Hart territory was immense.  A sprawling forest covering most of the northern half of Kataigida’s interior, flanked by mountains in the north, east, and west, and the island’s central plains to the south.  There were a couple long rivers running through the region, along which most of the Ancestral Harts lived, but for the most part, the forest was uninhabited.

The Hart Tribe was even smaller than the Heart-Stabbing Hawks, but they controlled a territory several times the size of that of the Hawks.  As a result, as Leon and his people flew over it, it was practically an unbroken sea of green canopies beneath them.

They had left Raikos only a couple of days prior, stopping only once in Raichaiti.  They traveled fairly heavily, with an entourage following Leon of more than five hundred.  One hundred of those were his new Tempest Knights, while the remaining four hundred were elders and Chiefs of the four Tribes already sworn to him.  The Jaguar, Ipatameni, Xanthippe, and Singer-in-Caves all led their respective Tribal fellows.

Leon led the flight in his natural Thunderbird form, his silver feathers glittering in daylight and gleaming like a second moon at night.  Most of the Hawks and Eagles in his entourage followed his suit in taking feathered form.  The rest of the men and women of Kataigida, however, largely traveled in human form as even those who had taken the time to learn how to transform chose not to unless they grew wings in their altered bodies.

Still, Leon thought they made for quite the sight.  A sight that seemed to go ignored as they passed into and then pushed deeper into Hart territory.

To some extent, this was expected.  The Harts were generally reclusive and rarely received visitors.  On the other hand, Leon thought they might’ve had someone keeping an eye out for his—and potentially the Thunderer’s—arrival, but if someone was keeping an eye out for them, they didn’t send word to have them interdicted.

Instead, Leon’s group flew completely unimpeded over the dense forest below them.  They were such an intense collection of power that even the rare powerful beasts that he saw with his magic senses beat feet as they sensed his group’s arrival in their vicinity.

Despite not being received, they didn’t stop at any of the cities or villages they encountered along their flight—there were quite a few since despite the Harts being the smallest Tribe, they still numbered in the tens of millions, and more than a hundred thousand of their members possessed awakened blood.  Instead of stopping, they pushed onto the Harts’ capital, Raithellion.

Raithellion was a fairly large city, but as Leon had been informed, it was only partially occupied.  It had more in common with Raikos than most other Tribal capitals as it was only lightly inhabited full-time, with most estates only becoming occupied when the Tribal council met.

Despite the war with the Empires still on, the Harts’ Tribal council was not in session as far as Leon knew, and as the city came into view twenty-five hundred miles away, he could tell that it hadn’t changed during their journey.

The city itself was fairly spread out.  It was located at a junction in a river system that flowed all the way down to Raichaiti and Lake Ontarii further south.  Most of the city was built up south of the junction, but the Tribe’s gathering hall was located just north of it with few buildings around. 

It seemed almost lonely there, but Leon quietly thought the great timber building had a certain charm and dignity to its isolation that other gathering halls that were more centrally located lacked.  It was quiet and reserved, it seemed to have no pretensions or self-aggrandizements that demanded attention.  The building itself wasn’t architecturally interesting, consisting largely of a single rectangular section with a small dome in the center, and the square with the Tribal Totem on the building’s south side.

The city itself was built in a similarly simple style with even the largest estates having simple, blocky buildings that rarely reached more than four stories into the air.  In contrast, the city layout was mind-bendingly intricate.  Less of the forest appeared to have been cleared than might have been expected, with the streets not following a grid plan but were winding and more natural.  Any one place in the city likely couldn’t see very far thanks to all the trees and other greenery.

Leon would’ve smiled in appreciation had he had a mouth instead of a beak, but even with his weak sense of smell in Thunderbird form, he could smell the fresh forest air and instantly felt at home.  As was his wont, he flew ten times around the Tribal Totem before landing, his followers joining him in this flight.  Given their numbers, it took a while for them to finish, and by then, Leon and most of those in beast form had returned to their human forms.

There they stayed for a moment as everyone got their bearings and formed up in the square.  This didn’t take too long, but it was more than enough time for someone to come out to greet them—which was why Leon was so surprised that no one had done so.  Their lack of challenge or greeting on their arrival he had expected, but to have five hundred powerful mages landing right in front of the gathering hall was something he thought should’ve been acknowledged at least.

He glanced at the leaders of his sworn Tribes, but they didn’t seem like they knew what was going on, either.  The Jaguar shrugged at him, Ipatameni was staring at the gathering hall’s main doors as if trying to will someone to come out with nothing but his mind, Xanthippe was glaring at the city at their backs, and Singer-in-Caves was busy directing her people but occasionally cast her gaze about as if looking for something.

Gaius was the first one to speak to Leon.  “Should we knock?” he asked.

“We should kick their door down,” Red growled as she joined them, having just shifted back into human form.

“That would make a terrible first impression,” Marcus chided from behind her.

“Those who ignore us ought to be punished,” Red responded.

