Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

The King of Yarzat had long ago discovered a peculiar secret: whenever his queen was truly irate the tip of her sharp nose would wriggle exactly like a freshly dug potato. It was, however, profoundly difficult to get a proper glimpse of it today to verify her level of irascibility.

Provided, of course, that the two small, and yet surprisingly strong hands currently rattling his neck back and forth like a loose tavern sign were not proof enough.

It was a queer thing to reflect upon, Alpheo thought as his teeth clicked together with each shake. For all the supreme, bloody evils mankind was capable of executing on the battlefield, the thing men universally found most terrifying was a woman’s fury. And when that woman happened to be a mother defending her cub, the terror was absolute.

”At war?!” Jasmine hissed, her thumbs digging ruthlessly into the soft flesh beneath his jaw. ”You brought your damn son to a war?!” She gave his completely gorget-less, unprotected neck an aggressive rattle for good measure, her dark eyes flashing. ”The very same campaign where you almost died?! What in the five gods’ names is wrong with your wits, Alpheo?!”

”I—grhrk—”

The King tried to squeeze a syllable of defense past his constricted throat, but she merely pressed down with a vengeance. His head went diving backward, sinking deep into the goose-feathered cushion of the royal sofa.

She clearly did not desire an explanation at that precise moment, so he simply allowed her to play with his windpipe for a short time. He recognized the profound ill he had done; in her position, looking at a son returned from the slaughterhouse, he probably would have used a dagger instead of her bare hands.

When the skin of his neck truly started to grow sore, Alpheo reached up, using the absolute minimum amount of force required to kindly but firmly peel her fingers away from his throat. To his relief, she let him.

As he sat up, rubbing the red marks on his skin, he looked into her eyes. The furious fire was still there, but beneath it, the tense lines of her cheeks could do nothing to conceal a deep, bleeding well of pain.

”They told me you were wounded,” she whispered, her voice cracking as the anger faltered. ”They said you were confined to a camp bed, you absolute idiot. I thought you were dead. I thought they had finally gotten you.”

”Not for a lack of trying, mind you,” he jested, offering a roguish, lopsided smirk.

She was unrecipient to the humor.

Alpheo sighed, his expression sobering. ”I have Merelao to thank for my head remaining on my shoulders. He pulled me out of the thick of it.”

”Then you have surrounded yourself with witless, incompetent men if it came to that,” she spat, though her breathing was finally slowing.’’Are your guards for show?’’

”Vrosk would be most angry if he heard you say that,” Alpheo murmured with a dry chuckle. ”Mostly with himself, because he’d have to loudly agree with you. But it wasn’t his fault, Jasmine. You simply cannot understand just how chaotic and faceless the battle became.”

”I will never understand if you choose to tell me absolutely nothing,” she chided, crossing her arms tightly over her chest.

”The last time I told you something important it didn’t exactly fare so well for our domestic peace,” Alpheo countered softly.

He saw her eyes lower instantly with a sharp, pained wince, and he immediately regretted the words. It had been a low blow.

”I am sorry,” he said quickly, reaching out to touch her velvet sleeve. ”That was ill-done of me. But trust me when I tell you it was not the legions’ or any of my men’s fault. I could have had the legendary Lightbringer himself and his flaming sword standing at my right hand, and he would have been able to do absolutely nothing to alter the madness of that day.He fought demons, that one, not the chaotic nature of man”

”What actually happened?” she asked, her voice dropping all its armor. Her hand drifted up to the right side of his face, her fingertips touching the raw, ruined bridges of gristle where death had chewed away his earlobe. She touched it lightly, as if fearing the scarred flesh might turn to ash under her palm.

It was still an incredibly strange sensation for him, feeling the freezing winter wind whistle directly through the side of his head whenever he was riding his horse at a gallop.

”Got a lance splinter straight through it,” Alpheo explained, his voice flat, recounting the near-death experience as if it were a common tavern brawl. ”My visor got entirely smashed down into my face, and I laid for quite some time face-down in the mud. When I finally woke... I don’t know, maybe hours later? Half an hour? Whatever the case, what greeted my eyes was a fresh line of enemies coming from entirely the wrong side of the field. Were it not for the Kakunian and his men, you’d be holding my ashes right now.”

If the bastards of the principality would have even allowed you to keep them, he added silently to himself. He had allowed the the late prince of Oizen to return as whole as a corpse could get after being thoroughly trampled by a cavalry charge, but too much bad blood still boiled between the royal houses of Yarzat and Oizen, a bitterness that hadn’t been made any sweeter by the recent campaign.

Jasmine’s hand lingered on his scar before she pulled back, her tone hardening again, though it did little to mask the lingering worry in her heart. ”And why, for the love of all that is sacred to the five gods, did you allow our boy to watch such horror?”

”Because he will have to learn, Jasmine. He has to,” Alpheo said, his voice taking on the iron weight of a ruler. ”These months with me and the soldiers have been infinitely more audacious and valuable for his upbringing than the last five years of tutors in the capital. The boy finally got a firm hold of what power actually costs.”

He leaned forward, looking her dead in the eyes. ”The bards’ songs and the court poems have cleansed war. They have made it look romantic, noble, and clean. That is all well and good for the common footmen and the minor knights; it makes them eager for blood so long as they think an eternity of glory is waiting for them in the verses. We want them to line up for war.

