, with the only obstacle to escaping their lacklustre lives and onto greatness now remaining being the ideal way of procurement of said vulnerabilities.

A truly ignorant thought, without foundation or solid structure, but instead supported solely by the intoxicating haze of blissful dreams after a lifetime of envy and malcontent, and born purely from a chronic blindness to reality.

Fools the ever vigilant Isaac had already marked, as evident by his little nod when I turned to him in confirmation a second later; their grim verdict already decided, with their appointments with inopportune misfortune already scheduled.

Afterwards, Eve, Darius, my brothers and I weathered the fawning storm for nearly an hour, accepting the adulations of kings and queens, lords and ladies, dignitaries and diplomats without pause or respite, all the while subtly scattering the seeds of spellbound fascination upon all those who lingered long enough for us hook them onto our words.

To the women Eve and I emphasised the love held between us, despite the short amount of time we shared, playing on their long abandoned youthful dreams of love and passion; while to the men Darius stressed the capabilities of my bride to be, hailing her as a genius born to rule and of great ability and beauty, all in the attempt to further attract everyone’s attention upon us and away from the soon to be disgraced northern prince.

Which was further aided by the continued and tantalizing mystery of Eve’s identity, since none had ever heard of her before she began appearing by my side, and even when they tried to investigate her, they came up utterly empty handed, her past a blank slate that eluded them with a ghostly ease, and without a single lead or clue to who she truly is, almost though she had suddenly materialized in this banquet hall a mere few days ago.

And though it left a bitter taste in my mouth to help that northern runt so much, I remained convinced that what I had to gain in return was far more advantageous than a momentary humiliation, that would bear little fruit if not watered and fed with further investment to cement it’s roots in the minds of the international community, and become a bumper crop that I could continuously feast upon.

Which I did indeed, and still plan to to do, as that would be the best way to fracture his future coalition making abilities, but it would need delaying, at least until I can collect upon the debt that Elisabetta now owes me.

Eventually, after having sown as many seeds as possible, we decided to retire for the night, allowing them to be nurtured by the roiling thoughts of the assembly of writhing gossip-mongers we left behind, who were now desperate for further details regarding us. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

And so ended the Nights of Masquerade, with the final act being a prolonged discussion between Eve and I that lasted deep into the night, before we finally decided to culminate our words for the evening, with both of us then electing on simply catching up on our divine power’s practice, that we had both been neglecting for a while now.

But with the arrival of daybreak, so too did the end of our practice come to an end, with both of us quickly rising with the intent to accomplish the tasks that needed handling today, especially since we had far lesser time than usual, for unlike the Banquet’s first event that always began in the late hours of the day, the Joust of Jewels was set to start at noon and last till sundown, which is when a massive feast and dance is to be held.

Eve was the first to depart, her form engulfed in shadow and whisked away to the side of her right hand woman, Yara, where she intended to pack all their belongings, and then bring them both to reside with us from now on, having decided last night she and I that her continued work of espionage was going to become redundant, and she would prove far more useful by Eve’s side once more.

Meanwhile, I awoke to Isaac’s daily report of everything his men managed to collect of additional information, as well as their handling of everyone who was marked yesterday to having ill will to the future empress.

"Due to the constraints forced upon us by the fact we are in the Banquet of Concordia, we couldn’t dispose of them as we wished, sire, so a few more creative methods needed to be deployed." Explained Isaac.

They all apparently drank too much last night, causing some to take a wrong step on the stairs in the middle of the night, breaking a bone or two in the stumble; others made fools of themselves before entire crowds of stunned witnesses, bringing dishonour to their nation; and the remaining few couldn’t mange their lustful desires in their hazy states and directed their impure intentions towards those they shouldn’t have, earning the ire of their husbands, fathers and brothers.

Luckily for the Astrapi Kingdom, most of these men and women were of low enough rank that punishing them was of little consequence, so for those who humiliated themselves, the Storm King simply expelled from his home, while those who were crazed by lust were thrown in his dungeons in penance for their sin.

"Excellent work Isaac." I praised my Shade Corps Commander, impressed by his plan to utilize the hands of our host to deal with most of the nuisances that began circling us.

Though we did have to replenish the Shade Corps slightly diminished stock of all the poisons and potions they used.

Following this we welcomed the return of Eve, and the joining of Yara, showing her to her room and such, before we then all coalesced around the breakfast table, where Cyrus’ excited voice filled the halls, as he wantonly ate his full with no consideration given to his princely upbringing, scarfing down the prepared food before him like a savage, much to the irritation of Nizam, who continuously scolded him.

"Calm yourself Cyrus," I slowly said, halting the two as they again teetered on the edge of trading blows. "the event isn’t going to escape you if you took your time. Besides it’s still more three hours before the Joust even opens."

"But I couldn’t even sleep last night!" He howled half in protest half in overflowing enthusiasm. "Just imagining how many duels and battles will be fought today, I can barely contain myself!"

His enthusiasm was so electric that his aura inadvertently began to leak from his body, causing him to unintentionally crush the small honey spoon he held in his hand.

I merely chuckled at his expression when he’d done, while Nizam exasperatedly held the bridge of his nose.

"By the way brother, I forgot to ask but what will our nation will be presenting in the event?" As if to distract himself from Cyrus’ mischief, Nizam turned to me and asked.

"Our people are famed for our battle prowess, particularly with the sabre, as well as our skills in poetry, agriculture, astronomy and bronze working; but we obviously can’t have duels or display all these skills of ours, so we will simply have three exhibitions, one for the sabre arts, another for poetry and the last for astronomy."

"And who will be responsible for them?" Nizam worriedly asked, knowing that, with the exception of sabre arts, which could be presided over by one of our Palace Guard, we had not brought with us many experts in the other fields.

"Darius is greatly knowledgeable in both." I replied, gesturing to my Grand Vizier. "And he has volunteered to manage both intermittently, continuously alternating between the two, while a few other retainers, who were of lesser skill but still familiar enough with the arts, man the station while he’s gone."

Everyone nodded in appreciation of this, thinking it safe in the competent hands of Darius.

"Brother, has sister Ziyi told you what the Yue Dynasty will be presenting?" Cyrus then queried, turning to Nizam as he asked with a sly little grin.

Nizam tried his best to resist the rising blush, yet the faintest traces of colour still managed to escape his hold, slightly staining his cheeks in a more lively shades, before he quickly answered "We haven’t had a chance to talk since the announcement, but I assume it will be some combinations of archery, art, calligraphy and maybe even wind magic exhibitions, since these are historically the fields her people most excelled at."

We all nodded again, having expected as such, before then our topic of discussion drifted to other matters regarding the coming event, all the while I was busy thinking of what needed and could be accomplished within confines, yet always finding myself uncharacteristically coming up short.