The peace conference resud the very next morning.
The proofs and testimonies Alpheo had provided , the letters, the confessions, the damning admissions , had been thoroughly examined through the night.
Later, sha would tell him , given that he was among those reviewing the proofs,that the envoys had combed over every seal, every signature, every line of parchnt, and that the witness testimony had been reviewed word by word.
Anyone with eyes could see the tide had turned.
The evidence was simply overwhelming, and no amount of favor or sympathy could make Sorza as blaless as he had tried to appear.
It was, in every sense of the word, a political victory , if Alpheo ever knew one. He had beaten Sorza at his own ga, stripped him of the mask of victimhood, and laid bare the truth before the eyes of princes and emperor alike.
And yet , as the session adjourned and voices began to disperse, the elation that should have swelled his chest was absent. Instead, he felt a gape. His gaze, almost against his will, drifted across the benches where his companions had taken their places. And there, glaring like an empty wound, was the space where Egil should have been.
The sight struck him harder than any enemy’s spear, right through the gut.
He told himself not to falter, not here, not in front of watchful eyes , but even as he tried to cloak his face in composure, his thoughts unraveled.
Egil.
He had dismissed it at first. Jarza’s offhand words, the dark bruise along the man’s cheekbone when he returned, the stiff way he had avoided Alpheo’s questions.
"I exchanged so words with Egil," Jarza had said, as if that explained everything. Then, with a glance weighted with aning, he had added, "When you have ti, you should sort it out with him yourself. Sothing’s wrong this ti..."
But no matter how much Alpheo pressed him after, Jarza revealed nothing more.
It was strange, almost laughable in its irony, that this unsettled him so. He had endured ten years in chains. He had tasted hunger until his body trembled, felt the lash bite through skin and muscle, lain half-dead with fever in the filth of a cage. He had risen from that tornt to lead armies across blood-soaked fields, to burn villages, to sack cities, to visit on others horrors as vile as those once visited upon him.
Terrible things had been done to him. Terrible things he himself had done. He carried them all and done it all.
So why, then, should a quarrel with an old friend disturb him so much more than the mory of any whip, any battle, any corpse left in the mud?
Perhaps because Egil was not just a friend. None of them were , not Egil, not Jarza, not the others who had been caged alongside him. They were more. They were part of him, as necessary to his survival as his own limbs.
In that cage, no wider than four paces across, they had all beco bound together, held upright not by strength but by each other’s shattered shoulders. They had learned to lean, to share, to carry.
If there was sothing above friendship, it was that.
Each of them was a stone, weathered, cracked, yet still standing. Alone, each would have crumbled to dust long ago. But together, propped against one another, they had endured. And even now , that they were free, now that the chains had rusted away , the truth remained.
None of them could imagine a life without the others.
The thought made Alpheo’s throat tighten. Gods, he thought bitterly, perhaps I am the most unsteady of them all. He, who so many now hailed as a prince, a victor, a master of politics. Yet the loss of one friend’s closeness could send him reeling like a drunkard struck across the jaw.
He clenched his fist, forcing his thoughts into steel.
He would not let this fester until it beca a chasm between them, he knew very well just how easy friendships could be broken, and so never nded back again.
He could not allow that to happen with any of them,he would not.
His attention broke away from his worries when the prince of Sharjaan rose from his seat, carrying words that Alpheo at that mont cared little to hear, but that nonetheless he had.
He knew he would regret both if he did not exhort himself to the best here, and with Egil.
He promised himself to do both....
"After careful review of the docunts,’’ he begun ’’ the letters, and the testimony presented before this august council, it is undeniable that the late prince of Oizen was guilty of plotting and instigating rebellion within the rightful dominion of another sovereign crown.
By the mountain of proof given to us, it is clear that the accusation brought by Prince Sorza against Prince Alpheo , that he was the aggressor in this war, is without sincerity. For indeed, the war was not born of his hand, but began eleven years ago with the actions of the late prince of Oizen, Shamleik."
