Crown Prince Malek entered the meeting room together with Hardik and went to the front of the room. They both knelt down before the man seated on the throne. The man was annoyed and his finger was irritably tapping the arm rest of his chair.
"I greet Your Majesty the sun of the Kajar Empire," Malek said as he and his cousin bowed before Emperor Ramer.
The emperor's eyes were on Malek alone. "You're late," he told him angrily.
"I apologize Your Majesty I—" Malek tried to explain.
"Just sit," The emperor ordered stiffly interrupting Malek. He was furious with him and he took notice of the lipstick stains on his lips.
"And clean your mouth! What are you, a little child who can't clean after themselves?!"
Malek let out a frustrated sigh at his father's anger as he brought his hand to his lips and looked at his finger to find red stains. Celeste's lipstick he realized and felt embarrassed. He wondered why Hardik hadn't told him about the lipstick as they made their way to the emperor's palace. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and cleaned his mouth.
Hardik had come to his wing whilst he was in the middle of making out with Celeste. When he heard the person enter, at first, he thought it was Tanya who had returned. He had just dismissed her after he had told her about planning for the Asyire prince's arrival. He thought it was her since he knew she was always jealous of him and Celeste, especially when he showed Celeste affection in front of her. Had she come back to complain about kissing Celeste?
He was ready to yell at her when he was instead met with Hardik much to his surprise. He hadn't known Hardik had returned to the palace. Upon realizing that Hardik had returned he remembered the emperor had told him they would have a meeting in his wing in the early evening once the Imperial army had returned.
Malek had completely forgotten about this meeting having been distracted by Celeste
In the meeting room were five people in total, the emperor, Prince Malek, Great Master Hardik, The General in charge of the Imperial Army and the Emperor's advisor.
"Now that we're all here we can begin the discussion," Emperor Ramer said. "General Mau you requested to have a meeting with me once your troops returned to the palace. What's Happened?"
The General spoke up from the seated position he was in. "Your Majesty, four days ago there was a bandits attack on a remote village. I'm sure you received a report."
"Yes, I did," Ramer responded.
If you recall five months ago there was another incident where a group of bandits attacked a village as well. 3 months before that the same had occurred. In less than a year there have been a strange series of attacks. At first, the last two seemed like isolated incidences but with this recent attack, we now believe they may be coordinated and planned attacks by the same individuals."
"And what makes you say that?" His Majesty asked.
"It's because we found this," Hardik said lifting up a document in his hand. "A messenger falcon was shot down heading in the direction of the attacked village 2 days prior. We're not yet sure, Your Majesty but we think this letter may be behind it."
"What is it?" the emperor asked.
"We believe it's an encrypted message that contains the instructions that the bandits followed to attack the village," Hardik explained.
His Majesty held out his hand to receive it and then Hardik stood up and went forward to hand it over to him.
They handed the emperor the letter. Emperor Ramer inspected it and saw what seemed to be a short paragraph of random letters put together. There were no spaces separating words or anything. It didn't appear to be any distinguishable language he could recognize.
The emperor looked back at the men and his eyes darkened. "Do you think Asyire is responsible?" he asked.
"We already gave this letter to Imperial cryptographers but they haven't been able to decode it. They said they'd never seen a type of encryption like this before. We can't say for sure if it is Asyire since no one knows what their encryption methods are like. However, we are inclined to think so due to our cryptographers' words. This letter very much follows the descriptions of the new methods of encryption they've developed which is said to be unsolvable. We can't rule out the possibility."
"The Asyire prince is coming next week…" he said trailing off. A stressed expression was then on the emperor's face as he processed what this could mean.
"I need you to be on alert when the crown prince of Asyire arrives at the palace. He's coming under the guise of maintaining peace relations with our empire. I suspect he most likely will be here to observe our court. We mustn't forget that with the prince's father ill, the prince is practically the current emperor. Which is why it is of utmost importance that we don't give him any reason to target us. That boy is extremely intelligent considering the recent things he's done if the rumours are taken to be true."
If the Asyire empire was plotting something Emperor Ramer feared his Empire wouldn't stand a chance. They are very crafty, there's a reason all the nations on the continent were uneasy at the possibility that they might be targeted next.
The Asyire Empire was widely known and revered across the continent. They were now known as the most dangerous nation on the continent. Despite not having gone to war or any significant disputes on over a decade. All kingdoms across the Payan continent had disagreements with each other.
What sparked the rumours was an incident that occurred nearly five years ago. A kingdom in the far north from Kajar had a civil war and rumour had it that the Asyire Empire played a role in manipulating the people in the country until the civil war occurred. After the war and there was destruction to many of the kingdom's infrastructure and resources the kingdom needed help getting back on their feet.