Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

He couldn’t recall just how much time passed with him simply sitting down and gazing at the result he had caused himself, by his ineptitude if not by his own hands.

He wasn’t blind, nor was he the fool the world took him for; he could see the contours of his own collapse. With a trembling hand, he reached for the cup, the wine sliding down his throat like liquid fire, yet failing to warm the glacial cold settling in his marrow.

He had once believed that time was a grand eroder, that it would eventually smooth the edges of his grief. But a year had passed in the deep, and the wound was still raw, still weeping as it turn out time did indeed scar the wound but it did not smooth the grief even one bit.

He was still bleeding as profusely as he had been the moment he laid eyes on the remains of his friend, the man he had promised the world, only to deliver him to the cinders of a fire he himself had kindled.

It hurt.

Be strong, he told himself, the mantra sounding like a mockery. Appear unshakable. For them.

Wasn’t that the justification for everything? The reason he had ventured into the North, to the house of people that had no right to rule a stable?Wagering his own skin against a force that wielded what the ignorant could call magic? He had believed revenge would be the balm, the definitive answer to a heart plagued by a pain with a clear name. He needed a throat to cut, a soul he could reach out and break to balance the scales.

But now, as he peered down at the grisly fruit of his labor, he felt no triumph. No catharsis. Only a vast, hollow emptiness. Revenge was a phantom meal; he had gorged himself and remained starving.

So... what was the end of it?A rope?

The question was a cliff he couldn’t cross, so he did what he had become a master of: he pushed it away. He was heaving a boulder up a vertical slope, knowing with absolute certainty that the moment his strength wavered, the weight of his sins would roll back and crush him into the dust.

He was not lying around.

God, was he working. He was making progress, good, measurable progress. Didn’t that prove the machine was still functional? Didn’t that show he could still hold the reins? Who else could navigate this storm? Could Jarza handle the subtle poisons of statecraft? Could Jasmine face the storm coming their way? Asag? Shahab? They were lions, yes, but they weren’t apt enough to know what to do when using a sword was not enough.

They didn’t see the path forward when the world was obscured by Habadia’s rising banners.

He had only himself.

He shrugged the thought away, a physical tic to dislodge the guilt.

There were others depending on him. Be strong for the world; be weak only when the door is bolted. As long as no one realized how utterly unfit he felt, the charade could hold.

It had to hold. The second he allowed himself a moment of genuine self-doubt, the entire edifice would collapse, buried under the fear that was already beginning to drag his people down.

He looked at the only other thing in the room.

”I wonder if, in your final moments, you understood,” he muttered, his voice a ghost of a sound.

He reached out and patted the cold, preserved skull of Mavius Kantazounes, the False Emperor of Romelia, the murderer of his friend.

What did he feel when he was betrayed?Were you even aware of that, or did all happen too fast?

The answer to his question was silence. One only interrupted by the uncalled and unwanted knock on the door.

He cursed under his breath, his eyes darting to the head, then to the wine, then to the door. The mask wasn’t ready.He didn’t want to see anyone...

----------------

Basil had always held his father in the highest regard. To the world, Alpheo was the Fox, a creature of iron will and great intellect who had dragged himself from the mud to pluck the stars from the sky.

But to Basil, he was simply the architect of every safe and warm moment of his life. Despite the terror his father’s name inspired in foreign courts, Basil could not summon a single memory of a cold word or a harsh hand directed at him.

He loved his mother with the instinctive, biological heat of a son, but with his father, there was a deeper relation.

Something that Basil did not yet know would one day pull him into the same abyss his father currently inhabited, despite all the Prince’s efforts to shield him from it.

Two days had passed since the palace had last seen its master. The ritual of family dinners, the chaotic joy of playing with Rosalind and the quiet, late-hour anecdotes Alpheo would impart like holy scripture, had withered into a hollow silence. Basil had never realized how much those moments anchored his world until they were swept away.

The Prince was rotting from within. It might have been the arrogance of a child unhumbled by the cruelty of the world, but Basil refused to stand by. What son could claim the title if he watched his father drown and didn’t even reach for his hand? It was this desperate, singular purpose that brought him to the threshold of the royal chambers. One where he had never laid eyes or foot in.

