Chapter 143: A Gift From Draxil

Chapter 143: Chapter 143: A Gift From Draxil

Draxil looked different from Saha, but not in the way strangers usually imagined.

Saha was wealthy in a way most foreign courts failed to understand. Visitors saw the efficient ministries, the clean roads, the advanced infrastructure, the private aircraft, the security systems hidden so seamlessly into the royal estates that half the world forgot they were there. They saw power made practical and assumed that was all there was.

It wasn’t.

The real Saha lived in carved stone and old symmetry, in luminous courtyards and arched galleries, in polished marble floors that reflected lantern light at dusk, in cedar doors cut with intricate geometric patterns, and in the layered richness of silk, metalwork, woven hangings, and rooms designed to feel cool and shaded even under punishing sun. The royal houses had not abandoned beauty for modernity. They had simply learned to hide both inside each other.

Draxil, however, carried a different kind of splendor.

It was wilder.

From the air, the kingdom spread between mountains and water in a cascade of terraces, pale stone, copper roofs, and hanging gardens bright enough to look almost unreal beneath the afternoon sun. The palace district seemed to grow from the land rather than dominate it, its towers and courtyards woven into the cliffs, its walls softened by flowering vines and broad-leafed trees, its open galleries catching the wind from the river below.

Sebastian watched through the aircraft window as they descended.

He had been in Draxil before.

He remembered heat, carved balconies, heavy fragrance in the evening air, too much gold used with complete confidence, and a court that had always seemed one breath away from either celebration or violence. What he saw now still belonged unmistakably to Draxil, but there was more order to it than he remembered, less ornamental excess for the sake of spectacle and more deliberate elegance.

Beside him, Nero leaned just enough to look out the same window.

He had dressed for the arrival like a man fully aware that the international press would be waiting. Deep purple suited him too well, the long formal coat fitted sharply through the chest and shoulders before falling cleanly past his knees, silver embroidery catching at the collar, cuffs, and front fastening in patterns fine enough to seem almost liquid when he moved. His white-blond hair had been left loose today, spilling over one shoulder and down his back in a pale sheet that made him look mythological.

Sebastian, in contrast, had chosen restraint.

His own coat was cut in white with silver embroidery and deep-purple lining, formal enough to stand beside the crown prince without disappearing into Nero’s shadow, and the collar around his throat remained visible above the structured neckline. It was subtle. For Nero, apparently, that still qualified as a triumph.

"You’re staring," Sebastian said.

Nero did not look away from the window. "I’m admiring the setting for our first international appearance."

"That sounds suspiciously self-satisfied."

"It should."

Sebastian smiled.

By the time the aircraft doors opened, the heat reached them first, warmer than Saha, heavier too, carrying water, stone, flowering trees, and something spiced drifting faintly from somewhere deeper within the palace grounds.

They descended into a receiving court framed by cream-colored arcades and dark green banners edged in bronze. Draxilian guards lined the approach in ceremonial uniform, and beyond them, courtiers, officials, and press photographers waited behind the security perimeter.

Amaru stood at the center of the receiving line.

He wore Draxilian ceremonial dress: a long dark coat layered over bronze and forest green, the fabric rich without becoming stiff, the embroidery along the shoulders and chest elaborate enough to signal rank while still looking wearable rather than theatrical. Beside him stood Amelie, a dominant omega with blonde hair and blue eyes. Her gown flowed in pale gold and muted green beneath a sleeveless over-robe worked with delicate metal thread, and together they looked like they belonged to the palace behind them.

Amaru embraced Nero first, brief but genuine.

"You came."

"You invited me," Nero replied.

"I invited others too. Some of them possess survival instincts."

Nero smiled. "And yet here I am."

When Amaru turned to Sebastian, his expression shifted into something warmer.

"It’s good to see you in Draxil under better circumstances."

Sebastian inclined his head. "That is a refreshingly low standard, but I’ll accept it."

Amelie laughed softly and stepped forward to greet him next.

"We’re very glad you came."

"Thank you."

Her gaze flicked briefly to the collar at his throat, then back to his face. There was amusement in it. Sebastian made a note of that and decided he was not asking questions unless forced.

They crossed into the palace through a high arched entrance of carved stone and bronze-inlaid doors, and Sebastian understood immediately that Draxil had no interest in moderation.

Saha’s beauty was disciplined.

Draxil’s was lush.

Sunlight spilled across patterned marble. Great hanging lanterns glowed above open halls. The ceilings were painted. The walls were carved. Courtyards opened unexpectedly between interior galleries, filled with trees, fountains, flowering vines, and shaded lounging spaces dressed in textiles rich enough to look almost ceremonial themselves.

Sebastian looked around once, then again.

Nero noticed.

"You approve?"

"I’m considering theft."

"Of what?"

Sebastian glanced at an entire recessed sitting alcove framed by carved arches and layered cushions in jewel tones.

"The architecture. Possibly the textiles."

Amaru heard him and laughed.

"You’re welcome to try."

"That sounds like a trap."

"It usually is," Amelie said pleasantly.

They continued deeper into the palace, past another open court where water ran through narrow stone channels and into a garden corridor bright with climbing flowers.

It reminded Sebastian, unexpectedly, of a much older memory.

"Tania liked it here," he said.

Nero’s expression changed at once, the sharper edge softening.

Amaru looked back over his shoulder. "She loved Draxil."

Tania.

The tiger Amaru’s father had once sent to Dax and Chris as a wedding gift, which sounded absurd to anyone outside their families and had somehow worked anyway.

Sebastian had known her for years. So had Nero. Everyone in the family had loved her, from Chris, who adored her openly, to Dax, who pretended tolerance and then fed her by hand, to the children, who had grown up considering a massive tiger lounging through palace gardens a perfectly ordinary part of royal life. She had died old, spoiled, and thoroughly certain the world belonged to her.

Nero smiled faintly. "Jax still asks about her sometimes."

"He was little," Sebastian said.

"He still remembers."

Amaru nodded once. "My father would’ve been pleased."

That should have been the end of the conversation.

Unfortunately, Amaru kept walking with the expression of a man who had remembered something.

"I have a wedding gift for you."

Sebastian went still.

Nero turned immediately.

"A gift?"

Amelie moved her blue gaze from Amaru to Sebastian, then very carefully at nothing.

Sebastian felt his instincts sharpen.

"That tone concerns me," he said.

Amaru looked entirely untroubled. "It shouldn’t."

"It absolutely should," Sebastian replied.

Nero, to Sebastian’s growing alarm, looked interested rather than worried.

That was never a good sign.

"What kind of gift?" he asked.

Amaru’s mouth curved.

"One appropriate for Draxil."

Sebastian already had a bad feeling about this.

A very bad one.

From somewhere beyond the next courtyard came a low, resonant sound, too deep to belong to anything harmless.

Nero’s eyes lit up.

Sebastian closed his own briefly.

"Oh, absolutely not."