The day of Jata Niara's wedding was peaceful. For her father, it was an incredible fortune. For her Imperial Mother, it was due process.
For everyone else, it was a celebration, except for her--the alpha of the wedding.
The alchemy cabin would never be its former glory. Still, it was tidy and clean enough for the Prince to keep some relatively basic tinctures, regarding the serious matters that both of them would rather keep secret, this space was rather convenient.
A table sat in the center with varying-sized flasks and some with or without stoppers, water, and a little cup with ashes already burnt into the bottom.
"You should be in the wedding halls," the Prince of Carolingian said as he leaned against the rotted cabin walls. "And yet, instead, you have me doing labor. Here."
"You're curious, aren't you?" Jata Niara said as the Prince's eyes dropped to the bottles of silphium blossom on the table nearest to his arm. "Whether these things actually work."
The Prince heavily sighed. "I'm not curious about that. It's a well-known contraceptive for the last few hundred years. What I am curious about is its other rumors."
"I imagine it has to do with your--" Jata Niara had no words for the things the Prince was into. She sensed the change in those two soldiers as she had sensed them briefly when she was young, when they first designated. Although she had never been particularly close to them, it was jarring. "Changing of dynamics."
"It does indeed." He grabbed a pair of goatskin gloves and a few other bottles he had brought up from his dungeon—something that Jata Niara was becoming comfortable with calling, concerning his housing situation. The Prince said, offhandedly, "There's this belief that it doesn't work everytime and that when it fails to prevent conception, the child is always an omega."
Jata Niara frowned.
It sounded like pure fantasy.
"You've never explained how it works," Jata Niara waved her hand in the air for the extenuating stuff she couldn't explain even if she wanted to. Things like that were best for people like her Imperial Mother, or Elijah. "Our hormones contaminate or toxify another? It doesn't sound quite right. Even when you add in the theories of fertility--"
"I know."
The Prince said as he continued to scrutinize the bottles. He picks up a clear, almost water-like substance and then adds a few petals of the blossom to it. Whatever the substance was, it shrinks the petals immediately. She watches as the Prince squints his eyes and hums before picking up a small spoon, small enough to dip into the bottle and scoop out the petals. He sniffs the petals and then blinks.
"You found something?"
"Yes and no."
The Prince sets the petals down on the table and then clarifies, as he prods the petals, flattening both the drenched and shrivelled petals. "It's abnormal for a petal to dry out so quickly. It takes hours for that."
"What does that mean?"
"It means," the Prince added. "That the petals have already been processed before they were placed in the bottles. This isn't simply a bouquet of blossoms, but an actual tincture that someone made. Which means any testing I do now would be rendered useless. I need an actual, fresh blossom to test its properties. I should've known when I smelled it. It's an acrid but not acidic smell."
She had smelled the oil before.
"It smells like the oil of olives," she said. "Olive oil but with a mild smell."
"You think there's something else involved?" The Prince asked as he lifted up a bottle and the sun reflected a bright golden glitter. "There's definitely something else there but it's not something I've ever seen or heard of that has this color or a syrup-like thickness."
"We might need someone from the Zhuong," Jata Niara said pointedly. "But, there's no one I trust."
The Prince sighed. "There's someone I know, but, as far as things go, this is the typical siliphium blossom tonic. It reacts as it should, and its color is more vibrant than rumors suggest, but it should be safe."
"I'll only give him the initial dose first," Jata Niara warily said. "Someone I trust volunteered to test a bottle and survived. No health defects or pain."
"It couldn't have been one of your concubines, hm?" The Prince said, distracted by the shriveled petals before him. And then he turned when she said nothing. "Right?"
"There are things--"
"Elijah, isn't it?" The Prince smirked. "I bet that was a hit to your ego. A concubine who whines for your attention, another who chooses you over their family's full allegiance, and then one who isn't ambitious, nor vying for your attention requests for the practiced use of a contraceptive. I wouldn't know what that's like."
"You speak to things you don't understand," Jata Niara didn't scramble for words, but she did hesitate to explain what she took Elijah's volunteering to be. It was a mortal strike to her ego. "His father offered him all the chances for education and skills, primarily for an opportunity at marriage. Now that he's received it, does he let his father be proven right? Or does he find his own path?"
The Prince laughed and then waggled a finger. "I bet the omega is afraid. He's so afraid that he would rather dedicate himself to purity, like a church, a nun, than he would to risk injuring his soul. The only path ahead for him is to merge his bloodline with yours or divide and split into separate ways."
