Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

The silk sheets they had pulled over themselves were as soft as summer clouds. Jasmine let herself collapse into her husband’s arms, her cheek pressing against the rough expanse of his chest. She leaned her ear directly over his ribs, listening to the steady, rhythmic booming of his heart.

She would have expected it to sound massive, violent, and thunderous, entirely appropriate for a warlord who could play the part of a merciless demon to his enemies. Instead, in the quiet of their solar, it was a remarkably soft, gentle thing. It sounded like a sleepy child rhythmically clapping his hands.

Alpheo’s large, calloused hand cupped the side of her face, his thumb lazily caressing the high curve of her cheekbone. It was a familiar ritual, but it never failed to warm her heart; even after the frantic heat of their lovemaking had passed, she still held her husband’s absolute attention and affection.

She felt a gentle tug as he caught a long lock of her raven hair between his fingers. Peering up through her lashes, she watched the great victor of the Ford bring the silk strand to his nose, closing his eyes to give it a deep, appreciative sniff.

”That’s strange,” she murmured, though she made no move to pull away. ’’You are weird.’’

”You’ve got a nice smell, Jasmine. You always do,” he replied, ”Like winter roses and clean linen. It’s a miracle after months of breathing in wet horse and stagnant marsh.”

Jasmine shifted, propping herself up on one elbow before burying her nose directly into the warm crook of his nape. She took a deliberate breath and instantly wrinkled her nose. ”You, however, reek.”

”I told you, I didn’t have time to bath’’ he muttered. A brief, comfortable pause settled between them before he added, ”Do you want me to get up and take one now?”

”Nah,” she murmured, her lips brushing against his collarbone as she spoke. ”Just stay precisely where you are. This rushed business on the sofa was your grand idea, after all.”

”You could have insisted we wait for the bed,” he pointed out, that mismatched smirk of his creeping across his face. It always rode higher on one cheek than the other making it look as though he were perpetually chuckling at a private joke the rest of the world wasn’t clever enough to understand.

Jasmine decided she thoroughly hated that smug smile today. With an amused scowl, she slapped her palm right over his mouth to hide it.

Naturally, Alpheo took it as an invitation to mischief. He snapped his teeth, biting playfully at her palm like a poorly trained hound. Jasmine reacted instantly, curling her fingers and thrusting her index finger straight up his nostril.

That, at least, achieved the exact reaction she was looking for.

”Oi! Oi! Oi!” Alpheo yelped, his voice bouncing into a ridiculous, high-pitched nasal whine that sounded entirely unkingly. ”Not the damn nose!” he growled, swatting her hand away and rubbing his face fiercely as she retrieved her fingers with a triumphant laugh. ”It’s sensible, woman!”

”Whatever you say, Sire. You always take the greatest liberties with my person, why shouldn’t I do the same with yours?”

”I? Liberties?” Alpheo looked her up and down, a wicked glint returning to his eyes. ”Was it not you, my queen, who just proposed that we pu—”

”Not another word!” Jasmine pounced on him, clamping her hand over his mouth once more, a bright, sudden crimson flushing her cheeks.’’Don’t you dare!’’

It was the exact same burning blush that had overtaken her on their very first wedding night, back when she had discovered there was far more than one kind of pleasure a man could give a woman.

Alpheo’s chest shook with silent laughter beneath her, and after a moment, Jasmine let out a soft chuckle of her own. As she shifted her weight, the heavy crown he had placed on her head slipped, clattering softly against his bare breastbone.

Her dark eyes moved to the object, and her hands left his face, lifting the band of metal to turn it over and over in the sunlight. She examined it closely, as if it were a rare, exotic gem she wanted to judge.

”Such an ugly thing,” she muttered, her aristocratic nose wrinkling slightly.

And it was ugly. By all the traditions of the South, a crown was meant to be a breathtaking masterpiece that commanded immediate, bowing respect. It should have been a heavy, shimmering declaration of gold, encrusted with deep blue sapphires and glittering emeralds.

What she was currently holding in her delicate hands was a violent mockery of that courtly elegance. Iron. The entire thing was forged from dark, unpolished iron. The only drop of gold to be found on the entire piece was a thin, subtle leafing at the very tip of the highest spike that did nothing but excentuate the darkness of it.

”It is a crown forged in blood and iron, Jasmine,” Alpheo muttered softly, reaching out to take the heavy band from her fingers. He turned it around in the air, the dark metal absorbing the warm sunlight rather than reflecting it. ”It ought to be ugly.”

