Akhutenan reminded the legionnaires that Maximus French is his grandfather and that Donte Ochoa's protection would be completed at all costs.
His lover peered out the carriage opening with flaying fingers to grab onto his.
"I won't be gone long," he told Donte and then kissed the wayward hand.
Donte frowned. "Where are you going?"
"I have an appointment that I can't miss."
"You sound too serious for it to be related to the Carolingian Empire."
"It has more to do with our future than anything."
Those words brought stillness to Donte, who, once again, didn't know what to say.
The Captain waved off the guards and watched as the horses and carriage trotted off to the safehouse with Donte safely inside. His general appeared at his side as if watching from a distance the entire time, bringing over reins and horses for both of them. He grabbed the reins and the two hopped on their horses. Without a second wasted, they snapped the reins and were off. Their horses sped out of the campground lands through the main city, sweeping through the bustle of shops at their busiest, with the sun hovering low on the horizon as its brightness lessened.
It wasn't too long before the Captain and General reached the front door of the palace with guards screeching to attention with their weapons sweeping up.
"Name your cause and purpose! Now!"
The both of them were still dressed in their military garb and he could imagine the threatening energies falling off of him with blood still staining his boots in the hurry, but Akhutenan couldn't wait to change into more "pleasant" clothing for this appointment. He was already late. As he marched up to the guards, as soon as he opened his mouth, the guards fell to their knees in salute.
"You won't be getting through this way," a woman's voice from behind him said. Humor lines the tone of her voice. "Not by force. And not alive."
Both Captain and General turned around with a sharp whistle escaping the lips of General Wuhayb's mouth. The omega woman was an older woman with twisting, thick locks falling down her head like rivulets of rain decorated in gold and green gem-like beads linked along the strands. Gold painted her body inching across her fully displayed back and arms in fanning papyrus and the marks of a tribe the Captain had never seen before.
Her servant slid in, a slightly younger gentleman wearing head and body wrappings sewn of soft cotton silk dyed in brown, purple, and gold accents.
Now that he looked again, he was no servant either but an alpha. An alpha who lowered his head as the woman grabbed his arms using his hands to keep her arm and her body alift. As she floated through the opening the guards made for them to make way, she turned around to the Captain and General.
She said, with a sharp smile, "You'd better follow me or you won't make your appointment."
"Excuse me," Wuhayb cut in but Akhutenan silenced him with a raised hand.
The Captain could tell by their clothing that they were high on the branch of nobility, but he couldn't recognize her face in all the years he had been stationed here. He replied, warily, "May I be given a title?"
"I would rather us walk and talk, please," she said as they continued to pass through the guards and step into the grand entrance of the palace. The Captain and General slid through the guards and caught up to the woman freezing at the interior of the palace. There were guards at every door and corner. The woman continued to speak, as the soldiers walked the paths at a nervously slow pace, "You can call me either Grand Princess Zamora or--"
Wuhayb yanked his shoulder and muttered, "It's the Demoness! We were warned about her."
"--nothing at all," she said finally with a stern look.
Properly chastised, Wuhayb lowered his head.
"I don't understand your arrival and appearance here, your highness," the Captain said with a lowered head, and yanked Wuhayb to stand somewhat behind him just in case. He had heard mythos and rumors of her demon magic. But it couldn't have been true. Things like that don't exist in the real world. "Or how your interest in me happened?"
The Grand Princess laughed. "I have long been interested in your existence and your omega father. After all, I was once married to your grandfather. We even share an omega daughter. You could call us family in many ways. Although Aliyaah has long been married out of my household and shipped across the seas, I will always have a reminder of your grandfather with me. A bond linking us long after we're dead."
"I have never heard you mentioned."
These words, although he understood them, were spoken in such a way that Akhutenan could only be bewildered. His grandfather had married his grandmother late in life but not too late that this woman could've been married to him before. He ended that line of thinking. He wasn't one to question an omega's age, much less in public, much much less a royal.
To an even lesser extent, she spoke about her grandfather like he was dead. In all fairness, his grandfather no longer went by his usual name as a War Minister. He was given a new title as War Minister: Clement III, which would be recorded in history instead of his birth name. It was supposed to be a sense of rebirth and dedication to the Empire instead of their family clan but this was rarely if ever the case.
Perhaps the Grand Princess took the rebirth to heart?
"You should be deeply worried about the state of your family if my name is to be mentioned," the Grand Princess said, while rolling her eyes over his form. Akhutenan had to hold back an imperceptible shiver that ran through him. "How well is your omega father? You look so much like her that I'm surprised you've never been asked about it."
Akhutenan blinks. "Her? I'm unsure who this her is, but my omega father is well. I have two younger siblings, and my youngest is a little over eight years old. My parents' marriage is never angry, unhappy, or even lonely. They were both lucky to have found lifelong companions."
"Good. Good," the Grand Princess said with a relieved sigh. "I am glad someone was able to get through their happy ending cleanly."
"Am I allowed to ask who this her is?" Wuhayb added, carefully, with a peek over Akhutenan's shoulders.
The Grand Princess snapped, "No, you may not."
Wuhayb bowed as he crept back behind Akhutenan's shoulder and locked his jaw shut.
"I will bring you in and introduce you to the court as the grandson of Maximus French, son of Leonard French and Malika. A Captain of the campgrounds. "
Akhutenan blinked again.
How did she know his omega father's name?
The Grand Princess continued, "You will explain the rest and your situation. I would be brave but not ambitious in your speech. Although you may not be executed, and it is unlikely that you will even be punished, you should worry about your friend here or your lover in protection. Understood? You were named Akhutenan by your father for a reason. And be sure that the Empress has a clear look of your face. That's what's most important."
