“It is best,” a sudden disembodied voice arose from beyond the canvas walls of the tent, some meters away, garnering the attention of both the tribune and the commander, “if you do not speak.”

The words were composed in the jarring tongue of the north. Their sound roused Celestino's pulse.

“Do you understand Simonese, Dado?” he murmured quietly.

The curt head shake he received was expected. The Republika of Ilyos had never gone to war with the Kingdom of Simo. Battles for possession of the Holy Enclave of Reuzen were brutal and predictably treacherous, but they were singular and ceased to exist beyond its sacred territory. As a commander, however, Celestino had no choice but to undertake the daunting study of it in preparation for precisely the occasion in which they found themselves. With its hard pronounced consonants, guttural stops, and oddly placed trills, it was a language far easier to read than to speak, and a language easier to speak than to audibly understand. They were impatient with their words, and spoke quickly enough that they would merge into unrecognizable sounds if one wasn’t swift enough to decipher them before being lobbed the next set. A language easy to drown in, for sure, but it seemed to Celestino that, in the end, it was entirely worth the countless years of toil to master it.

“Yes,” a secondary voice arose, pricking the commander’s ears, “that will end well. I’m sure the legate they’ve sent to receive us just adores listening to their language as if it is spoken around a swollen tongue, Dries.”

“What are they saying?” Dado murmured.

It was the commander’s turn to shake his head, just as curt, and not a moment after came the call of one of his men.

“Commander, the ambassadors of Simo have arrived.”

Celestino exhaled and then answered. “See them in.”

His man swept open the canvas tent flap with an arm and, just like that, it had begun.

As Dado had warned, it was only five northerners that filed in. Two had clearly been stripped of belts and their complementary scabbards, leaving them looking markedly naked in their largely leather get-up. Soldiers, Celestino figured. Or, more specifically, hirdmen: a class of petty nobility awarded to Simonese warriors with mettle and gumption. These two must’ve belonged to the Achterecht Clan.

“You-”

The oldest of the five, a man of at least sixty summers, and the wrinkles and gray hair to show for it, cut his words short. He scoured Celestino’s face with hardened, murky eyes, before inhaling and beginning again.

“You are Legate Adesso. I am Martijn Bauke, Ealdorman of Glasemeir and advisor to King Ingo of Simo.”

He spoke with confidence - he must’ve been a military man in his prime. But not anymore. The commander’s eyes drifted to the ealdorman’s right. Another older man, but this one still had life in his bones - Celestino could tell by the coiled stance. Tall and pale - as Simonese were known to be - with skin that had become ruddy with contact from the southern heat and salt-and-pepper hair pulled high up on his crown in a knotted bun. He wasn’t as adorned as the ealdorman. His clothes were simple, but quality.

“And you?” Celestino asked.

The man did not flinch under the commander’s gaze.

“Jurgen White, councilor. I am the Seneschal of Clan Achterecht - chosen by the late King Gotthard and trusted by the current King Ingo.”

Celestino arched his brow. It was certainly a pointed comment, but by no means combative.

“An ealdorman and a seneschal of the royal clan,” he hummed, crossing his arms over his chest. “Two men of distinguished station. To whom ought I direct this conversation?”

The question awoke from the last of their retinue a spirited laugh, like a gentle wind awakening a slumbering sylph.

He stepped lively, halfway bridging the gap between himself and the commander, and while the men he left behind observed with tight expressions, they did not make a move to restrain the creature. 

Perhaps, Cele considered, his pulse thrumming at the sight of the youthful, untamed thing positioning himself precisely in the center of the reception tent, they did not dare.

“That would be me.” The sylph’s northern accent was nearly illusory as he spoke the Ilysian words, but not enough to stifle the deep pull of curiosity in the commander’s gut. 

Celestino had always been a deeply self-critical man, but even he could not find fault in himself at that moment. This creature…

His skin, as fair as the moon, looked almost inhuman when wrapped in the rich velvets of his northern garb. He had a wild mane of brilliant, flaxen hair that, even pulled back into a thick braid, refused to cooperate and, instead, provided him with a golden halo of flyaway and loose strands that encompassed his face. His eyes - and perhaps the most striking feature of them all - looked as if the gods had breathed life into two cabochons of precious, glistening jade stone. 

He couldn’t have been any older than twenty summers, the commander figured - around the same age as the youngest of the Ghost King’s sons. The same age as King Ingo’s youngest brother. The same age as the infamous Viper Prince of Simo.

“And how fortunate we are for that,” he carried on, donning a soft, disingenuous smile. “Councilor, legate - both of these titles besmirch that which you truly are, do they not, Commander Celestino Adesso?” 

His name was like warmed honey, dripping from the prince’s tongue. Or, perhaps, venom.

“The Liberator of Haroma. The Impious Demigod of Ilyos. The great Iron Lion of the Vermillion Legion.”

Nothing about the young man before him was comparable to anything of southern creation, barring only the gods themselves. The planes of his face belonged in marble etchings for eternity.

The commander felt an odd and foreign instinct to bow - to entice the northern creature to him with every single dulcet word and compelling action he could muster. It should’ve abhorred him, but in the moment, he was far too intrigued with the prince to even shift in his seat.

If the king had sent any other councilor from the Horned Forum to greet this retinue – to greet this prince who had a clear predilection to temerity – he was sure it would’ve ended poorly.

“Commander.” 

The Second Prince strolled closer – an undertaking performed so casually that even the overwrought Dado did not react when his Simonese boots stepped on the rug beneath Celestino, less than two square meters in area. If he wanted to attack, the councilor would have to be swift, but he felt no need to tense his muscles in preparation. His gut claimed that it was because the prince meant him no harm, but he did not like how quickly he submitted to the idea. 

He watched the prince lay claim to a low table right out of arm’s reach from Celestino, clearing it of the amphora of wine, as if it was his amphora of wine to do so with, before settling on it in silence. And then his jade eyes flitted up to seize the commander’s gaze, as fast as a striking viper.