Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 965: Back home(2)

If there was to be any true sanctuary within the unrelenting bowels of this hard world, if a man with blood perpetually under his fingernails could ever claim a moment of grace,Alpheo believed it would look exactly like this.

The sweet, honeyed drift of jasmine clashing gently with the earthy aroma of mown grass drifted to the prince’s nostrils. His left arm was intertwined with hers ,together, they stood on the stone terrace, watching the sight that made every scar on his body feel like a small price to pay for the blessing he was having.

Their children played without a care in the world in the sun-drenched garden. Alpheo’s gaze followed Basil, who had just relented to yet another of his sister’s endless demands. With a dramatic sigh of feigned annoyance, the boy turned toward a sprawling oak, pressing his forehead against the rough bark.

"One. Two. Three. Four," Basil’s voice rang out, rhythmic and clear.

Rosalind, barely three years old and a whirlwind of black curls, drifted away toward the shrubbery at the count of three. Basil, ever like the father perhaps too much, peeked over his shoulder at the count of five. He caught a clear glimpse of his sister’s bright dress disappearing behind a flowered hurdle.

Alpheo felt a small, genuine chuckle vibrate in his chest, mirrored by the soft laugh from Jasmine beside him. They watched in conspiratorial silence as Basil made a grand, theatrical show of searching in the wrong direction, doubling back with a sudden burst of speed to leap over the hurdle and catch Rosalind by the armpits. Her high-pitched giggles erupted like birdsong, filling the garden with a sound so pure it seemed to scrub the remaining soot of war from the air.

This was the calm after a decade of storms.

The peace was reinvigorating, a silent sermon that reminded Alpheo exactly why he had waded through the mud , the madness and the horror of the Romelian campaign. The laughter of his children did more for his weary soul than ten thousand men cheering his name across a field of corpses and cannibals ever could.

If Alpheo could confront his younger self, that arrogant, hollow youth who believed life was merely a game of domination and submission, he would have laughed at the boy with the profound, heavy pity that only age and experience can provide. He had spent so long in the darkness that he had forgotten the sun could feel this warm on his skin.

Yet, a shadow lingered at the edge of his vision. It pained him that such a simple, divine delight had never reached Egil. His friend’s soul had been too unruly, too jagged to ever find rest in the quiet blessing of a new life.

That man’s legacy now rested on Alpheo’s shoulders in the form of Urul, the only legitimate son Egil had left to the world. Alpheo didn’t know if Egil had ever truly loved the boy; his behavior after the child’s birth had remained as reckless and detached as it had been before. But for Alpheo, the duty was sacred.

Perhaps the knowledge that he held one of the last remaining traces of Egil was the only thing that kept the Prince from spiraling down further than he already was.

He felt the warm weight of Jasmine’s hand settling against the small of his back, her palm tracing a slow, rhythmic circle that seemed to pull the tension from his spine. She leaned in, her gaze softening as she took in the dark, bruised hollows beneath his eyes

"How is it," she whispered, her voice like silk against the afternoon breeze, "to lay eyes on the garden after so long?"

"Liberating," Alpheo admitted. "I didn’t allow myself the luxury of thinking about it these last months. Now that it’s here, right in front of me... I realize I’ve been starving for it. Especially the flowers."

"Even more than us?" she asked, her tone shifting to a haughty, playful challenge, though her eyes remained tender.

Alpheo allowed a faint, tired smirk to ghost across his lips. "A different type of flower, I’d say. In a different type of garden."

"Well, you’ll be happy to know a new one is already blooming," she said, her smile widening as she watched Rosalind finally break free from Basil’s clutches and dash toward a cluster of butterflies.

"What?" Alpheo’s eyes dropped instinctively to her stomach, his heart skipping a beat.

Jasmine laughed and pushed his face away with a gentle palm. "Not me, you imbecile! Maraya."

Alpheo’s eyes widened, the fog of war-weariness lifting for a moment of pure shock. "Since when?"

"Three months. She’s beginning to show, though she hides it well under those heavy furs; she is not used to winter."

