Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Alpheo took a slow sip from his cup, his eyes never leaving the girl. He set the cup down on a small wooden table beside him, then leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, fingers steepled with a studied air of calm curiosity.

“So,” he asked gently, “what did Robert say about me?”

Her small hands stopped mid-motion, and she glanced up at him with wide, searching eyes. There was hesitation there—but also a raw honesty only a child could hold onto amidst a world turned violent.

Then she said it.

“A lying, backstabbing, self-righteous cur,” she recited in a breath, as if quoting something she’d heard many times before. “A snake.He said many things about you”

Jarza’s brow arched slightly. Even Alpheo blinked.

The girl continued, clearly emboldened now that the door was open. “He said you’d smile to a man’s face while twisting a knife into his back, and that if you ever showed him kindness it was only to see how far he’d fall when you kicked him down later.”

Alpheo sat back slowly, the ghost of a smile curling at the edge of his mouth — a strange expression. He gave a soft chuckle, not so much because the words were funny, but because hearing them spoken aloud in a child’s voice.

“Well,” he said, tilting his head, “it seems Robert wasn’t quite as tight-lipped as I thought.”

Suddendly Alpheo felt the tension rise beside him — not in words, but in the quiet, tightly wound coil of Jarza’s posture. The man hadn’t moved a muscle since the girl began to speak, but there was a sharpness in the set of his jaw, and quite the anger.

Alpheo, without looking, raised a hand and murmured, “Jarza. Enough.”

The silence held. Then: “She’s a child,” Alpheo said, calm but firm. “And she’s only repeating what Robert told her. What would you do — run her through for words that aren’t hers?”

Alpheo turned back to the girl, his eyes now steady and keen.

“You’re not dumb,” he said, his tone sharper, more direct. “You figured it out, didn’t you? Who I am. Who you’re speaking to. And yet, you didn’t hold back a single word.”

Aina’s chin trembled, but she didn’t look away. “One has to live under a rock to not understand what is going around. If you’re here,” she said, her voice steadying with effort, “then it means only one thing.”

Her small fingers gripped the edge of the chair as if to keep herself from slipping.

“The war was lost.”

She paused, then asked, “Is Robert all right?”

Alpheo’s gaze lingered on her. He reached again for his cup, rolling it slowly between his fingers.

“He died,” he said at last. “Not by my hand. Not even by his enemies, if you believe in such distinctions.”

He took a sip, then looked down at the girl, his voice quiet but without softness.

“He was killed by his own allies. A betrayal, like many others in this war.”

Aina’s small frame seemed to fold in on itself, as if her bones had lost the will to hold her upright. Her mouth opened but no sound came, and her eyes grew glassy with tears that didn’t yet fall.

Alpheo did not offer comfort.

“Why… why did you bring me here?” she asked, her eyes wide, swollen with confusion and hurt. “What do you want from me?”

Alpheo leaned back slightly, his cup cradled in his hand, the dregs of cider swirling lazily at the bottom. He did not answer right away, his eyes tracing the girl’s face — not cruelly, but as one might regard a puzzle with too many missing pieces to solve yet.

“Because,” he said at last, “for all the ways Robert and I were opposed — and we were very opposed — it didn’t mean we never spoke. When two men live in the same world, they often find they can at least talk about it.”

He set the cup down, the soft clink against the wooden table unusually loud in the still tent.

“And he made a deal with me. I gave him my word. He upheld his part, and now I’m upholding mine.”

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Aina blinked rapidly. “He asked you to… to make sure I was safe?”

Alpheo gave a tired smile — not one of joy, but of someone who’d grown used to the absurdity of humanity and all its flaws and contradictions.

“He did. And I don’t know what he did for you — what you did for him — but whatever it was, it stuck. Enough for him to think of you when everything else was falling apart.”

He let that hang there, watching her reaction closely.

“So,” he added, voice dry, “here you are. Fed, not burned, unravaged by my men. That’s about as much of a happy ending as this war’s been willing to offer anyone lately.”

Jarza grunted, arms crossed, looking off to the side with that familiar expression of disbelief — the one that suggested he still couldn’t figure out why Alpheo bothered with this kind of thing.

But Alpheo wasn’t looking at him anymore.

He was watching the girl. Because even in a tent full of warriors and nobles and blood debts, sometimes the only thing harder to deal with than enemies… was promises.

“You’ve got two choices now,” he said quietly, his voice shedding the tones of command it had worn for two months “I don’t know how much Robert told you about himself … but I know he must have spoken of his family.”

He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees.