"His face?" muttered Wuhayb from behind his shouder.
Their feet nearly met the thick reddish brown stones, and the guards shouted their entrance as the Grand Princess swept inside with Akhutenan, Wuhayb, and her husband's quiet countenance.
And Wuhayb mumbled then, "I didn't know the Empress was into male alphas." and then cowered under the Grand Princess' pointed glare.
"And keep your dog General quiet," She hissed under her breath as the doors fully opened.
He bowed repeatedly and motioned the general to stay firmly behind him and out of sight.
The Empress Shlaweya, contrary to her outwardly cool demeanor, was irate. How dare her consort bring these bastards back into their kingdom and in her presence? She could feel the anger throbbing at the nape of her neck and spreading upward like a fire--an incessantly burning flame.
Minister Cissé hisses, "How dare a foreign war leader dare enter our chambers without request?!"
Unlike most of the court, or anyone else she handled within her empire, Lawali has always been an empathetic child. A trait that was most undesirable in a Crown Princess but in moment's like this--a great reprieve.
She stood up like a bulwark and in the proper stature as the figures walked in.
Shlaweya internally laughed at the idea that her daughter would be able to protect her in any capacity other than a shield and to garner a few extra moments of delay, but Lawali took it seriously. It would be remiss as an Empress to ignore the reasoning behind an action over the action itself. As the head of an Empire, she could protect herself unlike no other but as a mother, she felt content.
As the footsteps clicked into the halls, she could see her cousin stroll in with her unworthy merchant husband, as mousy and subservient as ever. A shame of an alpha but of course the exact kind of spouse her cousin would adore.
The flame burned ever hotter.
"Greetings, Empress Shlaweya! I introduce Captain Akhutenan as the grandson of Maximus French and--"
The Empress angrily slammed her fist on the throne and stood up. "You can no longer properly introduce yourself so you means to introduce a soldier? Flaunt your failed political marriage in our faces! In my court? Should I worry about treason, dear cousin?"
Everyone, even Lawali, who had not already fallen to their knees, bowed down to the ground in a single loud thump with the sounds of shaking limbs, heavy breathing, and feared whispers echoing in the hall.
There wasn't a single soul who breathed in this second.
Some of their fear drained the anger out of her bones but her very sinew felt tight with the anger of her court, her consorts, and her heirs. Did no one care about the ramifications of greed and selfish desires? Her heirs washing themselves in excess and jewelry. Even the Crown Princess was content to be mediocre with no future heir in sight. Did she not realize the importance of their lineage?
Did no one see the destruction on the horizon?
"Empress Shlaweya," her cousin repeated, keeping distance in her words and leaving no cracks to break open. "I am a mere servant of the Empire with no real title or purpose. Perhaps if you speak with the young--"
"Shall I? You shall tell me what and how to lead my court now. Please, cousin, do explain why I, after the many years having lived in the ignorance of your existence, should bow to your wisdom," the Empress snapped and old wounds ripped open.
Perhaps today was the day the Empress could not let sleeping dogs lie. She had stayed cold and remote for much of these days. Even as the foreign empires tried to mark her territory as theirs, steal her people as theirs, and even take her beloved consort as theirs, what more was she to lose in this fight?
Her sanity?
"Your highness, Empress of Sonrhai," the Captain stepped forward, bowed, and then lifted his head with amber eyes. "I greet you with good intent and inform."
From her high vantage, her eyes narrowed down on the Captain but as she motioned to speak, she found her mouth unable to.
This Captain, whom her cousin so wanted to tout, had the very likeness of her grandfather. He even wore his beard in the styles of olde with beads twisted in them.
This was not a Carolingian fashion.
She said, then, even as those familiar amber eyes showed through, like a mirror into her past, separate from her grandfather entirely, "Why do you wear your beard in such a way?"
"I--" the Captain was caught off guard by the question and bowed again but did not raise his head again this time. "I remember my omega father telling me I should wear it in such a way to keep it clean. It was becoming too much work to cut. And the desert would itch my chin, otherwise, uh, your highness, Empress of Sonrhai."
At her side, she could tell even Kinya was unsure of her reaction to the Captain but continued to scratch words into the paper.
She stepped down from her throne, lightly pushing Lawali out of the way, as she stepped down from the raised dais. Although the two soldiers still wore their armor, only Akhutenan carried a sword at his side. Not once did he reach for it even as she stood in front of him and she could sense his worry in waves. Her hands lifted up his chin and she bore down on his face.
No.
She wasn't wrong.
This was her grandfather's face--and Lakshmi's eyes. Her own eyes drew on her cousin, who merely stared back and then nodded before looking away again.
It felt as though the air punched out of her chest. Her hands grappled at the young man's armor.
"Court is dismissed! I will hear this inform in private!" the Empress shouted with her hand tightly holding Akhutenan's solid form still. "Except for you three. Do not leave."
Her eyes glared at the two Shu bastard children and Chuli, who had shuffled off to the side.
Minister Hakimi bowed and then left with the crowd of muttering, whispering clanspeople but Minister Cissé kneeled and begged, "Empress, the court has not completed. We haven't heard your verdict on the Shu--"
"This is now a family discussion," the Empress hissed. "Leave! Or I will find someone else with a cleverer tongue to take your place."
The words were read, and Minister Cissé snapped his robes around his body as if flames licked the heels of his feet as he joined the mass exit of the court.
Her eyes bore into Akhutenan's searchingly again just as before until the young Captain cleared his throat.
"Should I be leaving too?"