CHAPTER 46: Negotiations
"Finally," said the escorting guard, stretching his arms.
Arin looked out of the window. Mountains of dirt rose in the distance like crude stairs, and people in cheap clothes worked among them, small and bent under the sun.
"Pass me a glass of water," a woman said to a young man nearby, her accent unfamiliar, the words translating themselves inside his head a heartbeat late, the way they always did.
Beside him, Hayato-san had gone soft with sleep, using Arin's shoulder as his personal pillow and snoring faintly through it.
It must have been late afternoon, but sun never budged nor the griffins, circling once more over the city of Darjan. There were no walls yet — only buildings, thrown up fast and close together, as if the city hadn't decided where it ended.
Then far away two massive slabs of earth came into view. It could not be considered a castle — it was a fortress. An old mammoth of stone that seemed to have rose up from the earth by some divine command.
Children ran through the streets in silk too fine. A small crowd gathered around a street performer while sipping tea like it cost nothing. Paintings, bolts of cloth, crops, and artifacts Arin couldn't name were laid out along the road like pebbles — because, he realized as the carriage rolled on and the buildings gave way to mansions each larger than the royal seat back in Parshara, that's exactly what they were here. Pebbles.
Wind kicked up dirt, browning the whole view. Stalls, shops, a government building — all of it fell behind them in silence as the road widened.
And then the walls arrived. Real walls this time, tall enough that Arin's heartbeat picked up just watching them grow closer.
He shook Hayato-san's shoulder gently.
"Did we reach?" the older man asked, rubbing his eyes.
Arin only nodded, already bracing himself for his first practical exam.
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"This way, distinguished guests," said a butler with an immaculate smile
Only Arin and Hayato-san were let through. The guards were told, politely, that their arrangements would be handled elsewhere.
The inner gates opened without a sound. Beyond them lay a garden maintained with a precision that took years of knowledge and practice— roses of every color, vines climbing quartz pillars carved to look like they'd grown that way naturally, two fountains murmuring in the corners, grass cut even and still wet. Attendants moved among the flowers without once glancing at the visitors.
At the garden's center stood a hemispherical dome, pale blue, catching light and throwing it back when looked at too directly. Eight pillars held it up. Beneath it, Arin could see, was a library — but the stairs beside the entrance led up, not in.
They climbed. At the top, lamps hung from the curved ceiling, glowing faint blue and orange, and the wind somehow found its way inside despite the glass. Red carpet swallowed their footsteps. The air smelled sweet in a way Arin couldn't place.
Grimoires and old books were stacked on a table near the front. Behind that table sat a woman.
They stopped, and knelt.
"We, the ambassadors of Parshara Kingdom, greet Her Majesty, Ezra Ul Nazarana," they said together.
The woman lifted her eyes and studied them, and Arin felt himself tremble under the gaze without quite deciding to. Her black hair was pulled into a ponytail that moved like it enjoyed being touched by the wind. Her eyebrows rose, sharp, assessing. Her eyes — lavender — held on Hayato-san for a few seconds, then moved to Arin.
He didn't meet them but still knew that she had stripped him bare in her mind.
"You may look up," she said, the familiar western language strange in her eastern accent, and gestured for them to sit in the chairs the servants had already set out.
They sat. Arin's spine met the cushion at an awkward angle he corrected a second too late.
Ezra set down her feather pen. A servant swept the ink and papers aside for her. She crossed her legs, her red robe protesting the movement, and turned to face them fully.
A low golden table appeared between them, loaded with drinks and sweets that made Arin's mouth water. He didn't touch any of it.
Ezra's eyes locked onto Hayato-san. He gave the smallest nod to Arin.
Arin looked up, and swallowed.
"We have come here to request cooperation between Parshara and Naza—"
"Cooperation?" She cut him off.
She blinked once, and her voice reached him a beat after the blink.
"Cooperation is the term used when both parties are of equal footing, Mr. Emerald," she said, not bothering to ask his actual name.
She glanced at the paper Hayato-san had set in front of her.
"Cooperation also demands an equal exchange of benefits between both parties." Her eyes moved down the page faster than Arin could track. "But here, I only smell loss."
She flicked the dossier back across the table.
Arin had nothing to say to that.
I will never tell the system window about this, Arin thought, if I get out of here alive.
"Our meaning of cooperation was that we'd like to support the Nazarana kingdom in this time of crisis," Hayato-san said, taking the weight of the room onto himself.
"I'm listening."
"Parshara will provide glowing stones and raw ore exclusively, at a reduced price — an amount reserved specifically for you."
"Oh?" Ezra's smirk widened. "Care to explain how this would benefit me?"
Arin stayed quiet, watching Hayato-san lay down the card they'd agreed to save for last.
"When we entered Nazarana, we saw the lamp posts lighting the streets after dark. That must burn through fuel quickly."
"It does," she said, smile still climbing.
"But that doesn't explain the benefit."