“I can send you to his son. His name is Talek. You’ll find him rawboned, proud, and angry at more things than he understands. But it seems that despite the distance and silence between them, your Robert — the one you knew — loved that boy in his own way. And if Talek has even a fraction of that in him, he’ll care enough to want to know who you are… and what you meant to his father.”

Alpheo paused for a moment, studying her.

“Or,” he continued, “I can find a different road for you. Quiet. Peaceful. I can place you with a family that wants a daughter. Where you’ll sleep in a bed without screams, eat in peace, grow into your own life. ”

Aina didn’t say anything at first. She just sat there, head lowering slowly like a flower bowing to stormwinds, her thin hands fidgeting in her lap. The taste of the cake still lingered faintly in her mouth, sweet and warm — but it didn’t quite reach her eyes now.

She stared at the ground as though it might open up and give her some answer, some direction, some truth that wasn’t soaked in blood.

Then her lips parted.

“…What’s his name?” she whispered.

Alpheo blinked. “Talek,” he said. “His name is Talek.”

And in that moment — that tiny, decisive moment — he saw the change. She didn’t nod. She didn’t weep. She didn’t even lift her eyes.

But something in the stillness of her body, in the sudden resolve of her fingers curling into fists in her lap, told him what he needed to know.

He smiled faintly, almost to himself.

“Well,” he murmured, “it appears you’ve already made your choice.”

——————————

The plate of half-eaten cake remained untouched on the table. The chair where the girl had sat was empty, her small imprint already vanishing from the cushion. Alpheo stood near the flap, arms crossed, eyes lost on the darkened horizon beyond the slit of fabric.

The last words the little girl spoke to her caught him quite by a surprise

You are not the bad man he described you as

“You went out of your way.”Jarza said as he scratched the side of his jaw

Alpheo didn’t answer.

Jarza continued, “Your part of the deal was just to make sure she wasn’t killed in the looting. That’s all. You weren’t bound to cake and conversation. Taking care of her was not part of the agreement.”

Alpheo glanced over his shoulder, a faint smile tugging at his lip. “Do you disapprove?”

Jarza scoffed, “Me? I don’t care one bit. If I started worrying about every child who lost her parents to war, I’d have never made it a day as a mercenary. There’s too many ghosts to name.”

He paused, stepping forward, his voice quieter now. “But I didn’t expect you to bother.”

Alpheo turned fully now, tilting his head. “You think I’m a bad man?”

Jarza considered the question for a long moment, then snorted. “No. Not exactly. But you’re certainly not a good one.”

He tapped his knuckle against the wooden post beside him.

“When you want to,” he continued, “you can walk into someone’s life looking like a saint… or a devil. Depends which mask you feel like wearing that day.”

Alpheo let out a low chuckle, rubbing a thumb along his jaw. “I don’t think I’m bad,” he said, voice calm, almost amused. “I don’t go out of my way to cause pain. I don’t wake in the morning thinking of who I’ll ruin.”

He crossed the tent slowly, picking up his cup and looking into the dark swirl of cider at its base.

“I live by a conduct of my own making. A threadbare thing, maybe. But mine. There are precious few things in this world that hold real value — gold rusts, loyalty falters, beauty fades — and yet I believe integrity… integrity is one of those rare treasures.”

He looked up now, his gaze sharp and steady.

“Robert died in battle for a cause he cursed. A crown he spat on. And yet, he stood his ground — not for banners, not for glory, but for the people he cared. For the ones he loved. A man who dies not for ambition, but to shelter someone smaller than himself… that man deserves respect.”

He took a step closer to Jarza, voice lowering, more intimate now, like an old truth being dusted off in a quiet room.

“And in the end, he showed no fear. No remorse. Just worry. For a girl with no claim but kindness. For a boy too stubborn to speak to him.”

Alpheo set the cup down gently on the table, its soft thud punctuating the air.

“Tell me, Jarza…” he said, turning fully to face him, the tent lamp casting shadows across his face, “isn’t that something worth respecting?”

Jarza didn’t speak. He just stared for a beat, then looked away, his jaw tightening — not from disagreement, but from something more complicated, something that might’ve been agreement, if he ever let it take root.

” I was once a good man you know” Alpheo finally said in the silence ”I always helped out even if it was against my interest.I suppose that was the naive boy in me, still believing in values that were not compatible with the world.”

”What happened then?”

”I suppose he met with life and lost himself on the way”

The wind outside picked up. The tent flaps rustled again. And in the silence, the prince of the realm and his friend stood still, the ghost of a rebel passing silently between them as the last trace he would ever leave in anyone.