Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 1005: New rules(3)

All three of them were at en empasse.

The girl froze, her mouth open in a silent ’O’ of terror, the sound trapped in her throat. Below him, Merelao didn’t struggle. He didn’t plead. He just watched Marcus with those cold, blue eyes, waiting for the assassin to make his next mistake.

Gone was the initial confusion of a man woken from his respite with a dagger at his throat, now all that was present in them was a clarity of intent.

With the third presence in the room, Marcus was put in an awkward situation.He had after all a plan, now that one had gone off the cliff and whose corpses was being railed as he breathed, which meant that he had to do the next thing he hated most. Improvise.

He felt the sweat slicking his grip.

"I am not here to harm you, m’lord," Marcus began, his voice a desperate rasp. He knew he was standing on a precipice. "Same goes for you, my lady. I was not sent to spill a drop of your blood." He pressed his weight down slightly, feeling the unyielding iron of Merelao’s frame. "If I remove my hand from your mouth, do I have your word of honor? Will you refrain from summoning the guards at the door?"

Merelao did not deign to nod. Instead, he arched a single eyebrow that radiated a supreme confidence in his own person without even a word, as if he were not the man pinned down with a dagger at his throat.

Marcus hesitated, then slowly withdrew his hand. He watched the man’s lips, expecting a shout or a snarl. Instead, he found a smile, languid curve of the mouth that was utterly misplaced.

"I apologize for the unceremonious nature of your awakening, m’lord. It was not my intent to—"

"I find myself consumed by a singular, burning curiosity,no need for false apologies little man." Merelao interrupted. His voice was a rich, melodic baritone. "By what miraculous artifice did you find ingress to my sanctum? Am I to presume that the ones standing sentry outside my home have been reduced to a red fountain upon the floor?"

"No, m’lord," Marcus grunted, confused by the lord’s tone of... pleasant surprise?Was that really how he reacted to all of this? "I took no lives to reach this room."

"And do you intend to take one now?" Merelao’s aquatic eyes drifted toward the dagger with the detached interest of a connoisseur examining a flawed gem. "Or is this merely a piece of vulgar acting?"

Marcus realized the momentum was sliding away from him. He sheathed the dagger with a sharp, metallic clack, a gesture meant to signal a truce he didn’t entirely believe in. "I have no thirst for your blood, m’lord. My steel was merely a tool to ensure silence until I could relay the intent of my master." He glanced toward the heavy mahogany desk. "A message for your ears alone."

"And pray, why was a simple envoy deemed insufficient for such a mundane task?"

"I doubt any common messenger could have ascended your tower, m’lord," Marcus said, his shoulders slumping slightly from the lingering fatigue of the climb. "The stones are treacherous, slippery with age and moss. I would suggest a wooden balcony, m’lord, for the sake of your future security."

A look of genuine, luminous delight transfigured Merelao’s angelic face. He sat up slowly, the silk sheets sliding off his broad, sculpted chest as if they were water.

"Did my ears perceive correctly? You scaled the exterior masonry?" Merelao leaned forward, his eyes shimmering with a predatory fascination. "Oh, marvelous.What audacity! You climbed the sheer face of this edifice in the dead of night, nimbe as a spider... Now, tell me, little spider... whose silk do you spin? Who is the weaver who sent such a magnificent creature to my window?Tell me so I may candidly thank when the time is right , with all of myself."

Was that a threat?Marcus just couldn’t understand the man.

The girl finally found her voice, a thin, trembling reed in the dark. "My lord... I could slip out, I could call for the—"

"You will do no such thing," Merelao interrupted, his voice a sudden, chilling frost that calcified the air. He held none of the apparent warmth he had for the intruder. He did not even turn to look at her. "You have been a silent little mouse since our guest’s arrival; do not find your squeak now and ruin the rhythm of the play. There is a stiletto tucked beneath your pillow, yet you fled the linens without even a thought for its cold comfort. It is disappointing. Despicable, really, a failure of instinct that speaks poorly of your lineage."

His gaze returned to Marcus, the predatory delight reigniting in his blue eyes. "Just for the sake of absolute clarity, my soaring spider... there is a blade beneath my pillow as well."

"I pray you find no reason to unsheath it, m’lord," Marcus muttered. He slowly unpinned the man’s arm and retreated from the bed, his heart hammering against his ribs as he braced for the strike.

The strike never came. Instead, Merelao rose from the silk wreckage of his bed with the slow, liquid grace of a panther. The covers cascaded from his frame, revealing a physique that was less a body and more a monument to the violence of his station.

He was a masterpiece.

In the silver spill of the moonlight, Marcus saw the history of the man’s life written on his skin. A silvered line of an old wound tracked upward from the hard ridges of his abdominals, slashing across his pectoral and ending just beneath the curve of his angelic chest, ghost of a killing blow that had failed its mark.