"The benefit is that by buying raw material from Parshara cheaply, Nazarana can stockpile its own resources and redirect them elsewhere."
"Continue."
"By agreeing, you save resources for more urgent purposes — and gain an ally who—" He stopped himself.
The servants in the room went still. Even Ezra looked mildly thrown by what he was about to claim.
"An ally? Against whom would I need an ally?" she asked, seizing the word.
"Aurorian," Arin said quietly.
Hearing that word servants gasped, soldiers tightened their grip around the weapons.
The hair on his arms rose before he understood why. A blade — curved, cold — pressed flat against his throat, close enough to open it with one motion.
The sharp edges stung.
Arin stopped breathing due to sudden change in situation.
"Enough," Ezra said, and the blade was gone as fast as it had come, as if it had never been there at all.
"Bold of you," she said, "to say that name here, of all places. It's practically taboo." She laughed, but something underneath the laugh didn't match it.
She lifted her tea. A young servant filled Arin's cup. He took it by the handle and forgot, for one second, about the saucer — which fell and shattered against the floor.
He set the cup down and knelt to gather the pieces.
The moment his knees touched the ground, he stopped moving.
Seconds passed. Hayato-san noticed first.
"What happened? Daniel?"
Ezra's fingers tightened around her own cup. Her brows drew together, watching him.
Arin shook his head, forced his hands to keep moving. "Just counting the pieces," he said, and handed the broken saucer to the waiting servant.
The negotiation continued for another hour but Arin drank his tea and said nothing else.
Eventually Ezra passed across a long sheet, ink still wet, the terms of the day set down in writing — the sigil of Nazarana stamped in the corner, proof of an alliance now real.
Hayato-san read it over once, satisfied, and rolled it closed.
"Guide them to their residence," Ezra told the butler, whose smile had not moved once through the entire meeting.
"E-excuse me." Arin raised his hand.
Every eye came back to him.
"C-can I stay with Humayu?"
"......."
Silence. No one seemed to know what to do with the question.
"I'm... scared of the dark," he admitted, his face going redder with every second that passed.
"Pfft- what?" this time Ezra laughed, genuinely and not the sly smile.
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The room they were given was small. Not cramped, exactly — just small enough to feel like a quiet joke at their expense. White marble floor, walls in thick yellow, lamps set along the wall casting everything in the same tired gold.
A fireplace sat in the left wall, and a king-sized bed occupied the corner nearest the window, opposite the main door. A polished wooden table held a stack of paper and a few ink pots, set across from the bed. Above the fireplace hung a deer's head, flanked by two artificial wings. A mirror faced the door from the far wall.
"I'm glad that went well," Hayato-san said, cheerful, dropping onto the bed. "Honestly, I had very little hope of pulling it off."
Arin said nothing.
"Had to use our trump card in the end, but at least the people back home won't go hungry."
Still nothing.
"Hey." Hayato-san shook him lightly by the shoulder. "What's wrong? You've been off for a while now."
"I'm not feeling well," Arin said, and shut himself in the washroom before anything else could be asked.
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.
.
Starlight took over where the sun had left off. Little light remained anywhere except along the walls where soldiers patrolled, the castle's hallways, and the lampposts scattered across the nation beyond.
From their window, Arin could see the land stretching out below and the castle's two walls — the outer one standing as a shield, the inner one working more like a veil, hiding whatever decisions the high-born made about the lives of the people they ruled.
He shook Hayato-san awake.
"W—" Before he could finish, Arin pressed a palm over his mouth and raised a finger to his own lips.
He helped him up and guided him to the window without a sound.
Outside, on the ground below their room, stood a handful of cloaked figures.
They pulled back from the window at once, before they could be seen.
Hayato-san grabbed a sheet of paper and scrawled something, then passed it over.
What's happening?
Arin wrote back: The alliance was never real. They played along to captureus.
Hayato-san's eyes went wide. He wrote again: I too thought the negotiation went too smoothly. But what would they gain by capturing us?
I don't know, Arin wrote. When I bent down for the saucer, I heard a voice telling Her Highness we could be used as disposable pawns to get "that."
What is 'that' and did you see who it was?
Arin folded the paper into his pocket and shook his head. No.
He looked around for finding the way to escape.
Tap... Tap... Tap...
Just then Arin heard footsteps, too light, too nimble to be heard by normal people. As his world partially dissolved. He saw the cloaked figures staring at their window.
Tap..Tap…Tap…..
From behind the door the footsteps approached closer.
He turned his head again and saw a faint glow of different colors emanating from each of them as they set their eyes like a hawk waiting for both of them like play.
'A DIVERSION….WE NEED A DIVERSION...' Arin gnashed his teeth. His heartbeat increased.
He knew that he may be able to fend all of the cloaked figures, but then everyone will be alerted.
Right now they must first get out of enemy's stronghold.
Tap!…..Tap!….
Footsteps stopped right in front of the door and after a few second, the doorknob turned.