Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 997: Loss from Grace(1)

How long had it been since he had known a peace this absolute? Weeks? Months? He could no longer remember. His life had been a downward spiral, a slow-motion descent into a mire so deep he had eventually resigned himself to the suffocation. He had expected to drown in the dark, yet here he was, breathing.

Alpheo looked down at the boy holding his hand. Basil peered up at him with a gaze so luminous it made the Prince feel a staggering duality of emotion: a fierce, paternal pride and a humbling sense of luck. He had spent years believing his son was a river, which Alpheo had to painstakingly carve a bed and dictate a course to prepare him for his future. He realized now, with the clarity of a man who had hit the bottom and bounced, that Basil was an ocean. And all his father could do was hope to influence the tides.

The Prince winced, a sharp, white-hot burn lancing across his forehead as the antiseptic bit into his skin.

"Your Grace, I implore you, do not move," Agalosios muttered. The physician was working with a frantic, focused energy, pressing a bundle of clean linen against the contours of the wound. He kept his eyes strictly on the laceration, doing his absolute best to ignore the state of the two royals before him.

Agalosios was the Prince’s favorite healer, but even a favorite knew that some secrets were best left unobserved. He didn’t ask about the smell of wine, the stains on the tunics, or why the heir apparent’s small, soft hand was fused to his father’s calloused one

"Hey, Agalosios," the Prince’s voice broke the silence, sounding steadier than it had in a year.

The doctor raised his head, his spectacles catching the light. "Yes, Your Grace?"

"I’ve been thinking of building a university in Yarzat. A true center of thought. How would you like to hold a chair there? I believe it is high time Yarzat possessed a mind of its own instead of calling whatever scraps the Romelians leave us."

If being summoned in the dead of night to treat a bleeding sovereign hadn’t jolted Agalosios awake, this certainly did. The physician froze, the linen trembling in his hand. "A... a University? Leading a lecture? Me, Your Grace?"

"Why not?" Alpheo grunted. He jabbed a finger toward the gash on his brow, signaling the doctor to stop gawking and finish the stitch. "We waste too much potential importing scholars. I want medics who are prepared for the field, architects who can build for the future all instructed in yarzat. My greatest failing has been a lack of human resources. I think it’s time we grew our own. Don’t you think?"

Alpheo shifted his gaze from the stunned physician back to his son, a faint, genuine spark of ambition returning to his eyes.

"Your Grace... I don’t know if I am worthy of such an—"

The Prince snorted, a sharp, dismissive sound. "Spare me the games, Agalosios. We both know how this ends. I decide, you complain, and eventually, the building stands. Don’t we?"

"I suppose we do," the doctor answered, resigned to the inevitable but wearing a look of dawning wonder. "I thank you for the honor, I—"

But it seemed destiny had no intention of letting Agalosios finish a single sentence that day.

The heavy door to the physician’s office, a sanctuary they had retreated to so the servants could scrub the Prince’s shame from his study was smashed open.

The oak wood of the door slammed against the stone wall with a thunderous crack as Jasmine, the Princess of Yarzat, made her entrance.

"I came as soon as the word reached me. By the Gods, look at you," Jasmine breathed. She crossed the room moving straight to her husband’s side. She reached out, her fingers trembling as she brushed aside a lock of his hair to inspect the crimson line Agalosios was attempting to close.

Out of the corner of his eye, Alpheo saw the physician’s mouth twitch. Agalosios clearly had several professional opinions about a layperson interfering with a sterile field, but one look at the Princess’s face sent him retreating into the shadows of his stool, silent and obedient.

"I am sorry to be the source of your distress," Alpheo murmured, his voice weary but anchored. "Were you in the middle of court? I didn’t mean to pull you from your work."

"I was hearing petitioners," she replied, her hands finally steadying as she realized he wasn’t at death’s door.

"Not many, surely," Alpheo noted. "The numbers have dwindled since we empowered the local Curias." He knew the machinery of his state well; the administrative reforms had successfully diverted the petty squabbles of the peasantry to provincial courts, leaving only the complex webs of the nobility for the Crown to untangle.

"What was the nature of the dispute?" he asked, his mind latching onto the familiar comfort of governance, a welcome distraction from the hollow ache in his chest.