"Is that how you convinced Beckett? Through fear."
The two royals stared each other down.
"You know Beckett, then, like Enzo knows him," the Prince said before breaking gaze. "He's rather simple, isn't he?"
"If that's what you think of him, you're better off leaving him alone."
The Prince scoffed. "I have yet to be proven otherwise."
"The man you see before you isn't a lion whose teeth are shaved, a hawk without its claws, what he is, is like a gator in the river biding his time. If you think Enzo is patient, then Beckett is the water that mars the mountain."
The wind whistled outside the cabin, and then the Prince sighed. He said, "I can read his nature, but it doesn't bother me that he might--"
"--bite back," Jata Niara finished for him.
"Yes."
It was nearly that time as the sun hovered above them, ever closer to the opportune hour.
The Prince waved her off and said, "Isn't there someone else you could ask? I heard some things about your sister but I'm not brave enough to get near that hornet's nest."
"She would hold it above me, like leverage."
"You both share the Empress Consort as an enemy," the Prince pointed out. "There are times when it's advantageous to walk the path of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, or ally, in this case."
"We're not like you and your brother."
The Prince tsked, "Ah ah ah, I would rather not know how you know so much about the ongoing of my empire, thank you. And many blessings for a happy marriage. Here's to many omegas added to Babatu's line." and then laughed, his voice quieting as she walked further and further away.
She left the cabin and walked right into a group of her mother's maids, who were carrying luggage, clothing, and accessories as they bowed at her entrance. And it was the first in a very, very, very long time that she met her father's other head maid, the one who joined the palace directly from the Orakpo residence, Enkidu Orakpo.
Enkidu wore his royal robes like those of a foreigner and carried the nature of a wild omega with short, razor-like hair and a muscular body. The omegas of the Orakpo clan did lean closer to muscularity than petiteness, something that her omega father always lamented in his comparisons to the other consorts.
It wasn't only that Enkidu carried the nature of a wild omega but moreso that of an alpha. He glanced at the other maids as they skittered out of the way and then kneeled before bowing.
"Your father asked that I finish your procession into the palace and continue through to the end of the wedding."
Jata Niara sighed. "Father thinks I'll run off."
"I believe the many concubines you've hoarded make her suspect you have too many secrets." Enkidu, as was his nature, was blunt and straightforward, much like Jata Niara's father, while lacking any of his subtlety. "You should remember to introduce the concubine."
She remembered then her request to tell the maid that there was only one concubine hidden away and that was how she wheedled her time, outside of city planning and revitalizing the waterways.
"Most of my new servants are young and inexperienced," Jata Niara said with unwavering confidence, even as she lied. "Their youth makes it difficult to trust that they can handle the rigid inner politics of the main palace without more training."
Truly, it was only Mbizi who was young, but he was also freshly married. He fit all the qualifications, his cleverness just an added boon.
Now that she thought about it, an idea struck her.
"If you say so, your highness," Enkidu replied. He gestured to the servants to split as he directed her to the kajawa waiting for her. "Both your father and your grandfather are curious about this city planner, I expect that you should be more careful lest someone is found poking around for answers."
"Someone who isn't you."
Enkidu laughed as they reached the kajawa and opened the door with a sweeping gesture. "Out of all the servants, it would be anyone but me."
The lavish fabrics and colors displayed on the kajawa with jewelry, seashells, and twinkling stones on the bodies of the camels brought attention from those who travel in and out of the marketplace streets. Even legionnaires paused to whisper about its extravagance.
"Speaking of," Jata Niara said as she heard the clicking of the camel carter as it began to move, and Enkidu walked close at hand alongside it as the kajawa moved slowly. "How well are you? I haven't seen you by my father's side in months."
"My husband is carrying our first child," Enkidu grinned. "With all of my work and such, I try not to spread my business around, but it was a difficult process to get here and too much time would wasted trying to explain. Still I am excited. And he's excited as am I."
Jata Niara had known that Enkidu had married someone who, much like Enkidu, looked like an alpha but to her father's thinly veiled suggestions, was also an omega. Omega couples were not rare in the Sonhrai but the greater biases suggested that omegas would eventually, always, be chained to an alpha in some way.
"May I ask the alpha that you two used for conception?" Jata Niara said, mostly out of curiosity. "A soldier? A shipmate?"
