Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

She stood like a mouse in a house built for giants, her gaze flicking from wall to wall as though she expected a massive boot to come crashing down over her at any moment.

The rags she had worn when they found her in that cramped, foul-smelling pit beneath the gang’s hideout were long gone. In their place she now wore a bundle of clothes loaned, then hastily gifted, by a soldier whose little sister had long since outgrown them.

The gift had only become permanent after Laedio mentioned, with that disarming smile of his, that he would replace the set with silk at the girl’s birthday. If he needed silk, surely his sister-in-law would have some old dresses gathering dust. What were family ties for if not to tug at them?

It had been a week since she had been carried from the hands of bad men... into the hands of other bad men.

The difference, as she would come to understand, was measured only by which side of the law they chose to stand on. Some broke it. Others enforced it. Few were gentle, whichever side they swore fealty to.

For a short while she had seemed to adapt to the new room she was offered, its small window, its cot, its battered wooden chest. That fragile semblance of safety splintered the moment strangers began entering again, each wanting to pull something out of her: answers, names.At least this one brought food instead of shackles.

”Been a week,” the man said as he stepped inside, the scent of something warm drifting in with him. ”Finally going to pop some words?” He set the plate on the little table that had been pushed against the wall, beside the clumsy wooden utensils and the two mismatched chairs. His height made the small room feel even smaller, yet the easy smile beneath his short-cropped hair weakened her instinct to retreat.

Laedio had always entered with something soft, bread, fruit, sweet broth, so her body no longer tensed the instant she heard his steps. She even liked him in a quiet, wary way.

She slipped off the cot and padded toward the table, drawn by the steam rising from the plate. Her eyes widened with cautious curiosity; she wanted to see what feast he had brought.

”It’s called pasta,” Laedio explained as he settled into the chair opposite her. ”One of the better inventions of civilization that my friend brought, if you ask me. Personally, I think it’s close to divine favor.”He reached across the table, plucked a thin stick of polished wood from the battered leg of the table, and began arranging it between his fingers as though demonstrating some foreign ritual.

She started to eat with unabashed hunger, swallowing wide mouthfuls of butter-slicked count of pasta and soft potatoes. The sauce glistened along her cheek, but she did not seem to notice. All the while, her gaze never drifted far from Laedio, always watching him.

Impervious to the gaze, Laedio leaned back, letting the wooden stick rest between his teeth like a lazy toothpick.

As she ate, Laedio shifted in his chair and made a show of scratching idly at his heel, using the motion as an excuse to lower himself for a better look at the girl’s ankle, the one he remembered ringed in iron when he had found her.

He felt foolish the moment he noticed the hem of her borrowed dress covering everything. Of course it would be, he felt like a dumbass as he rose again with a grunt, the wooden stick still clamped between his teeth.

At least she was filling out now.

When they’d dragged her out of that underground pit she’d been little more than bones wrapped in bruised skin, half-starved, half-feral, looking for the way out.

If she was to be made useful later for his dear best friend, something he very much intended, it wouldn’t hurt for her to look like a child again, not a discarded scrap of labor. He had every intention of presenting her with a gift in hand, not a trembling creature carved down by starvation and overwork.

He had a dozen things he wanted to say to her. He would have settled for hearing even one word back, her name, really anything to break the silence that had lingered for a full week since he had taken her into his modest mansion.But silence did not mean they weren’t bonding.

He had taken her walking through the streets of Yarzat, and from the way her eyes had widened at the clean stone roads and the rows of merchants displaying silks, spices, trinkets from across the three continents, he suspected she had either been kept underground far longer than anyone thought... or had never once set foot in the capital.Wonder tugged at her features in ways hunger never had.

Her mouth had fallen open entirely when they reached the Squareplace, and he’d caught the faintest twitch of a smile as the crowd roared around the wheel.

The men who had chained her were being broken on it today.

Laedio watched her closely, watched the way she stood on tiptoe, her small hands curling around the railing as the executioner brought the hammer down. The first strike crushed bone with a wet crack. The wheel spun, slow and deliberate, giving the crowd time to howl their approval before the next blow fell.

She took her under the armpits as he hoisted her up above his shoulder, while she squealed like a pig.

She went flailing around with her limbs a bit before she realized she had a nice view of the spectacle.

The girl’s eyes then shone in the sunlight, bright and unblinking, following the hammer’s arc each time it rose and fell, sometimes finding flesh, sometimes missing and splintering wood before the next rotation lined the victim up again.

Laedio found himself liking her all the more for it.

As Laedio, truth be told, found the sight to his liking as well. How nice to have something in common!

Though he stood as far from the great game of power as his title permitted, he was not the sort of man to ignore the troubles of a dear friend. If he could lend a hand, he would,and the sudden appearance of a half-starved girl who had somehow managed to forge a prince’s sigil with nothing more than clay and patient hours?

Yes, it was a crime. But it would also be a crime not to make use of that.It was a talent far too precious to waste. Laedio could find some uses for it, yet he knew, with complete certainty, that Alpheo would find even better ones.

When the girl finished her meal, an awkward quiet settled through the small room. Laedio tapped his cheek, and she was sharp enough to catch the gesture and wiped her mouth and cheek with the back of her hand, eyes lowered.Neither spoke.

She, because she refused to; he, because after a full week of one-sided conversation he had exhausted every rambling topic he could invent.

But Laedio detested silences.So he broke it.

”You’ve been cooped up in this room long enough,” he observed, leaning back in his chair. ”From the look of you, you’ve recovered well enough. I doubt it would kill you to take a bit of air in the garden. Would you like that?”

The girl didn’t nod, didn’t shake her head, didn’t move at all.

Laedio scratched at the back of his scalp and exhaled through his nose.Saints, she would give old Jarza a run for his money.

”Well,” he muttered, ”if you do want to walk out there, you’re free to. Just... don’t wander too far. I’d rather not send half the city guard searching for you. Last thing I need is a rumor about me hiding a daughter somewhere.”

He rose from the table. Something slid from his lap into his hand, a small wooden chest he had kept out of her sight. He set it on the table with a deliberate little flourish.

”I came with gifts,by the bye,” he announced.

Even without a word from her, curiosity softened her expression. Laedio opened the box and withdrew several slim bundles of charcoal wrapped in linen, along with a neat stack of paper.

”I’d like to see whether you can draw what you see in the garden,” he said, placing the materials on the table. He took one piece of charcoal for himself, wrapped the linen tighter to form a makeshift pencil, and made a few scribbles on his own sheet.

He drew a dog, or at least attempted to.

It came out wrong.

The girl rose onto her toes, leaning forward as though she could not help herself, her eyes widening at the soft black lines forming shapes.

Laedio slid the supplies toward her without comment. Then he dusted off his hands, turned toward the door, and paused only long enough to toss one final remark over his shoulder.

”Remember, in the future, to say the magic word when someone brings you a gift.If you are good I will bring you more.”

He closed the door behind him, leaving the girl alone, with food warm in her belly, paper before her, and a world outside her window she had never been allowed to imagine, let alone draw.