"A mess of borders," Jasmine said, though she looked puzzled that he wanted to discuss tax law while bleeding onto a doctor’s table. "A knight claimed a lord’s tax collectors raided his village. The lord argued the land fell within his ancient jurisdiction and the tax was merely a collection of arrears from years of the knight’s absentee."

"And how does it end?" Alpheo asked.

"I told you, I cut the session short the moment Vrosk’s messenger arrived."

"I don’t mean the session, Jasmine. I mean your verdict. How will you resolve the knot?"

"Oh." She paused, blinking at him, then took a breath to consider the pieces of the board. "In favor of the knight, I suspect."

" Why?"

"Because the records are a graveyard of contradictions," she explained, her eyes sharpening with the intellect that had made her his perfect match. "There is no clear proof of the lord’s jurisdiction, nor any history of taxes paid to his house. If I favor the lord, I send a signal to every greedy lord in the province that they can simply march into neighboring villages and claim ’arrears’ to expand their borders. It would invite a wildfire of border raids. Better to cut the lord’s hand now instead of adding more work to my desk."

Alpheo nodded.

Wise. You’re killing the infection at the stem before it can reach the root.

He leaned back slightly. "Perhaps it is time the Crown launched a formal census, a Great Survey of every fief and boundary."

"Are you truly going to discuss administrative reform now?" Jasmine asked, her voice filled with exasperation . She leaned in closer, her eyes scanning the edges of the gash. "How did this happen? Truly."

"Nothing to satisfy the bards, I’m afraid," Alpheo replied, his voice a low, steady thrum. "A simple lack of coordination. I fell. The stone floor was less forgiving than I anticipated while I was speaking with Basil."

Jasmine turned her gaze to her son, searching for the crack in the story. Basil met her eyes with a solemn, unblinking gravity that belonged to a man twice his age. He nodded slowly. "Father tells the truth, Mother. It was a nasty fall."

"Well," Jasmine sighed, the tension in her shoulders beginning to fray. "It would be a pathetic end for the Fox of Yarzat to be defeated by a rug, especially since half the people in the South are itching for the chance to gut you themselves."

"A comforting thought to carry into the night, to be sure," Alpheo said, a ghost of his old, dry wit flickering in his eyes.

Jasmine’s expression didn’t soften. She leaned back, her nose wrinkling slightly as the stagnant air of the room finally registered. "You reek of the cellar, dear."

Alpheo took a deep, shuddering breath. "I know. And I have decided to settle the tab. I am done with it . For good."

He watched her face, expecting skepticism. Instead, he saw a flicker of profound, heartbreaking relief. The sight of it was a fresh pang of pain in his chest. He hadn’t realized just how far he had drifted.

He felt Basil’s gaze on him, steady and expectant. The prince nodded. One secret had been purged; but one great, looming shadow remained.

"Agalosios," Alpheo called out, his voice regaining the authority of the throne.

"Yes, Your Grace?" the physician replied, his hands never ceasing their precise, rhythmic movement.

"Is it imperative that you finish this embroidery immediately, or can the patient be trusted to survive a delay?"

"I would strongly suggest we finish now, Your Grace. Five more minutes and the thread will be set."

"Proceed, then," Alpheo commanded. "And when you are finished, you are to leave. Inform the staff that this wing is closed. No one is to remain at their post except Vrosk. Clear the halls until further notice."

Agalosios paused, his needle hovering in the air. "Your Grace? The entire wing?"

"Finish your work and obey, " Alpheo said, the steel in his tone brokering no further inquiry.

The room fell into a clinical silence, broken only by the snip of scissors and the soft rustle of linen. When Agalosios was done, he offered a deep, lingering bow to the Prince and Princess before retreating into the hallway. Moments later, the heavy, rhythmic clatter of armor echoed through the door as the guards withdrew, followed by the definitive, echoing thud of the outer gates being barred.

"Alpheo?" Jasmine asked, her voice hushed, her eyes darting between her husband and her son. "What is this? What news could possibly be so grave that you would hollow out the palace?"

Alpheo let out a long, ragged sigh that seemed to carry the weight of a lifetime. He reached out and took her hand, his fingers cold but certain.

He had taken already a leap of faith, what was one more?

"Not news, Jasmine, but the truth.’’