Leon flexed his aura a bit to quiet them down before their disagreement could get heated and stated, “We’re not knocking down their door.  Yet.  I’ll settle for just knocking.”

Leon nodded to Gaius and his retainer hurried forward as the rest of Leon’s family and retinue formed up beside and behind him, his Tempest Knights behind them, and the rest of the Tribes flanking them.

Gaius loudly knocked on the door but froze for a moment in surprise when his rapping knuckles pushed one of the double doors open a bit.  He looked back and called out, “It’s open!”

Leon frowned for a moment, then strode forward to see what was up.  He led his people in a procession into the gathering hall, the doors indeed being unlocked.  However, he didn’t find anyone inside.  The hall was one long room with little in the way of furniture, the only seating in the entire place being simple tiered benches arranged in a circle around a mural on the floor directly beneath the small central dome.  The mural, depicting a prancing stag, was the only piece of art in the entire hall.  The naves to the north and south were completely unadorned and lacked even the barest of seating accommodations.

Notably, what little available seating would’ve been only enough to account for the few elders and Chiefs that the Harts had and made no accommodations for potential visitors.

“Alcander,” Leon growled, and his newly-minted Knight-Commander stepped forward.  “Search the area.  If you find anyone, let me know.  Don’t force them to do anything, just come and get me.”

“On it, Your Majesty,” Alcander stated, a wry smile on his face as he used Leon’s style.  Leon had to force himself not to immediately correct his friend since they were in public and on official business, even though he wanted to.

While waiting for his knights to scour the area, Leon had the rest of his people move outside into the square rather than occupy the gathering hall, just in case anyone took offense to their presence there without any Harts accompanying them.  Once back in the square, he was joined by the four ninth-tier Tribal leaders.

“Is this usual?” Leon asked them.

Singer-in-Caves was the first to respond.  “The Harts are known for… being less than welcoming,” she said in what Leon took to be a rather charitable view of the Tribe in question.

“That’s one way to put it,” Xanthippe growled, seeming to agree with Leon’s unstated sentiment.  “They rarely come out of their forest, and when we need to commission something for them to work on, we usually have to communicate remotely with vox bats at best.”

Leon frowned.  “I was not given the impression such means were needed.”

“I apologize, Your Majesty,” Ipatameni said.  “My Tribe is on fairly good terms with the Harts and I should’ve made sure they knew we were coming.”

Leon sighed as he contained his annoyance.  “Don’t worry.  We sent word ahead anyway, so this rude reception is all on them.”

“How should we play this, then?” the Jaguar asked.

“We’ll just wait,” Leon replied.  “We’ll find someone eventually.  Or someone will find us.”

As he said that, he projected his magic senses across the city, and not for the first time.  Unfortunately, like most of those other times, he didn’t see anyone of note since, as simple as the buildings were, they were still all heavily enchanted with some of the most robust privacy enchantments Leon had ever encountered.

“How long ought we to stay if the Harts don’t want to talk?” the Jaguar inquired.  “We can try other means of getting in touch with their elders, but if they’re going to be difficult about this…”

“Are we on a strict schedule?” Leon replied.  “I’d love for us to get this done sooner rather than later, of course, but we don’t have any strict deadlines, do we?”

The Jaguar frowned but bowed his head slightly in concession.  “No, Your Majesty, we are not.”

“Then let’s give it some time.  We’ll—” Leon cut himself off as Running-Talon, the newly-elected seventh-tier captain of the Hawk mages in the Tempest Knights, came flying in at great speed.  She braked hard to avoid slamming into the stone square and landed quite agilely in front of Leon.

Once her feet touched the ground, she fell to one knee and reported, “We’ve found someone, Your Majesty…”

---

Leon wasn’t quite sure how to take what he was seeing.  It was a small pavilion hidden amongst the trees not too far into the dense forest north of the gathering hall.  It was situated between three innocuous and easily overlooked small ivy-covered stone buildings that seemed to be entrances to some underground space given the slant of their roofs.  Watching over these small buildings from the pavilion was a relatively old man who seemed to not care in the least that some of the most powerful mages on the plane had just arrived outside of his pavilion, hardly taking his eyes off the largest of the buildings—which wasn’t saying much.

His aura was completely obscured from Leon’s view thanks to the surprisingly heavy enchantments carved into the pavilion, preventing him from seeing into it with anything other than his eyes.  Regardless, Leon knew who this man was thanks to Ipatameni’s surprised exclamation upon their arrival.

This was Sar, the Harts’ Lawspeaker and the Tribe’s only ninth-tier mage.  He was dressed in a simple faded blue tunic and brown trousers, without so much as a single piece of gold or silver to indicate his status.

“Is this a trap?” Anshu wondered aloud.

“That’s not the Harts’ style,” Ipatameni replied with a dismissive wave of his hand.  Instead, he walked forward and knocked on one of the pillars holding up the pavilion’s ceiling.  “Leon Raime, last living descendent of the Thunderbird, has arrived, seeking audience with the Tribal Council of the Ancestral Harts!”

