Before the sun even rose, Kiyeri woke up, someone was moving his shoulder.

"Kiye..." A very quiet voice called, 

“Kiye, “  once more, a little louder.

"Kiiiiyeeee," this time directly in his ear.

"Hmmmmm" Kiyeri growled, rubbing his eyes and sitting up in bed. After blinking a few times and looking around, he finally realized where he was and groaned, "I told you to wake me up, you've been sitting here all night?"

"I'm not complaining." Ashiya smiled and pointed to the table, "I brought coffee."

Kiyeri woke up completely in that instant and jumped out of bed. It was always an indisputable truth that if you want to bribe Ashiya - bring wine. If you need Kiyeri - bring coffee.

Compared to how they had been living lately, the comfortable accommodation and food alone were wonderful, but coffee? A rare pleasure. Sitting at the table, one poured the cups while the other buttered buns. After biting into the bun and taking a sip, Kiyeri couldn't contain his satisfaction, "Mmmmmmm... We need to enjoy ourselves, this is probably the last time we're eating like this."

"Do you have a plan?" Ashiya sipped coffee with raised eyebrows.

"No!“ Kiyeri looked at him, cheeks stuffed with food, looking silly. “Let everything go its own way!"

Ashiya snorted, spitting out the coffee, it's good that he had time to turn away and they both started laughing. Knowing that they were all sitting in the same boat gave them some courage, the most important question was who was steering. Besides, information was needed to prepare a plan, and it was still fatally lacking. How to count the teeth of a lion without falling into its jaws?

After a good half hour, all five were already on horseback. Seyre was generous enough to rent a pair of horses to Kiyeri and Ashiya, who had come here on foot, after all, one must not arouse suspicion. They soon reached the city gates, where Elanta and a group from the Sun Kingdom were already waiting for them. After a short chat and an exchange of greetings, about twenty people headed towards the border.

The destination was not very far, the group planned to ride to the nearest larger city, stay there, and be in the capital the next evening, but if the prepared hardy horses only needed a few stops in between, then the two rented ones needed more. It was clear from their appearance alone that the horses were not military kind, but the Solarians didn’t ask questions at the first stop While the horses were at the pond, the Moon citizens, Elanta and a few other colleagues sat in a circle on the grass and chatted about the weather...and nature....

If everyone was still relatively relaxed yesterday, today they were already tense from the morning. A night of pondering what is what leaves most people with a slightly unstable psyche. Such a trip to visit is unnatural, if you look closely, and if it didn't seem that way yesterday, today everyone seems to have sobered up from that thought. However, despite everything, the trip went smoothly and if the older soldiers behaved as they should, then the younger and less experienced ones seemed nervous and tense during the short stops, which made Kiyeri laugh, "Do they think we're just going to slaughter them all out of nowhere?"

In the evening, having reached the town where they were planning to stay for the night, the group was preparing to tie up their horses in the town stables when Kiyeri saw that a thread had come loose from the cloak of one young Solarian. Thinking that there was nothing to worry about this late, and he would reach his destination one way or another, Kiyeri decided to play a joke.

Approaching the young man with a smile, he quickly drew his dagger and extended his other hand towards him. At that very second, a real mess began to boil. The latter opponent jumped back a few steps and even did a backflip, turning pale. The faces of Elanta, several of the elders of the Sun and the three moons darkened, but not one of them moved.

That frightened kid, grabbed his weapons, and some other juniors joined in. The air froze, in the deadly silence, one could hear who was breathing heavily and who could not swallow saliva, but Kiyeri's facial expression did not change at all, wearing a fake smile he turned the dagger in his palm several times, and talked calmly.

"Young man, your cloak is going to fall apart, let me fix that thread."

That soldier carefully lowered his eyes for a second, but not his face, then looked again at Kiyeri who was already moving towards him, then back at the cloak, his body gathered all its energy, ready to jump at any second. Kiyeri bent down with slow movements, cut the thread hanging from the corner, then turned around in a carefree manner and walked back towards his horse.

Loud, shrill laughter pierced the frozen air from all sides, the company turned their heads in that direction. Ashiya sat astride with his head thrown back and laughed. He glanced at Elanta, his voice filled with arrogance “Noobs.”

Kiyeri thought, “Wow if these were my soldiers, they would run around the camp without dinner when they returned. Maybe even until morning.”

Elanta looked at Kiyeri with a stern face, holding the reins, but having concluded that the future prisoners would travel of their own free will and that they would not be able to disarm them here and now, she threw the command to her people - the break was over. Needless to say, the rest of the journey was uncomfortable for everyone, to put it mildly. As they rode side by side, Ashiya laughed and quietly repeated “Well, that one backfired” to Kiyeri.

Having saved a whole day of travel like this, they were already in the capital of the Sun the next morning.

The Sun was a very small kingdom, one could ride a horse through it in a week. The complete opposite of the Moon, which would be impossible to cross in an entire summer. Although their kingdoms developed together, the cultural differences were enormous. If you think about it, Sun couldn't even be called a kingdom, because they didn't have a royal family. For many years, some strange order prevailed among them, the inhabitants themselves elected a ruling leader and if the latter did poorly, he was immediately removed and another was elected. Moreover, that leader did not act alone. The whole country was divided into parts, which they called municipalities, and those municipalities, in turn, also elected leaders who worked alongside the main ruler of the country, helping him solve problems. It was a very strange difficult-to-understand system for any foreigner. How such a government could work and how chaos did not erupt, if all issues were solved by a bunch of different people, old and young, rich and poor.

The vast majority of the inhabitants of this land were educated people, both spiritually and literarily, and though their culture was very different from other lands, they always spread the so-called tolerance and very rarely poked their noses into the affairs of foreigners, but willingly accepted everyone who wanted to learn. Many Solarians knew the lunar language perfectly, simply because the country was neighboring and people traveled here a lot.

Kiyeri had visited this place many times and understood their methods quite well, so he did not feel fear for his well-being In this land, everything could be resolved diplomatically.

When they were brought to the palace, they were presented to a large hall, perhaps intended for banquets. In the corner stood a massive oval white table, surrounded by a dozen of white chairs. High ceilings and large windows, a luxurious red carpet with golden sun patterns. The guests were seated on the left side of the table, behind each of them two guards of obviously high abilities.