"No worries, there's no one squeezing into our family business."
"Another Orakpo, then? A relative of ours."
"No."
Enkidu opened his mouth and then closed it.
What little sprout of curiosity she had was watered with more questions. She asked, with a lowered voice, after everything she had heard recently, "Was it you?"
"I'm not an alpha."
"Were you used for conception?"
Their voices were lowered to little more than a whisper, and Enkidu frowned.
"I learned recently that those on certain lines between dynamics can change, but you don't appear changed," Jata Niara pointed out. "In fact, who's to say you didn't use an alpha?"
Her father's servant withered a look at her before he sighed. "There are many, like us, who simply marry into an amenable alpha's family. The way that they have children is clear. But my husband and I were resigned to never having children. We did not want to share. So, we don't particularly know how it happened. We've been together since before you were born. Many, many flights of affection and passion have been our greeting between us. This--this was all very unexpected. Especially--" the servant broke off and then shook his head.
"What?"
"I have been feeling ill as of recently," Enkidu said. "And I am of the mind that--"
"You're carrying too?"
Enkidu hesitantly nodded.
"A bit too coincidental."
"It is."
The two were quiet with only the slow rolling of the kajawa's wheel sounds breaking it.
"What have the two of you been doing then? For work?"
"The palace sent out higher-level maids and servants to work on helping the landscape and gardening of the Hanbal palace."
"Under the Empress Consort's orders?"
"Yes."
Jata Niara frowned. "Were any of his servants used?"
The other servant opened his mouth and then blinked. "Now that you've said it, I don't believe so. But they had us planting so many of these red and yellow berry plants--too many. I didn't get to see many others. Aahnik said it was one that increases fertility and that's what I gathered our issue raised, but--"
She felt ice spread across her stomach, and her heart dropped in her chest. Ice that sharpened, like claws, and dug at her insides as she hunched over, feeling a strong sense of wrongness.
This was bad.
"Do you know who owned that residence prior?"
Enkidu shook his head.
"The royals of Athari," Jata Niara gritted her teeth. She knew the Empress Consort, Evi Sun, or Evie Shemesh as the kingdom knew him, would make his move, but she had been lulled by how well everything was going. "The traitors who betrayed the previous dynasty, who led to the fall of half the noble clans, and the family that Aino Malahi nearly married into. Those were the owners. Imagine what my Imperial Mother will say if she found out we were complicit in the transport of the Athari heir's safety and gifted them fertility symbols. Treason would be the best case, and the worst case is accused of planning matricide, regicide, and an overthrow of the Empress. Our entire clan would be wiped out."
The other servant exhaled sharply, and his hands stiffened at his side.
"A few of Malahi's servants were also there," Enkidu added. "Should we let them know?"
She nearly snapped at him, but the Prince's obnoxious tone slithered in her ear.
The enemy of her enemy.
And then scoffed, "Send the message to both Lawali and Sylas. Inform them that we're going to have to agree to disagree."
"Will that be enough?"
"We don't have a choice."
Enkidu ordered a few servants at his side, while ordering the kajawa carter to rush to the palace. Voices whispered and a camel was unhooked from the kajawa as the servants split off, rushing in various directions.
Her head was loud with thinking of how to escape such a trap. And then it struck her, like crystalline clarity, she leaned back in her seat and laughed.
Damn the Sarakhs.
She took a detour off the path through the Marketplace and into the upper fields with waves of papyrus trees. An obvious testament to Kinya's access to a main waterway, whether it was in use or not by the majority of the city. An appropriate plot of land for the leading scribe, Kinya Sarakh. As the kajawa rode up the hill, she saw another kajawa leave on the other side of it. Donte's sharp eyes focused ahead, and Jata Niara's entrance went unnoticed by him as the kajawa disappeared below.
Perhaps it was luck that Kinya Sarakh's bird-like gaze twisted from Donte's disappearing figure and to her own, as she stepped out and greeted him with a stilted nod.
"To what do I owe the presence of the Princess?" Kinya said slyly. "On your wedding day, no less."
"The Athari are your doing, aren't they?"
Kinya laughed. "Me? I'm known for my education and my wit. It's a bit more than an insult to accuse me of openly making such a maneuver."
She watched Kinya's relaxed posture and took his, however half-truthed, words as mostly true. "Are you trying to remove Akira Lin?"
Lin specialized in trafficking and the transport of bodies illegally. The most likely individual was no one but him.