The man finally deigned to look in their direction, but his dismissive expression didn’t shift in the slightest.  He regarded them as if they were as interesting as the trees around the pavilion and he grunted, “I noticed.”

“Is this how you greet your fellows from other Tribes, come on official business?” Singer-in-Caves asked, her annoyance conveyed only in her words thanks to her carefully controlled tone.

Sar replied, “Yes.”

“Sar, my old friend,” Ipatameni said as he took a couple steps into the pavilion, “we really need to work on your people skills.”

Sar hardly even spared Ipatameni a glance, his dull brown eyes sliding over the man to land on Leon.  His eyes lingered for but a moment before moving back to the building he’d been staring at when they arrived.

“I’ve been waiting,” he said.  “Please join me.”  He held out his hand and conjured a stool next to him.  He only conjured the one.

There was a long beat as everyone stared at the stool.

“This has to be a trap,” Anshu muttered.

Leon rebuked him with a cold, quiet glare.  Then, he said, “I accept your invitation.”  Without any more hesitation, he strode into the pavilion.

As he sat down, he called upon his darkness magic and said to the others, [Give us some space.]

He received quite a few questioning looks, but he insisted, and after some hesitation, the others moved back—not so far that they wouldn’t be able to intervene if violence broke out, but far enough away that Leon and Sar had a degree of privacy.

Neither Leon nor Sar spoke until they were relatively alone in the pavilion, and Sar didn’t seem to be in a rush to break that silence.

“So…” Leon said a little awkwardly, “how are things?”  He had the feeling that Sar wasn’t one to stand much on ceremony and formality, so he decided to relax a little.

He felt he may have miscalculated when Sar spared him only the briefest of looks, but he managed to pack quite a bit of what looked like derision into his expression.

“Concerning,” he said, and they fell into another long silence.

After a few seconds that felt much longer than they were, Leon decided to switch tack a bit.

“Well, I’d be more than willing to talk to you about your concerns, if you’re willing to share.  But first, how about we have some proper introductions?  We’re not barbarians, are we?  I am, as good Ipatameni said, Leon Raime.”

“I’m Sar,” Sar replied.

“Splendid,” Leon said with hardly a pause.  “A pleasure to meet you, Sar.  I have to say, Raithellion has to be my favorite city so far in all of Kataigida.”

“Thanks,” Sar responded.

Leon nodded.  “I grew up in a forest far to the north, some distance from most other human civilization.  As soon as I arrived above your forests, I almost felt like I’d come home.”

Sar hummed in acknowledgment.

“Well, how are things here?  You said you had concerns?”

Sar grunted and pulled out a long sheet of paper from his soul realm and handed it to Leon.  “I did.”

Leon accepted the paper and quickly scanned it.  However, after less than a second, he went back to read it in more detail.

It was a letter from the Thunderer—or someone from his office—informing the Ancestral Harts about Leon and Cassandra’s marriage, going into detail about Cassandra’s Imperial status and the implications of their union.  The further Leon read, the less he believed the Thunderer personally wrote the letter given how inflammatory some of the language was and how uncharitably it was spinning Leon and Cassandra’s marriage.

“I’m not going to invade Kataigida with an ‘army of barbarians’,” Leon said as he controlled his urge to roll his eyes.

“Good,” Sar replied.

“Actually,” Leon continued, “I was hoping to broker some kind of peace between the Ten Tribes and the Central Empires.”

“Do you, now?”

“Yes.  I believe it to be possible.  Cassandra shares my belief.  Neither of us wants us to see our people killing each other in petty conflicts anymore.”

Leon finally elicited more than a neutral, disinterested response from Sar with that statement as the man clicked his tongue and responded, “My father was killed in the last war we fought.  Millions died.  They are buried here.”  He gestured to the buildings.  “The tombs of greatest honor for my people.  All killed by the barbarians across the sea.  I would not call our conflict ‘petty’.”

Leon grimaced, the expression growing more pronounced with every word.  “I apologize,” he quickly said once Sar was finished.  “It can be difficult to remember the personal cost paid by many yet living, let alone those who have passed into the land of the dead.  It was not my intention to denigrate those sacrifices.”

Sar’s anger softened as Leon spoke, eventually returning to his weathered face’s neutral expression.

“You seek our support to become King of these lands?”

“It is not of these lands that I would be King of,” Leon responded.  “It is of the Ten Tribes, and much more.  I want to bring us away from this plane and reach the Nexus, returning to the places of honor and power that we came from before invading this plane.”

“And what of those who now live in those places?” Sar asked.

“We’ll have to meet them before deciding what to do,” Leon said with a smile.  “I do not want war; I only want to return home.  To the home of our Clans and Tribes.”

Sar sighed again.  “I can’t give you an answer; such a decision is not for me to make myself.”  He waved his hand again and the doors of the tomb he’d been staring at opened of their own accord.  “Speak to our Ancestors.  They will give you our answer.”

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