“I did not think that you would come back so quickly, my lord.” Colin greeted Braydon as he dismounted from his horse. Part of the reason that he had sent word to Gerald was because he was sure that both Braydon and Rhydian would be too busy to deal with things happening in the castle. They had a civil war and a significant amount of the kingdom’s nobility to deal with.

“If I did not come back no, I doubt I would be returning before this whole thing is over. And I doubt that our guests would like to wait for something that is not even certain to happen in the near future.” After the events of the past few days, Braydon was sure that the whole royal faction would be moving out soon. It was just a matter of which direction they were moving too. Either way, it meant that Braydon would have to go with it.

“Then I shall inform our guests of your arrival.” Colin bowed before turning around to find the Serheshi guests. Braydon handed his horse off to the stable hand and was about to head to his study to meet the guests before he was stopped once more.

“Braydon!” A voice shouted, as two figures appeared from the eastern gate, guiding a horse with them.

“Long time no see, it seems that you are enjoying riding.” Braydon greeted Lani and Mireille as they walked over to each other. It did not feel like it had been a long time to Braydon since he had seen Lani off from Mapjess, but it had actually been over a week.

“And she is quite good at it too. I am guessing that you heard about the foreign guests.” Lani complimented before moving on to Braydon’s reason for being at the castle instead of with the army.

“Indeed I did, it is not often that someone from so far afield comes to my lands. It is not often that anyone comes to my lands, but we have some other reasons for that right now.” Braydon had wanted for more people to come to his lands, it was the only way that they were going to prosper. But the ‘more people’ he was referring to did not really include the entire royal faction as they tried to fight a war.

“Be careful what you wish for then. Though in this case, I doubt that these guests are in quite the same category as the lords of Fiveria.” Lani chuckled at Braydon’s grumbling.

“If they had come to fight a war in Fiverian territory, I would have to question if they had gotten lost.” Braydon knew that there was no chance that the Serheshis would end up fighting a war with Fiveria, at least not directly. They were just too far removed from Fiveria for it to ever be a possibility.

“Well, it did seem like they intended to come here so I doubt that you need to be worried about that. Though these people are rather an odd bunch. Not like the Serheshi merchants that I have met with before.” Lani’s words caught Braydon’s attention. He knew that the Serheshi were not like most other peoples of Ezaes, but had never met someone from Serhesh himself. If Lani said that they were odd, then they were definitely going to have an odd request.

“Odd in what way?” Braydon had originally expected that it was some merchant trying an unorthodox strategy to break into Fiveria. That or some kind of request to do with Shuluk. Braydon was on the border with Shuluk and the Serheshis definitely had a vested interest in the outcome of the civil war going on there. They shared their largest border with none other than Shuluk, and they did not have the Brimstones to guard them.

“Odd in that they were obviously not here because of anything that you can provide. They seem to be looking for something, but are not quite sure where it is.” Lani’s description confused Braydon even further. When she had said that they were not merchants, he had assumed that they were some kind of representative of the Republic. But if what Lani said was true that was equally unlikely.

“Then I will have to see what they are after. Is there anything else that you can tell me?” Braydon did not want to go in completely blind after what Lani had said about them. Even if what they were after had nothing to do with him, it was always better to be safe than sorry.

“They seemed to take quite the interest in Mireille’s appearance. Which, even if not common, should not be too shocking to them, Serhesh gets many Leighian traders. I doubt that Mireille should stand out that much to them. Even if it is odd that she is this far south.” From her words, Braydon could guess that his visitors were looking for someone from Leigh. But that did nothing to tell him why or who they were looking for. After all, both Leigh and Serhesh had quite the mercantile culture. Their people could be found spread throughout Ezaes, the Leighians in particular in western Ezaes.

“Then I had best get going, I do not want to keep my visitors waiting for too long.” Braydon said but as he was about to go, Mireille grabbed his arm.

“Make them go away, they looked at me scarily.” Having been silent for the entire conversation, Mireille stated her thoughts on the visitors. And she took an entirely different stance than she usually did about people who came to visit. Most of the time, Mireille was uninterested in visitors or thought them to be annoying. But this was the first time that he had ever seen Mireille think that someone was frightening.

“They should not be here for much longer, I have no way to entertain them for long periods of time anyway. I will have to leave again soon. And I am not exactly going to let them stay indefinitely.” Braydon tried to comfort her, but him saying that he would leave again soon did not exactly improve her mood much.

“We will get something to eat and then wait for Braydon to finish his meeting. Hopefully, he will not take long.” Lani said to Mireille, but Braydon could tell that she had something more that she wanted to discuss with him after the visitors had left.

“That sounds good to me, I will be leaving for Mapjess tomorrow then.” Braydon could tell that he would not have time to return before nightfall. He had a feeling that the discussion with Lani might take some time.