Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

He had seen it with his own two eyes, yet his mind struggled to make sense of it.

For twenty-one years, Latio’s world had been defined by the gilded cage of the Palace of Vinnacovi. And those few times where he left , were but voyages that were short, sterile, and suffocatingly protected by a wall of steel plate and royal protocol.

He had to beg his father for weeks to allow him to lead an expedition against some bandits that had made a den in the mountains. It was , as he had expected and told his father numerous times, an easy thing.

The bandits broke easy enough when the horn came and the Latio charged alongside his retinue on foot. There he had got his first kill, swinging his sword faster than a bandit could raise his to guard himself. The blade nicked at the men’s throat deep enough for a streak of blood to splatter upon his face.

It was sticky and warm, and yet he felt proud of it.

That had been his first kill, and also his only taste of danger.

He had always found his father’s overprotectiveness unnecessary, a relic of a paranoid age. After all, he knew his cousin. He may have been mad, ambitious, and eccentric, but Latio knew a different truth: Merelao was a man of visceral honesty. He was a predator who did his own killing.

He was not a man of shadows and poisoned cups; he was the type to look a man directly in the eye, watching the light fade as he drove a blade into his heart. In a world of smiling traitors, there was something almost... admirable in that terrifying straightforwardness.

A bittersweet pang of nostalgia tightened in his chest. He remembered them as children, playing in the sun-drenched courtiers’ gardens. He remembered braiding Merelao’s long, fine hair, the same hair that Merelao now wove with gold and jewels before battle, appearing more like a high-level courtesan begging for a prince’s gaze than a warlord.

He missed those times. Life had been a simple matter of wooden swords and shared laughter. But he knew that to dwell on those memories was to invite a lethal hesitation. Those strings had to be severed. The past was a weight that would only drag him into the mud. Between him and Merelao, there could be no peace, no middle ground. The only thing that stood true amidst them was certainty that one would eventually die by the other’s hand.

But while Merelao had spent his years indulging in the pleasures of the flesh and chasing the vain vapors of glory, Latio had been forced to become the forge. And now, he beheld the blade that had been hammered out in the dark.

Twelve thousand, five hundred men.

When Latio had stood atop a ridge overlooking the coalition camp, the sheer magnitude of the host stole the breath from his lungs. The encampment was a city of canvas and iron, sprawling so vast across the plains that, for a fleeting moment, it appeared even larger than the capital of the Crownless Prince itself. This was the sword that would behead his cousin. This was the power his father had promised him.

He had always known he would succeed Prince Lavus, but he had never truly understood what power meant until he saw these reckless, soaring numbers. An entire world of men, all sharpened and pointed at a single enemy.And of course he knew who the face was behind such might.

What was to come was not his fault, he reasoned. He would have gladly embraced the boy he once played with, offering him a seat of high honor at his side. But that boy was a ghost. The man who had replaced him was a monster born of blood and ego.

He had initially not believed the rumors of all the things he did, they may have been bandits sentenced to death, but there was a fine line between hanging them and....whatever madness passed through Merelao’s head when he beheld such a bloody idea.

Latio turned his back on the ridge, washing himself clean of the shore of his childhood. He could no longer afford to fondly reminisce about a man he was destined to destroy. He was here as the extension of his father’s will. He was the vanguard of his father’s work

This is it, he thought, his heart hammering a steady, war-drum rhythm against his ribs.

He stood before the massive oak doors ahead. Within those walls sat the princes who would lead the hammer for the coming slaughter. He felt a momentary tremor in his hands and quickly clenched them into fists.

You are no bastard, he told himself, the mantra of his lineage rising like a shield. You are the son of Lavus, Second of his Name, Prince of Kakunia. You are his heir. Do not recoil. Do not squirm. You are exactly where you were born to be. There is no other path. This is your moment. This is your war.

He pushed the heavy oak doors open and stepped into the den of lions.

Three men gathered around cloud-white sofas; they all peered up at him as if they were a single, six-eyed entity, scrutinising the interruption to their conversation.

This was the sanctum of the coalition, the heart of the machine, and though Latio had never met these men, the proud emblems stitched in silk upon their breasts revealed their identities with the clarity of a herald’s shout.

At the far end of the table sat the Black Sun of Oizen. The Crownless Prince was leaning forward, his face stretched into a wide,pleasing smile. He sat with a frantic energy, looking toward the other two as if seeking constant validation. Which really was the attitude Latio had expected from the man that was made a fool of himself twice already and had no choice but to beg for the aid of fellows princes,

To his right sat Prince Kaelen of Ezvania, the ”Singing Cock” emblazoned across his chest in gold thread. He watched Latio’s entrance with the unmistakable expression of a man who had found a fly in an expensive vintage, displeased, bored, and slightly offended by the intrusion. He was a man of fine features, though he was cursed with a prominent overbite that gave his chin a weak, receding quality. It made him look perpetually like a startled child playing at being a soldier.

And then, sitting at the center of the world, there was he.

The main protagonist of the play. The architect of the fire.

Nibadur, Prince of Habadia.

He did not slouch, nor did he lean with the desperate eagerness to please of the Oizenian, nor he sat back with the arrogance of the Ezvanian prince. He was just there...in absolute stillness. His face was a masterpiece of symmetry, a jawline carved with a surger’s precision, a fine, strong chin, and features that seemed to have been polished by the gods themselves. His eyes were clear, a piercing gray that seemed to filter the world through a lens of cold logic, and his brows were light, almost ethereal.

Yet, there was one singular, jarring imperfection that broke the divine geometry of his face. At the very top of the bridge of his nose, right where the high arches of his brows met, sat a deep, circular hole, a hollow in the bone so clean and precise it looked as if it had been bored out with a stonemason’s chisel.

As Latio stood there, frozen in the doorway, Nibadur’s lips curled into a slow, elegant smile.

This, Latio thought as he traced the man’s frame with his gaze, is what a king should look like.

He must have been silent for quite a bit as he gazed at the man, for it was the Cock of Ezvania who took the initiative of breaking the silence.

’’Are you not going to present yourself?’’ he asked in a bored tone turning around toward the prince of Ozenia. ’’Seems like each of your lords is meeker than the last. The last boasted of his valor and begged for a chance to lead with the van.’’ He turned to him ’’What’ll this do?Tend to our wine?Though that would be welcomed to, the charaffe is almost empty...’’

’’I’ll call to have it immediately field , friends,” Sorza voiced out singing a small bell from the table.

They thinks me a lord...do they not see the bull?

’’I am not a servant , your Grace’’ he replied , irked with dipleasure’’I have the honor of leading the army of Kakunia to see the Fox’s transgression repaid.You’ll find my hand more accustomed to the weight of steel rather than that of wine!’’

The prince made no note of the veiled words ’’I recalled the prince of Kakunia to be...’’ he gave a long pause before he simply replied, clearly having no interest in further conversation.’’...wider?”

Latio was about to rise against the slight and the ridicule of his father, before another’s voice rang out.

”Brother,” Nibadur said, his voice a smooth, melodic baritone that silenced the room. ’’Enough with that , that is no way to welcome our ally.” He did not rise, but the gravity of his presence pulled Latio toward the table like a tide all the same. He smiled kindly and jolly, like that of a father assuring his son that everything was well. ”This one I believe has the honor of being the eldest of the Kakunian princes, no? I see the raging bull upon you; I ought to hope to see your red horn in battle. I heard your father long ago was a demon on the field, hope to see the son rise to the challenge.

Well met, indeed. Pleased to see the Bulls among us the Sun, the Tower and the Roaster...’’