Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

”Quite the long list,” Alpheo muttered, snapping the petition closed and sliding it aside with a flick of his wrist. His eyes cut sidelong toward Jasmine, but she gave him nothing to muse on.

”I suppose it would be,” she replied at last after a lng silence, voice smooth, unruffled. That composure, however, far more than any outburst, needled him.

Alpheo leaned back, draping himself in his chair as though he were in a tavern, not a hall of state. His boot rose, resting lazily on his knee. He rubbed the back of his neck as if considering something trivial, though his gaze stayed locked on her.

”I half-expected you to be aflame by now,” he said, smirking. ”I’d almost prefer it. Easier to face fire than ice.”

”Grandfather and I spent no small effort trying to sway you,” Jasmine answered, steady as stone. ”We failed. Now we endure. What use is fury when the course is already set? Was it not you who had said that long ago?.”

Alpheo chuckled, ’’I do not recall that, but I am sure I am the owner of it’’

Still, the glee was not received well.

”If you have the gall to jest,” she said, her tone slicing through the chamber, ”then surely you have the gall to answer for what you’ve now sown. You’d make a poor farmer, Alpheo. Every seed you touch rots where it lies.”

He arched his brows, feigning offense, then gave a loose shrug. ”On that, I’ll agree. My hands aren’t fit for the plow. Fortunately, we’re not tending gardens and flowers.People are far easier to work around than plants.” though he most certainly liked both gardens and flowers ” I remember this happened before didn’t it?’’

I still , of course, don’t see why the lords were so restless then ,” Alpheo continued, stretching further in his seat until his foot dangled over the arm of his chair ”The land was ours. By right, our prerogative to do with it as we wished.

We reaped the fruit of reform, and when the nobles found their protests ignored, they scuttled back into their holes. Why would now be any different?.”

”This is not the same as that one,” Jasmine said quietly ”What we are doing, is not our prerogative.

This time, we are going to be stripping something that is theirs.Are you really suprised if that doesn’t sit well with them?”

Alpheo’s smirk faltered into a harder edge. ”Is it really theirs though? Every inch of land they cling to is ours by right. It is charity that leaves them their estates. A favor. Nothing more.

Most monarchies are weakened by the fact that their grip on the state is too weak, I am just trying to avoid that’’ He said innocently as if he could not see the trouble, though of course he did ’’ Above all, I fucking hate how we have to care about their opinion every time we take a shit.All they have is thanks to the crown’s generosity, someone ought to remind them of it.”

Her gaze snapped to him, sharp as drawn steel. ”Say that in public,” she hissed both apalled and worried ”and you won’t finish the sentence before the stones bury you. Tread on a man’s toes, and he curses you. Set fire to his house and tell him it is yours or of the ashes, and he will kill you where you stand. Rights are easy to grant and hard to detract.

Do not take this lightly, especially in the situation we now are, which I remind you, has many times been labelled as worrisome, rather loudly by someone.”

”And yet... I’ve heard no denial about my late argument.”

Her silence stretched long. She never said she didn’t agree....

He pressed, sensing the crack. ”Come now, doesn’t it gall you? How small they are, and how large they act? Every acre they possess was granted by your forebears, yet they strut like kings, demanding the world as though it tilts on their axis.”

Jasmine tilted her head, her lips curving up for the first time since he entered the crown’s hall. ”The world does not move, Alpheo. The sun does. I am surprised you do not know that.”

Her smile held the faint glimmer of triumph, as if she had finally gotten one over Alpheo.

Does it now?

He could not tell if she spoke truth or jest; local astronomy had never concerned him. Yet the moment was hers, or she believed it, and Alpheo wasn’t eager to contradict her, given he was trying to make a point and was more than happy if he did not scuffle against him.

”You’ve seen it with your own eyes,” Alpheo pressed, his voice rising, fervor curling at the edges. ”On the crown’s own lands, the people prosper. Fields heavy with grain, trade brisk, children with food in their bellies. But ride a day into the estates of your noble cousins, and what greets you? Filth. Mud, cow dung, and misery.

Would it not be better, and indeed wiser, if the crown took over the wide strokes of the reins entirely ? Enough of appeasing nobles who cling to the carriage like spoiled passengers. We should drive, Jasmine. We should guide the carriage, and use them as we see fit.

I do not see why they should decide about their laws, and taxes, it is barbarous to have powers that answer to other powers.”

Her earlier smile thinned into a wary line. ”You speak of dangerous things.”