"Well, I’ll be damned," Alpheo breathed, a genuine spark of excitement in his voice. "I didn’t know Jarza still had it in him. How in the world did that man keep such a secret from me?"

"He didn’t," Jasmine explained, reaching out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Because he doesn’t know. It’s to be a surprise; she’s going to tell him the moment they are reunited."

"Not even Torghan knows?" Alpheo asked, amazed that the tribe’s gossip network hadn’t caught wind of it.

"Not even him. Maraya wanted this for her husband alone."

"He will be overjoyed to learn he is an uncle," Alpheo said, his mind momentarily skipping over the labyrinth of political implications. A Voghondai child born into the upper echelons of his court would firmly anchor the tribe to the southern nobility, a necessary bridge, given how many landed lords still looked askance at the "semi-heretics" settled on the eastern coast.

It brought him a profound, quiet relief to realize that his old circle of exiles had finally struck deep roots in this soil. Egil had left Urul; Jarza had a child on the way; even Asag was raising two daughters in the safety of the capital. Only Clio and Laedio remained without heirs, the former buried under the crushing weight of Alpheo’s resettlement projects for the industries, and the latter preferring the company of lovers and a scattered brood of bastards whom he, surprisingly, treated with far more tenderness than Egil ever had.

The laughter from the garden seemed to fade into the background as a sudden, heavy silence fell between them. Alpheo was too lost in his thoughts to notice the shift until Jasmine’s hand stopped its circling and gripped the fabric of his tunic.

"You have been missed, Alpheo," she said, her voice dropping the playful edge she had before. "More than you realize."

"Is that so?" he asked, trying to keep his tone light.

"I am not joking," she replied, her eyes searching his, filled with a sudden, raw intensity. "We were worried. Terrified. Basil more than anyone. It didn’t help, the state you were in when you finally rode through those gates."

Alpheo looked at his son, currently letting Rosalind "win" a wrestling match on the grass, and felt a sharp pang of guilt.

"Did I seem so weary?" he tried with a hollow jest, the words feeling like brittle dry leaves in his mouth.

He watched the joke fail, his stomach sinking as it was met with a heavy, suffocating silence. He didn’t realize that it wasn’t the clumsy humor that had stilled her heart; it was the smell clinging to his cloth.

One that she deigned not to question.

"Would you like to talk about it... about him?" Jasmine asked suddenly.

"I..."

Alpheo stopped.

It’s not your fault, Prince.

I’m sorry. Don’t tell mother, please.

The only thing worth doing in the face of death is to smile and laugh.

He swallowed hard, the feigned serenity he had managed to construct over the last hour shattering completely. The calm evaporated, leaving only what he truly had.

"There isn’t much to talk about," he said, his voice a flat, dead rasp. "He is dead. And even if there were more to the tale... I don’t think I have the stomach to tell it."

Jasmine flinched, cursing her own tongue. She saw the immediate, devastating consequence of her prying: the warmth she had just managed to coax back into his eyes vanished, replaced by the cold stare of the campaigner. She had wanted to offer him a bridge, but she had only succeeded in reminding him of the abyss.

"It taught me better, however," Alpheo said abruptly.

His gaze drifted away from the golden sunlight dancing on his children and settled on the cold, indifferent dirt beneath their feet. "What happened... it happened because I was not ready. I allowed myself to be taken by surprise, and I...he was forced to pay for my negligence in blood. He paid that price for me, and I have learned the lesson he bought with his life."

He turned to his wife then, finally allowing the mask to slip. For the first time, Jasmine saw the true state of the man who had returned to her.

"With his sacrifice, Egil bought us precious years," he whispered, his eyes burning with a dark, terrifying intensity. "Years that I will use to sharpen our teeth. I know you have worried, Jasmine, but I will make this world better for our children, I swear it. I have taken the measure of the jackals surrounding us. I know exactly what they desire, and I am preparing a welcome they will never forget."

He took her hands in his, his grip desperate and iron-hard.

"I will not be taken off guard again. Not by the North, not by the South, not by the east or the fucking west. Never again."