But a prince should never suffer from that delusion. Basil will not have it. I have absolutely no interest in romanticizing the crown for him. He had to learn how hard, how filthy, and how utterly ugly the foundation of our power is. Only then will he not be so eager to move his armies with a light mind when his turn comes.”

Jasmine stared at him, her lips a thin, tight line. ”I do not know much of war, Alpheo. But I know you put our son in needless danger.”

”Aye,” the King admitted freely. ”But people I trusted with my own life looked over his shoulder every second of the day. Better to put him in controlled danger now, under my eye, so that he can truly understand what it is when the world depends on his judgment later. But enough of that. Enough of campaigns and iron. I have had a bellyful of war, and I nearly lost my skin to buy this season of quiet.”

He reached out, placing his large, heavily calloused hands over hers, gently caressing the soft skin of her knuckles. ”Besides... I feel like there is yet more we have to talk about than just the southern principalities.”

”Aye, and what exactly was your grand idea behind naming yourself a king, you bloody fool?” Jasmine asked, though her voice lacked its previous venom, shifting instead into the sharp curiosity of a woman who knew her husband’s mind all too well.

”And naming you a queen,” Alpheo murmured smoothly. He lifted her trapped hand, pressing a slow, lingering kiss against the soft skin of her knuckles. ”My queen.”

”Flattery won’t serve you today, Sire.” She spat the royal title . ”Why did you choose to take a crown now? Why risk the escalation?”

”It was my legions that crowned me on the field, my love,” he replied, his hazel eyes gleaming.

Jasmine let out a sharp, mocking scoff. ”Your legions won’t take a shit without your explicit leave, Alpheo. Don’t play the humble soldier with me.”

He chuckled softly, the deep vibration ruffling the velvet of her sleeve as he kissed the knuckles of her hand once more. ”That is fair. To be completely honest, I knew it was the perfect, unrepeatable moment to strike. I had just won a definitive, crushing victory. The future Prince of Kakunia, is already poised to give us his official recognition, more entertaining than worried that one. As for the rest of the southern principalities?Well, we may have to force them to recognize us as kings and queens at the point of a thousand lances. There will be a great deal of war soon, but those would have come without the crown.”

”And how precisely is this going to work?” she asked, her brow furrowing as she looked at him.

”Between us? Absolutely nothing will change,” Alpheo promised, his voice dropping into that intimate, steady register that had bound them together through years of political wolves. ”The same routine as of old. You will continue to answer the foreign petitions, hold the inner court, write the critical letters, and dictate the realm’s direction alongisde me , just as we always have. The only difference is that when the lords grovel, they will say ’Queen’ and ’Your Majesty’ instead of ’Princess’ and ’Your Grace’. The very first true monarchy in the South will belong to Yarzat. Do you truly not like the sound of that, my queen?”

The slow, calculating way her dark eyes drifted over his face told him everything he needed to know. She liked it. The ancient, ambitious blood of her dynasty thrived on the notion, the very one he was attracted by since he was a mercenary, no matter how much she scolded him for the danger, she wanted it.

”I brought many fine spoils from Oizen to clutter Rosalind’s chambers,” Alpheo whispered, his voice dropping an octave as he leaned in closer, ”but I kept the finest piece explicitly for you.”

”And what might that be?” she asked, raising a perfectly sculpted black eyebrow in skepticism.

Alpheo bent forward, his large hand moving to encircle her slender waist, drawing her flush against the cool plates of his chest armor. His other hand drifted down to the heavy leather sack bound tightly at his hip. He unclasped the iron buckle and drew the contents into the soft sunlight of the solar.

Jasmine’s eyes widened. First came confusion, then a sudden, breathless flash of recognition, followed by an intricate mix of awe and a faint, aristocratic distaste.

Did he not like it?It was queer to be sure.

Though the distaste melted quick enough into pure pleasure the moment Alpheo lifted the crown and lowered it onto her head. The metal nested on her head beautifully framing the cascading waves of raven hair and the fierce, striking face he had fallen hopelessly in love with years ago. She peered down at him through her lashes, a look of profound, mocking mirth playing on her lips.

Alpheo didn’t give her the chance to speak. He leaned up and kissed her, parting her lips to taste the familiar, intoxicating warmth at the roof of her mouth. The armor between them felt entirely too thick, his heavy, scarred hands already sliding up from her waist to find the soft laces of her gown.

”Not here...” she murmured against his mouth, her hands coming up to press against his chest, trying to push his head away from the sensitive skin of her neck, though her fingers were already curling into the fabric of his cloak. ”Alpheo, the servants... the guards are right outside the door.”

”Why not here?” he whispered fiercely, his lips tracing a path down to the hollow of her collarbone, ignoring her half-hearted protest. ”We have the sofa. The guards outside will know better.The servants will leave.”

With a slow, deliberate movement, he shifted his weight, gently pressing her back into the goose-filled cushions of the wide white sofa. The sudden motion caused the crown to slip from her raven hair, tumbling down to rest against the soft swell of her breast.

Alpheo reached down, his fingers brushing against her skin as he retrieved the circle of gold, carefully placing it back upon her brow.

”Hold it steady,” he whispered against her lips, his breath hot and ragged as his hands worked the remaining laces free, pinning her softly beneath him.

”I want to fuck a queen today.”