As Merelao reached up to idly massage the tension in his neck, the light caught his inner wrist. Two distinct, puckered points marred the smooth skin there, the unmistakable, permanent signature of a serpent’s fangs.

The rumors were true...

"You find the scenery distracting?" Merelao asked, noting Marcus’s gaze with a smirk that was both vain and pleased. He stood in the center of the room, glorious and nude, seemingly indifferent to his vulnerability. "One must endure the bite to appreciate the venom. Now, do not let my aesthetic overwhelm your purpose. You mentioned a master. You mentioned an intent. Unspool your thread. Who has sent a man to scale my walls and deliver a sermon at the edge of a blade?Speak for you have my interest and attention. I shall give you the time of the night only for the simple reason that you astonished me with your manners..."

"M’lord," Marcus said, his voice finding a steadier rhythm as he understood what sort of lessic he was to adopt. "If you find yourself satisfied by the meager, fumbling talent I have displayed tonight, I believe you shall be utterly infatuated with the brilliance of my master. Compared to the sun of his intellect, I am but a simple ant, scurrying through the dust for the crumbs he deigns to drop."

Merelao’s smile widened. "A humble ant with the legs of a mountain goat. How droll. I do admit, I harbor a profound distaste for being led on a leash of vagaries. Your words possess a certain lyrical charm, yes, but they lack a name. Pray, unmask your patron. "

"You will find the sum of my master’s intent atop your desk, m’lord," Marcus replied, gesturing toward the mahogany surface. "I took the liberty of waking you only because I harbored the hope that yours would be the only eyes to feast upon its contents. The matters transcribed upon that vellum are as grave as they are sensitive; they are not intended for the wandering gaze of servants or commoners. You will see the logic of my unworthy arrival soon enough. Great tidings are blowing toward us from the south, m’lord. I believe you will find the scent of them... most agreeable."

Merelao let out a soft, theatrical sigh, his blue eyes clouding with a flicker of boredom. "You test my hospitality, do you not? I believe this marks the third occasion I have petitioned you for the identity of he who apparently shall not be named. A man of my station does not typically entertain anonymous shadows."

"I crave your indulgence, m’lord," Marcus said, his voice dropping an octave. "But I am strictly prohibited from uttering his name within these walls. It is the one command I cannot break, even under the shadow of your majesty."

Merelao studied him for a long, agonizing moment, his nude, for he apparently was, scarred form catching the silver moonlight like a marble god of war. Finally, he gave a languid wave of his hand.

"Very well. I shall allow this singular vanity as a reward for the genuine spectacle you have brought in my soul tonight. You have provided a more invigorating dawn than any of my usual companions." He cast a fleeting, dismissive glance toward the girl by the wall before returning his gaze to Marcus. "I believe I cannot ask for your company tonight? No? Very well...you may depart, acrobat. If you have no more poetry to recite, return to the abyss from whence you climbed."

Marcus offered one final, profound bow, his heart finally slowing its frantic pace.

Have I really succeeded? He wondered as he backed away toward the window, never turning his spine to the man he feared would now become soon Prince. He reached the sill and swung his legs over the edge, the cold night wind catching his dark cloak.

Marcus had barely shifted his weight to descend when a hand, cold as marble and twice as strong, clamped onto his shoulder, pinning him against the stone sill.

It felt as if a boulder had been put atop his palm...

Marcus turned his head slowly, his eyes wide and trembling as he met the gaze of Merelao Marcio. Gone was the angel he saw, back was the devil he had heard.

The blue of his eyes had curdled into the color of a frozen sea, devoid of warmth, devoid of curiosity,bearing only the weight of a god deciding whether or not to crush an insect.

In that silence, Marcus saw it: his own broken body splayed on the cobbles below, the wet sound of his spine snapping, the darkness claiming him. The hand on his shoulder didn’t squeeze, but Marcus realised he was at the man’s mercy...just as previously Merelao was at his.

One small push, was all that it would take...

I am dead, Marcus realized.

Then, as if a switch had been flicked in the celestial machinery, the pressure vanished. The terrifying void in Merelao’s eyes was replaced by that same, luminous, maddeningly elegant smile. He reached out, his long, scarred fingers tracing the line of Marcus’s jaw in a warm caress.

"Be quick as the wind, little spider," Merelao whispered, his voice once again a velvet melody "I shall summon my guards to attend your presence before I surrender once more to sleep’s candid embrace. It would be such a pedestrian tragedy to be awoken with the news of your mangled remains. I find I have developed a certain... affection for your audacity."

His hand fell away, and Merelao stepped back into the shadows of the room, becoming one with the dark.

All that Marcus could was watch dazzled at the open window of the room, as a voice rose from behind it.

"As I said: swiftly."