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After a cup of coffee and a short briefing with his secretary, he and Pateaus left the villa and headed out to the meeting area which would take place in the banquet hall of one of the city’s restaurants that only opened to the public for dinner. It was the perfect place for the gathering, as there would be quite a lot of Ongahri coming, and lunch was guaranteed to be served just for the occasion, a good one at that.
Once they had arrived, they stepped out of the carriage. Something wet touched his face, and he wiped at it. Snow was starting to fall, a miraculous event that, as far as Lucius knew, had rarely occurred here in this part of the world. It was a light dusting, though, but there nonetheless.
“Ongar, it’s snowing!” Pateus held out a hand to catch the drifting flakes.
Lucius paused at the entrance, waiting for Pateus to fall in step with him. “It is indeed. Have the documents?”
“Of course,” Pateus said, patting the slim case in his hand.
“Good. Let’s get this done.”
A minuscule tingle of apprehension went through him, enough to make him pause and cast a glance around where they stood. It was too early for the others to have arrived, and the area showed only a handful of people walking past them on their way to the various shops nearby, particularly the popular apothecary across the street.
Lucius shook off the feeling of walking into a giant cobweb, and headed inside the restaurant. The staff quickly showed them to the room, a space in the back corner of the building that he had rented for the day. It was well-lit with sconces on the wall, and a small hearth burned in the corner. The area had two windows covered in heavy drapes on the western wall, and the doorway was partitioned off with a heavy canvas to provide privacy. A large round table that sat at least twenty people filled the center of the room. Lucius chose the seat closest to the fire so he could eyeball the doorway.
Pateus took a seat to Lucius’ right and set the case on the table, opening it in front of him. A servant came in with several carafes of water and a tea cart, then asked if there was anything else they’d might need.
“That will be all, thank you.” Lucius poured himself some water but left it untouched. He went over his notes, the notes he kept in his head. He had invited twenty Ongahri tribes to this meeting and had received fifteen confirmations a week or two after Phobius had left the night of the feast. Whether the rest of those invitations ever made it from Ordelpho because of the winter storms, or they were never posted to begin with, Lucius could only guess.
The one he was anxious about, however, was Pastoris, who had been the first to accept the invitation. Lucius knew it was a risk in asking the tribal leader of Janis to join House Dega’s campaign due to the fact that Pastoris was on very good terms with Alpha Queen Mari Trajan, though that information was kept from Pastoris’ people. Either the man had a hard-on for the queen, or he just wanted something in return.
Therefore, there was a very good chance that Mari had learned of this meeting.
Would the queen herself make an appearance? Lucius doubted it. Although his half-sister played the political pretty as well as most, she moved too slowly, and unlike her father, she ruled through a long scope, not a wide one.
From the latest correspondence he’d received in the city, House Trajan hadn’t yet made a move toward the Owl, which was shocking to Lucius. What was the holdup? Before Sierra came along, Lucius had no desire to dip his toe in anything the Owl did, unless it was something he had he wanted, like the land in Odessia. The Basilica’s business had always been indifferent to him and vice versa. But they had messed with the wrong person when they’d followed his ship with the intention of taking Sierra, not to mention their abject hatred that was fueling a campaign to wipe out the future of the Ongahri.
Especially based off the information Lucius had received two mornings ago.
He and Pateus didn’t have to wait too long before the first of the guests arrived. Chantis, leader of the Halifax tribal lands, was the first. He was over two hundred years old. Lucius had first met the man while traveling through the deserts in his teens, his very first journey away from home. Chantis had welcomed him into his humble tribe, had even invited him to join them, but a young Lucius had declined.
Next to enter the room were Fillius, Jargo, Alexander, Hortex… all grand leaders in their own right. Within minutes the table was at full capacity. The last to enter was indeed the ass kisser Pastoris. Regally handsome, the alpha’s hair was shaved on the sides, the top a strip of black that stuck up like he was half exotic bird. He nodded at Lucius and the others as he quietly took a seat, squeezing himself in between Hortex and a young Ongahri, Cortes, who had resently been promoted leader of the Ortega Tribe near the Aires, the main seat of House Trajan.
In all, Lucius counted seventeen leaders that had accepted his invitation. It was enough.
“Thank you all for coming,” he addressed the table, looking at each warrior. “I’m going to get right down to business. Yesterday, I received confirmation that the Owl and the Tributary of Titus have readied a weapon the likes this world has never seen, something they have been perfecting for the past ten years. A weapon that has the potential to wipe out a city the size of the one we’re in right now.”
That got everyone’s attention, Lucius noted. The room seemed to wake up.
“How is that possible?” Fillius asked, his dark eyes wide. “What is this weapon?”
Lucius nodded at Pateus, who reached inside his case and pulled out a rolled-up blueprint that he unfolded, setting it on the middle of the table. The men all leaned forward, their eyes taking in the inked drawing. Lucius knew what they were seeing: a bulky cylinder set on what looked like a crude tripod. Measurements and algebraic equations scattered the paper of shapes and lines and boxed-in insets of close-ups pointing to the strange weapon’s mechanics.
“It emits energy,” Pateus explained. “Based on word of mouth and this blueprint, the weapon is as wide as this table.” He knocked lightly on the wood. “Its height is that of an average citizen. Due to its weight and the material, it cannot be carried, only carted.”
“And where is this weapon right now?” Alexander asked. The dark-skinned leader leered at what he was looking at, as if the paper hid a snake that would uncoil only to reach out to sink its fangs into the warrior’s throat.
“They keep it below the Garrian Mountains,” Luicus supplied, steepling his hands. He was watching Pastoris very carefully, wondering if the traitor was having second thoughts about going over Lucius’ head to tattletale on him to their supposed queen.
Jargo, the only male in the room who wore nothing but homespun breeches and a copper torque around his neck, crossed his muscled arms. “And I assume you want us to, what, remove this weapon? The Owl and the Tributary have nothing to do with the Ongahri. We keep to ourselves. They stay out of our affairs as we stay out of theirs.”
Nods of agreement went around the table, though a few looked thoughtful. One, however, Lox of the Jasper Tribe, a well-populated Ongahri group in the southern plains of Titus, east of Odessia, narrowed his eyes at Jargo’s summation.
“We’ve been at peace with both parties for many decades, yes,” Lox said, looking around the table. “But that doesn’t mean it will stay that way forever. Today they fight their own people, who’s to say that won’t fight us tomorrow?”
Murmurs went around the room. Lucius held up a hand.
When the men quieted down, Lucius said, “That was the first thing I needed to share.” He motioned to the blueprint. “The second is that the Owl have been hunting down omegas and capturing them. Though it is known, it hasn’t been addressed nor spoken of among the Ongahri that the number of omegas born to us has exponentially diminished. We now have the answer as to why that has occurred.”
