As soon as he noticed us approaching, he put down the scroll on a small wooden table next to him and turned to face his son. His thick mustache and great brown beard did little to cover the heartwarming smile and the happiness in his black eyes which were directed toward his son and… my sister?

“My son, my daughter, my children,” the king said, looking at Manal Im first, then my sister, and finally the rest of us.

The man now stood up, and towering over us, hugged his son and then Seika. I knew my sister had met the king before, but I had no idea they were on such good terms. I tried to make sense of her expression. She looked like she was happy and welcomed the merchant king’s affection.

“Please bring more pillows and take a seat,” the king said to all of us, as he brought the largest pillow for my sister to sit on.

Once we were seated, the king stood in front of us and properly introduced himself.

“My name is Mena El Os. I am Manal Im’s father and reigning merchant king of Leka An,” the tall man said in a husky charming voice. “You, young man, must be Adel. I can see the resemblance with your sister.”

“Yes, your majesty,” I replied and moved to stand up.

“There is absolutely no need for such formalities,” the king said, making a gesture with his hand that implied I didn’t have to stand up. He turned to the others. “And you two must be Krysha and Kard, the brains of the tower.”

Krysha immediately turned red but Kard’s quick thinking and great social skills saved them.

“You honor us by mentioning our names and praising us, Your Majesty,” Kard said in a casual manner, even though the words that came out of his mouth were formal. “Over the past months, we’ve heard nothing but the best from Manal Im and all of your subjects in Zakara.”

“Nobody in Zakara is my subject, young man,” the king responded. “We are a nation of merchants and we are all free. I happen to be the merchant king, but I have no power or rule over anyone living in this land.”

Kard nodded appreciatively and the king turned to face his son once more before moving back to his seat.

“I am sure Manal Im has informed you of the recent developments?” the king asked, and we all nodded in agreement. “I do not want to bore you with all the politics going on behind this meeting, but I will be very forward with you. What Elysia is trying to do is intimidate you into relinquishing information. Now, I cannot tell you what you should or should not share, but I understand that you feel the obligation, as citizens of Elysia, to obey the archons’ commands.”

He let his last statement linger for a while before he carried on speaking.

“I am more than willing to help Elysia sort out their problems,” he continued. “We have been trading partners for many years, and while I do not like how they are treating their neighbors on the other side of the Endless Sea, my people and our neighbors have a lot to gain from a continuing trade relationship. That said, our predecessors were wise enough to diversify our economic inflows, which means we will be ok even if Elysia chooses to stop trading with us after our meeting tomorrow.”

The king looked at us, and I could tell that he realized he wasn’t being as straightforward as he planned to when he began talking to us.

“What I am trying to say,” he continued, “is that I want you to have an option. For this reason, from this day forth you are all to be considered fully-fledged merchants and citizens of Leka An by the merchant king’s decree.”

The last statement was met with a collective gasp from all of us, except Man who simply smiled as he took Seika’s hand in his.

“This means that you can be here when the archons come if you want to, but you are not obligated to do so. Manal Im was also at the liturgy and even though it would not look good that my son and heir tried to receive powers given by a foreign god, his information about what occurred would be much more important than his misdemeanor—”

“We want to be there,” I said, and I jumped from my pillow seat, not realizing that I had interrupted the king. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I didn’t mean to interject. We’re very grateful to you for accepting us as your people, but we want to face them.”

The king smiled back at me and looked at the rest of the group. Krysha, who was sitting next to me, reached out to me and I sat back down.

“My king, we are honored to be part of Leka An and I’m sure everyone in the tower would agree,” Krysha said in a steady voice. “We would like to present ourselves at the meeting between you and the archons, not as subjects of Elysia but as free merchants of Leka An.”

“It is decided then,” said the king. “I will send for you tomorrow at dawn. You can go home and rest now. And remember that under my roof, and as long as you are on Leka An soil, on the ground of your merchant people, you have nothing to fear.”

We all stood up and expressed our gratitude to the king, taking turns to shake his hands. Man and Seika lingered a little longer, talking to the king while we left the throne room and put our boots back on. As soon as they exited and put on their shoes as well, we made our way back to the tower.

Our talk on the walk back mostly revolved around how grateful we were to Man’s father for offering to officially take us under his wing, no doubt influenced heavily by a strong recommendation of his. We also made a few remarks about how little Man looked like his father, except for his beard which was not nearly as magnificent as the king’s yet.

Before we reached the tower, I tried to approach my sister and ask about her intimate relationship with the king, but she simply smiled at me and paid no heed whatsoever to my question.

Once we were back in the tower, we called for everyone to return and gathered in the foyer to discuss everything that the king had told us. It did not take long to get full attendance, while everyone who was not of the tower was asked to wait outside.

Once everyone had gathered and settled down, Kard and Krysha went through the facts that were announced to us about the fourth archon, their demand that we appear before them, and that we were now all officially to be considered citizen merchants of Leka An. The last part caused a wave of cheering which took some time to calm down, but it was a welcome release of tension.

We were planning on asking if anyone wanted to join or replace us in meeting with the archons, but we soon understood that nobody intended on doing that. Instead, we agreed to bring a scrying device so the people in our tower would be able to see and hear exactly what was going on during the meeting. We would need the permission of the king to do this of course, but Man assured us it would pose no problem at all.

The group seemed to have no particular expectation about the following day’s meeting, but I got the feeling everyone was a little worried about it. Nobody wanted to return to Elysia, and even a small part of Elysia coming to Leka An was enough to get people stressed and anxious to see it gone.

I, on the other hand, had great expectations of this meeting. I wanted to find out everything the Order knew about what had happened during the liturgy and whether they’d had any information on the whereabouts of Myriam.

The rest of the day unfolded pretty uneventfully, with most of us lingering in the tower, not wanting to stray too far as though in fear we would lose our way back. I spent some hours conversing with people in the tavern, did my routine checks on the observatory and the watchtower, and decided to retire to my chambers early.

The following day was going to be quite important for all of the people in the tower and even more so for me and my quest to find Myriam and Kai. I closed my eyes and fell asleep thinking about how I would be able to extract the information I needed from the archons.