”Dangerous?” He gave a sharp laugh, shaking his head. ”That is Inevitable. We have what no monarch before us possessed: a private army, bound to us alone.

Not to councils. Not to petty lords. To us. That strength grants us freedom, liberty to act where your ancestors tiptoed. Freedom to reclaim what was squandered to keep fragile alliances intact.

My name alone makes lords tremble. Their swords will stay sheathed; their tongues will wag, yes, but wagging does not kill. This is our chance, Jasmine. To make the crown’s word not suggestion, but command. To set stones our son will stand upon, a realm where the monarch rules unchallenged. Where the crown is not bargained with, but obeyed.”

Jasmine’s lips curved again, but this time into something faint and sharp, not warmth but irony. ”If that were so, then I would already be Empress of the South, would I not?”

Her tone was mild, but her eyes held a dangerous thought she refused to speak aloud.

Alpheo leaned back, satisfaction curling in his chest. The seed had landed, the nail hammered in.

But Jasmine shook her head briskly, breaking the moment. ”We are digressing, as right now we are not speaking of an empire of tomorrow,” she said coolly. ”We are speaking of the petition. Do not try to wrap my thoughts in your dreams while we have business to tend to...”

He smiled faintly, indulgent, almost patronizing. ”My dear, do you think I would march into this storm unprepared? You and the old man made certain I saw it coming. And I assure you, I have packed for the travel. Only a fool sets out light for a long journey.”

Her eyes narrowed, she was not used to be heeded by him.

She reached for the petition he had set aside, the parchment shuffling loudly in her hand. She lifted it, shaking it once so the scroll rattled like chains.

”Then tell me,” she said, her voice deceptively calm, ”what do you intend for this? For them?What have you prepared?”

Alpheo’s grin was a blade in candlelight. ”Why? I only plan to give it the answer it deserves, of course. These lords bent their backs to scrawl their names upon this parchment, it must have weighted so much on them. It would be cruel to let such labor go unrewarded... as we did last time when all we did was ignoring them.”

”So you mean to go through with it, then?”

”Have you ever seen me go back from any decision made?”

She sighed.

She truly had not.

”It was going so well...” she murmured, her tone laced with tiredness. ”The nobles were paying their taxes. They treated the crown with respect. The treasury swelled like a fattened whale, and the Empire, of all things, called us their allies.”

She stepped closer, her slender fingers brushing his clean-shaven jaw before cupping his face. For a fleeting moment, her touch was tender, but her words carried the sting of reproach.

”And then,” she said softly, almost playfully, ”you decided to amuse yourself with another reform.” Her hands slid to his cheeks, tugging them like a mother teasing her child, ignoring the guards whose eyes fixed stubbornly on the far wall, pretending not to see The Great Fox treated like a misbehaving boy.

”You’re greedy, Alph,” she chided, though the nickname carried warmth rather than venom. Alpheo’s gaze fell, the name bringing back things he would have rather forgot. ”They will tell tales of your greed for a thousand years. Still... I wouldn’t have married you if you were the kind of man content with his station.”

Her voice softened further. ”So not all that burns is fire.”

But the warmth faded as swiftly as it had come. Her fingers stilled against his cheeks, and her tone hardened with realism. ”You know as well as I that we cannot afford a rebellion here. Our coffers are not nearly deep enough to buy the grain we’d need for another campaign so soon. The food alone would bleed us dry, and most of what we had has already been squandered. A ruler may survive one civil war, Alph. Rarely two. So I hope you have a way to stop this without commiting to another civil war...”

Alpheo in response lifted his hands, gently prying hers from his face, but he did not release them. Instead, he clasped them firmly, his thumbs brushing against her knuckles.

”You worry as though I walk into this unprepared,” he said quietly, the calm steel in his voice more convincing than any raised tone could have been. ”I have been planning for this moment longer than you think.Far longer than the meeting in where we discussed this.

I have plenty to give the lords,enough to silence their tongues and tie their hands, which really won’t cost us a bronzii. They’ll take what I give and call themselves satisfied, because what I am planning to offer will be regarded as a feast.”

He raised her hands to his lips and kissed them, reverent yet possessive, his voice dropping to a final whisper meant only for her.

”Kingdoms are not won by men who eat sparingly. I have promised you one long ago, didn’t I?Have faith in what I am doing...”

’’And yet the bill always find his way on the lap of the glutton at the end of the course, my love...’’