The prince of Sharjaan continued, "Let us then, now that such matters have been clarified, strive toward the true purpose of this gathering, a just and lasting peace. I hereby proclaim the beginning of this new phase in our efforts. Both sides shall now state their terms, upon which we may begin our negotiations. Prince Alpheo, as the accused who has been vindicated, you may state your terms first."
Alpheo’s ears caught every word, his gaze fixed steadily upon the overseeing prince. To the gathered envoys, the man’s tone seed impartial, a diator above the fray. But Alpheo knew better.
Shaza had, after all, been bought long ago by Alpheo.
A quarter of the Freusen iron mine’s output , one out of every four kilograms to be sent directly to Shaza at each month. It was, by every asure, a steep and bitter price. Yet it had been necessary. Without Shaza’s support within the council, the balance could have tilted fatally against him. Alone, he would have been left isolated, exposed to the threats and pressures that Oizen and Habadia had so carefully prepared to spring.
It was not rely about numbers. It was about having a voice strong enough to deter those princes from turning the peace table into another battlefield. And that voice, however costly, now belonged to him.
Drawing his eyes away from Shaza, Alpheo composed himself. The mont was his. In every true negotiation, one began with the maximal, with terms drawn high and wide,so that with careful concessions, the final settlent would still lie where one desired it.
Of course that wasn’t all that was needed, as one had to have enough diplomatic chips to back them.
And so he rose, his bearing calm, his voice asured but firm, putting for the mont away the worries about his friend’s state.
He began, "I thank all of you for your diligence in weighing truth from deceit, and for your commitnt to the cause of peace. In the spirit of restoring balance and justice to what has been broken, I shall now state the terms by which my crown may be moved toward reconciliation."
He cleared his throat and then continued , while hoping that the sa thing could be obtained with his friend.
"First and foremost, the Crown of Yarzat requires from His Grace, Prince Sorza of Oizen, a formal recognition of truth , that it was his late father, Prince Shalik, who bore the responsibility for igniting this long and ruinous conflict, and that the charges of aggression laid against Yarzat were unfounded. Along with this recognition, the Crown of Oizen shall issue a formal apology to the Crown of Yarzat for the cris and transgressions committed against its sovereignty."
This first term stirred little unease among the envoys. Indeed, to most, it seed only natural. Proof had been weighed and found undeniable; an apology and recognition of fault cost no land, no gold, no power , only words. And words, in politics, were often the cheapest coin.
After all, they were there to make sure Yarzat did not grow overly strong, and an apology pragmatically would do nothing for them.
"Second, we demand that all territories currently held by the armies of Yarzat , towns, villages, cities, and fortresses taken in the just course of this year’s campaign , be formally recognized as de jure possessions of the Crown of Yarzat. What has been taken by the sword in defense of right, let it be confird by the seal of law, so that no future claim may seek to undo it."
Several envoys shifted in their seats, though most remained still. This was the true beginning of substance that they would have to cut, he had so other demands, which of course, Alpheo expected almost nothing from.
In short, he was throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck.... and sothing was bound to do that, was it not?
"Third, the restitution of those borderlands once rightfully belonging to Her Grace, Princess Jasmine, which were treacherously seized by the Crown of Oizen. These lands, as this august assembly is well aware, were originally granted as dowry by the late Prince Shalik to her father, Arkawatt, in his first marriage. Their unlawful conquest was the tinder that sparked this decade-long war. Therefore the cities of Myros and Thelociea, with their surrounding villages, should be restored to the lawful patrimony of Her Grace.
And fourth," he said at last, "in recognition of the grievous suffering endured during this war , a suffering multiplied most cruelly during the great invasion of four years past, when vast swathes of Yarzat’s fields and villages were put to the torch, by both rebels and Oizenian armies, the Crown of Oizen shall pay to Yarzat the sum of twenty-two thousand silverii. A rightful indemnity , to cover the many damages towards those who have borne the weight of Oizen’s aggression for more than a decade."
When he finished, the chamber was silent, each envoy turning the words over in their minds.
They had, of course much to contrast and they would do just that , but for now they waited for Sorza to express his own terms now.
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