Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 809

Chapter 809: Second session(5)

Zayneth rose from his seat as if his whole life was dedicated to that very moment, he could feel that instant was the peak his prince had waited for his entire reign.

With the corner of his eyes he studied the chamber, catching the flicker of unease spreading across the envoys’ faces.

Sorza, foolish and reckless though he was, had unknowingly cracked the surface of Alpheo’s armor. And in that crack, Zayneth saw an opening wide enough to wedge and nail his prince’s ambitions. Whether Sorza lost his mines, his title, even his very life, it mattered little. Oizen’s survival was irrelevant.

What mattered was the seed Sorza had planted: fear. Fear of Yarzat’s growing shadow.

Now all Zayneth needed was to stir that fear into a storm. If he could turn that brook into a river, the river would swell into a flood, and from that flood would rise the coalition he dreamed of. Not merely against Yarzat, but a force under Habadia’s banner, from there he would have something to work with.

He cared nothing for the fate of Oizen, save as tinder to spark the blaze. His true obstacle was not Yarzat’s steel, but the cold, suspicious stares that Habadia received from these foreign princes. Yet if Alpheo could be painted as the greater danger, then distrust could be forgotten in the face of common peril.

And once Habadia led them to war… then, at last, Zayneth would have the stage to pursue the crown of his own ambition.

But for now, the dream lay waiting. It was his task to give it flesh.

He lifted his hands from his cloth and spread them wide,his eyes pointing at the Icarus soaring in the room.

It was his job to bring him down.

“You have heard it all, noble sirs!” he cried, every syllable charged with theatrical fire. His finger darted toward Alpheo, not pointing so much as accusing. “What stands before us is a man who sees existence through but a single lens,force. A man who speaks only the language of the sword. Tell me, is such a man fit to share this chamber with? To share peace with?”

His words struck like arrows, and he saw the ripple they caused. Yes, they were listening.

“The Prince of Herculia,” Zayneth pressed on “learned this truth too late. He thought himself safe, until this very man devoured him whole. And what became of Herculia, you all remember. Its crown, gone.

Its dynasty, ground to dust, though it had endured for a hundred years. A century of blood and honor, ended in the space of a single campaign.”

Alpheo’s eyes narrowed in dawning realization, his confusion melting into the cold recognition of what was happening. But recognition came too late. The trap was already sprung.

“Any other man might have been sated with such triumph,” Zayneth continued, his voice swelling with righteous fury, “but not this one! Not Alpheo. His hunger knows no measure. His stomach is bottomless, his thirst unquenchable. His victories are not enough, each taste of conquest only sharpens his craving for more. Look at him!”

His hand swept toward Alpheo, but his eyes roved the envoys, pulling them in, ensnaring them.

“How long?” he thundered, voice echoing in the still air. “How long before he devours all that stands before him? Today it is Oizen. Tomorrow… who? Who among you dares believe you are safe? Who dares wager that when the mines are ash in his pockets, his eyes will not turn to your lands, your crowns, your people?”

He leaned forward now, his gaze flicking between each man, hammering the nail deeper. “Do you think yourselves exempt? Do you think his appetite can be quenched by gold alone? Look into his eyes and tell me, do you see the eyes of a prince? Or do you see the maw of a beast that feeds only on fire and ruin?”

Sorza had opened the wound. Zayneth would pour salt into it until the whole table smelled It.

Alpheo could not let the words coil tighter around him. He felt as though his wings of wax had begun to melt, the abyss yawning beneath his feet. His voice broke through the silence.

He had to say something.

“The next one,” Alpheo declared, “will be no one. I have already said it, and I say it again: I will swear the most sacred oath never to take up arms in an offensive war. By my name and by the gods, I swear it.

There is no reason to fear me.”

His eyes darted across the chamber, searching for understanding, for even the smallest flicker of belief. “Do not let yourselves be swayed by honeyed words dripping from poisoned lips.

Ask yourselves what is more dangerous? The man who has done nothing but defend himself at every turn from those who sought to destroy him? Or the one who so loudly insists that danger lies here, weaving accusations only he profits from? Why is it he shouts so fiercely, if not to hide his own intent?Was it not him that barely three years ago annexed half of Hashandeia?”

But as his words fell into the air, he saw the truth. Doubt still glimmered in their eyes, untouched by his assurances. Worse still, he saw Zayneth poised, lips curled, ready to strike. And then the blow fell.

The Habadian envoy rose, his expression sharp with rehearsed precision. “If what you say is true, and that you strive for peacce” he pressed, his voice heavy with accusation, “then prove it. Relinquish the city of Freusen. Keep the rest, but return a part of which was never yours. If you refuse, how can you claim innocence? How can we believe your oath?”