”Nay. A crown should be beautiful,” she insisted, gazing at the brutal geometry of the metal as if seeing it clearly for the first time. She ran the tip of her thumb over one of the sharp, thorny ridges rising from the band. Her brow furrowed as her fingers traced the familiar, tapering lines. ”Are these... swords?”

”Aye,” Alpheo murmured, his cynical smirk fading into something far more grounded and somber. ”Before we broke camp, I gave a bundle of shattered blades to a legion blacksmith. I told him to melt them down and reshape them.”

He held the dark crown up between them. In the dimming light of the solar, it truly was a savage piece of work. It looked vaguely like the sharp, overlapping leaves of a winter palm tree, but every single leaf was a jagged, black thorn of iron, save for the central crest, which had been delicately dipped in gold.

”Those are the tips of the swords that broke at the Ford,” Alpheo said, his hazel eyes reflecting the dark iron. ”The weapons of the men who died to put us in this room. I didn’t want a crown made of merchant’s gold and foreign gems. I wanted a crown that reminds every lord who looks at you exactly what will happen to them if they ever try to take it away.A crown made of iron”

Jasmine looked from the iron crown to the hardened, scarred face of her husband.

’’Iron crown?’’

The aristocratic disdain vanished from her eyes, replaced by a quiet, chilling awe. She took the heavy thing back from his hands, her fingers tightening around the cold, thorny iron. Slowly, she placed it back upon her brow, her raven hair spilling around the dark metal like silk over a blade.

She looked down into his eyes and felt him harden beneath her once more. Her husband had always possessed rather particular, earthy tastes when it came to his passions, and he was profoundly lucky that she shared them.

She was, however, entirely exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster. With a quiet, dramatic sigh, Jasmine shifted her weight and plopped down onto the cushions of the sofa beside him, letting her head rest against his shoulder. Alpheo took the hint well enough; rather than pressing, he wrapped a heavy arm around her waist and satisfied himself with drawing her close for a quiet cuddle, his chin resting atop her dark hair.

”How will it work?” she asked after a long moment of silence, her dark eyes shifting to bore directly into his.

”What do you mean?” he asked, genuinely confused, his thumb mindfully tracing a slow circle on her bare arm.

”The crown,” she replied, gesturing slightly to the heavy band of iron resting between them. ”There is only one. Which of us wears it on official days? Who represents the majesty of Yarzat when the foreign envoys arrive?”

That actually made the King think for a moment. He stared up at the gilded ceiling, his brow furrowing for a brief bit before he casually shrugged his broad shoulders. ”We could just throw a silver coin for the first court appearance, and then simply go turn-for-turn after that?”

Jasmine let out a soft, exasperated chuckle, shaking her head. It always puzzled her, the strange creature she called a husband. Even after fifteen years of marriage, she could never quite get a complete grasp on the inner workings of his mind. He could be a ruthless butcher on the field, a calculated politician in the council, and an absolute boy in her lap. But he was undeniably good at making her laugh. Just as he had done now.

”Very well, let us leave the coin in your pocket for now,” she said, her tone turning practical. ”What about the coronation itself?”

”Both of us will be crowned together,” he said, the shrug disappearing as he turned his face to look at her with absolute, unyielding seriousness. ”I told you, Jasmine, between us, nothing will change. My grand plans simply required Yarzat to become a recognized kingdom in the eyes of the world, and this particular moment of victory was too perfect to pass up.”

”To truly become a kingdom, one needs far more than your loyal legions hailing you as such on a muddy field,” she reminded him gently, her political instincts sharpening. ”Have you written to the Pontifex yet? A crown without the blessing of the holy city is a mummer’s farce”

”No. But I will have it settled soon,” Alpheo murmured, a calculating frost returning to his hazel eyes. ”It is high time I sent formal correspondence to our dear friends in Romelia anyway. The Imperator was kind enough to provide us with the grain shipments for the aid-settlement in Oizen during the winter.” He let out a long, heavy sigh, the memory of the camp hardships weighing on his chest. ”You cannot possibly know how difficult that would have been without their food supply. It is already an hard job as it is to settle the chaos we were left with’’

He paused, noticing the sudden, lingering gaze of skepticism she was giving him. Alpheo leaned over, catching her jaw in his hand, and gave her a soft, chaste kiss on the lips.

”What? Do you not trust your husband anymore?” he whispered against her mouth, a ghost of his lopsided smirk returning. ”Have I not always delivered exactly what I promised?”

Jasmine looked into his newly-scarred face, the iron crown resting beside them, and let out a quiet breath.

She hated giving him his right.

That, however, he always did.