”Young Master,” Vrosk greeted, his voice a low gravelly rumble. The head of the royal bodyguards dipped into a bow that was respectful, yet immovable.

Basil looked up at the titan of a man. He remembered his father’s stories, how Vrosk had twice saved Alpheo’s life from the man who should have been Basil’s grandfather. From the way people spoke of that ancestor, Basil counted it a blessing he had never met the man.

”Sir Vrosk,” Basil replied, keeping his voice steady despite the thrumming of his heart. ”I ask that you step aside. I intend to enter.”

”I fear that is a request I cannot grant, young lord. We have received absolute orders from the Prince. No one enters. Not even the blood.” Vrosk shifted his weight, his armor creaking like a ship’s hull.

”It has been a significant time since I last looked upon my father’s face. I only wish to know how he fares” Basil said, his eyes searching the guard’s stone-cold expression.

”I shall reiterate your concerns to him when he calls for me, and I will suggest he visits your quarters this evening,” Vrosk countered, his spine straightening in a silent refusal.

”How long has he been in there this time?”

Two seconds of suffocating silence passed. ”Since the first light of morning,” Vrosk admitted.

Basil felt his composure begin to fray at the edges. ”And did you check on him?”

”We attempted to. We were thoroughly and violently ordered to withdraw earlier in the day.”

”Then perhaps it is time to check again?” Basil pressed, stepping closer until he could smell the oil on Vrosk’s breastplate. ”And since you have already been scolded for your duty, perhaps you should leave the trespass to me? He cannot banish his own heir for a show of concern.”

”Young Master,” Vrosk’s dry voice echoed in the vaulted corridor, ”it has been twelve hours of silence. I believe we both know exactly what he is doing behind that door. A son should not have to see a father in such a state.I will reiterate your worries to him...as soon as circumstances allow for it.”

He took a deep, weary breath, his gaze softening with a pity that stung worse than an insult. ”I am certain the Prince will come to your room tonight. You must wait.”

They both knew for the lie it was.

Basil drew himself up to his full, albeit modest, height, his emerald eyes burning with clarity. He didn’t look at Vrosk as a child looks at a soldier, but as a sovereign looks at a servant who has forgotten the spirit of his oath.

”Sir Vrosk,” Basil began, his voice dropping into a steady, chilling register. ”I must remind you that your highest duty, the very reason you carry that steel, is to ensure the well-being of the Prince. Not his comfort. Not his privacy. His well-being.”

The boy took a step into the guard’s shadow, refusing to flinch. ”I will ask you once, and I want a clear answer. Is he well? Answer me that alone.If you say yes I shall then leave by my own two feet...”

Vrosk looked down at the boy, his weathered face twitching. He looked at the heavy oak doors, then back at the heir. Slowly, with a heaviness that seemed to pull at his very soul, the giant of a man shook his head.

”I thought as much,” Basil whispered. ”You fear his anger, and I do not blame you. But sometimes, doing the best for a man is achieved only through his displeasure. If you let me in, the worst that can happen is you receive his wrath. The best? The fulfillment of the duty you swore to the Crown.”

Basil’s gaze was unflinching, pinning the veteran guard to the spot. ”It is easy to perform one’s duty when the sun is shining and the cost is nothing. But the true mettle of a man is measured by how high a price he is willing to pay to see that duty done. Are you a man of the Prince’s comfort, Vrosk? Or a man of his life?”

Vrosk loomed over the boy, his massive frame blocking the light of sun coming from the window. For a moment, it seemed he might physically remove the young master from the hall. But as he searched Basil’s eyes, he changed idea.

A long, ragged sigh escaped the bodyguard’s chest, the sound of a man letting go of a heavy burden. Without another word, Vrosk stepped to the side, his boots scraping loudly on the stone as he cleared the path. He reached out, his gauntleted hand hovering for a second as if to steady himself, before he caught the heavy brass ring of the door.

”Good luck, young master,” Vrosk murmured, his voice barely audible. ”You may find that some doors are closed for a reason.”

’’I shall learn sych notion by myself it appears,” he muttered and rapped on the door, a bit of fear oozing out from his chest now that he was face to face with his first hurdle.