"Contrary to your natural accusations, " the older man sighed. "I am not involved in the slightest. If you recollect, I'm backing the Malahi. This would be biting the hand that feeds me and the ones I've fed. Not very clever of an act, is it?"
"You already know."
"Why do you think I sent Donte off in a hurry?" Kinya added. "Akhutenan might be able to appease the Empress' anger. And if he were given a few things to sweeten the deal by noting that Akira Lin is likely involved, well, I would also remove one of my competitors. Not that Akira Lin would take this sitting down."
"It's a successful plan and you just sent one of Lin's spies to finish up his dirty work."
"It's a foolish plan," Kinya snapped. "And it's not one Akira would make easily or willingly. Donte owes allegiance to no one but himself. And you, as a monarch, would take care to see your citizens as more than mere pawns bouncing from master to master."
Properly chastised, Jata Niara paced back and forth before she froze. She breathed out, "It's not you or Akira Lin. This is--there's someone else."
"Exactly, it's not one of us. And there does seem to be some new player in the game. But I doubt the Empress cares about that once she hears the Athari come up in court after so many years, again."
This would be an uneasy alliance.
"I have a plan that will wipe this slate clean."
Kinya smirked and then slipped his hands behind his back. "You do, do you? I must make you aware that I will not be getting involved. I nearly lost my head and family the last time I was in court. This is beyond me. There's still plenty of heirs left if a few of you get caught off at the knee, or the throat."
"You don't fear me in the slightest," Jata Niara burst out.
"Not even the length of a single grain of sand."
The man's cold gaze peered down at her, and she shivered before turning away. His words were brutal but unsurprising. She wasn't there yet.
"I will work with Lawali and the damage should be minimal, at worst, we'll have to send out our servants. And at best--"
Kinya cut in, "It's not necessarily a bad thing--to not be feared. Power isn't held in fear."
"I know."
"Then you should be able to solve this problem easily."
Kinya of the Sarakh Clan bowed slightly, nearly disrespectfully so, and walked back into his residence.
As she sat in the kajawa, Kinya's words repeated.
Power isn't held in fear.
Power isn't held in fear.
Power isn't held in fear.
Power isn't--
Kinya had given her a hint.
It isn't held in fear.
It's held in control.
How could she control the situation?
By disarming it.
She reached the palace with decorative crystals and gemstones clinging over the walls, incense and food wafting over into her nose, and the sounds of instruments playing. The number of guards were over three times the size of usual with a few legionnaires patrolling to pad it more.
As soon as she reached her quarters, she was rushed in, undressed, scrubbed clean, and dressed with the sound of her father snapping from one end of the hall to the next.
"All I have to do is stay quiet?" she heard her father speak to himself. "Oh, I should've sent an invite to father."
"And make Imperial Mother more upset?"
"You're playing a dangerous game, yar-nan." Her father hadn't called her that since her coming-of-age ceremony. He sighed in resignation before he snapped his hands and ordered the maids to redo his fitting. "I might as well look good on my execution day."
"Abani, you're being dramatic."
A maid huddled into the room, joining them as their residency's maids gave him a wide berth. This new maid wore the golds and designs typical for those who served under Imperial Mother. He greeted them with his body low to the ground.
"You may rise," her father said. "The wedding is about to begin. Is there a problem?"
"Surely not," the servant said with a smile. "The Empress Consort has simply requested your audience."
Jata Niara forgot that the designs of the servants under Imperial Mother and Empress Consort were the same.
As her maids slid the rest of her robe, twisting, tying, and wrapping the robe of gold, green, and black fabric over her body, she caught the nervous eyes of her father before she tilted her head. They slid the golden layers of necklaces over her head and the symbol of water spirit in its center. The curved horn and jagged body of its face much like a dagger dangling from her neck.
The Empress Consort's maid stepped back slightly as Jata Niara stood up. She gestured to the maid. "Please, lead the way."
This maid turned up their nose and sniffed before walking out the door. Just as Jata Niara moved, a hand clenched around her forearm.
"Please," her father begged. "Please, be careful."
She patted her father's hand and gently, carefully, loosened his grip, and said, "It will be fine. Go tend to my future consort and keep him away from the Empress Consort."
Her father nodded grimly and she broke away from his hold, twisting around the corner of her residence, wondering if this would go as well as she thought it might.
Or, if she would never see her home again and all those who inhabitated it.