The silence that followed was unbearable. Alpheo felt the weight of every gaze pressing upon him, the gleam of eagerness in Sorza’s eyes, savoring the prospect of his mines returned; the hard, unblinking stare of the Habadian envoy, daring him to falter; the faint, searching looks of the others, slowly drifting, step by step, into Zayneth’s snare.

Alpheo’s jaw clenched. He could feel the trap closing. “I want peace….but not without the mine,” he said at last, voice like stone ground beneath iron.

He knew it was war.

Zayneth did not miss a heartbeat. Like a predator striking in the instant of weakness, he pounced. His voice rang sharp across the chamber.

“Then we have our answer!” he cried, spreading his arms as though pronouncing judgment. “He swears by his gods, and yet when tested, he refuses. He promises peace, yet clings to conquest like a miser clutches gold. My prince seeks only to see this war ended, yet if His Grace of Yarzat has no taste for peace, then peace cannot be had with him in charge.”

He turned sharply to the envoys, his tone swelling with triumph. “And so, by the very sword he worships, reason shall be brought! By my prince’s command, let it be known: His Grace Nibadur, Prince of Habadia, pledges his support to Oizen if peace is not sought by day’s end!”

Gasps and murmurs rippled through the hall like a gust of cold wind, the first sword had been struck into the lake.

Zayneth wasted no time to add more.

He pivoted with theatrical precision, his gaze locking onto the Ezvanian envoy. “And what says Ezvania?” he demanded, his voice both a challenge and an invitation. “Shall your prince stand idle while a beast sharpens his claws? Or shall he march with honor at the side of Habadia and Oizen, to preserve the balance of the world?”

“Ezvania shall ride behind,” soon came the words of the prince that had no choice but to do Nibadur’s wills.

Zayneth did not move, did not even blink. His eyes glimmered with barely contained triumph, elation surging like fire through his chest.

His heart pounded like a war drum, louder and louder.

He had them.

Slowly, hungrily, he turned his gaze toward the others. Kakunia had already been bound by bargain, and with him, surely Sharjaan and Reshania would follow in hope of getting a piece of the conquest. Then Nibadur’s dream would finally be born: the coalition Nibadur had dreamed . He could almost taste it, the sweet words forming on their lips.

But the words never came.

What answered him instead was no note of consent, but a stone hurled straight into the net he had cast, unraveling the whole thread.

“Is this truly how peace is made in the South?”

The voice was youthful, clear, by all means it should have been inconsequential None had heard it until now, and yet when it rang, it was heard.

Zayneth’s elation faltered. Slowly, stiffly, he turned his head to meet the eyes of the boy who had broken his triumph.

“Is there no man here with courage enough to answer an emperor’s question?” Mesha’s voice rose, his tone swelling with unexpected majesty. In that moment, he did not sound like the boy Alpheo had once dismissed, he sounded like a emperor born during the hard time of crisis, a voice that might as well have been carried on the wings of angels for Alpheo.

“Y-Your Majesty—” Zayneth stammered, desperate to stem the ruin of his work.

But Mesha cut him down with a single command. “You may not speak to me.” His words were ice. “I had high expectations of your prince, when first I heard he had summoned us here for the noble aim of restoring peace. And now? What remains of that respect? Scraps?”

He shook his head, his voice swelling with scorn. “Not even that. Since I have come here, I have heard nothing but truth from the lips of Yarzat’s prince, and nothing but lies from Oizen’s. And what do I see? A hall full of lords and princes who would stone a man, not for his crimes, but for daring to ask that his pain be lifted after he rose above the men who wanted him bad!”

His arm swept across the chamber, eyes burning as they fell upon each envoy in turn. “Shame upon the House of Habadia. Shame upon the House of Oizen. For such barbarity, for such cowardice, I can grant you no other name or calls but that of disgrace.”

The tent was hushed, the air heavy, the silence cut only by his words.

“Where is clarity? Where is justice? Where is honor?” His voice thundered now, the words crashing like waves against a cliff. “Is there no man among you who can tell right from wrong? You speak of honor as if it were your inheritance, yet when tested, you barter it away for coalitions and petty spoils. You threaten a man with violence because he will not bow to your greed. And this you call justice?”

For a moment his voice faltered, softened into a note of sorrow, but it rang no less deeply. “How low has the South fallen, that this is the standard of its princes? Is honor dead? If it is, then so be it,but if no man here will preserve its last breath, then the task shall fall to me.”

He drew himself tall, chest swelling, his chin high, as though the weight of an empire rested on his shoulders. And when he spoke again, his voice was fire.

“The banner of Ezvania may fall behind that of Habadia and Oizen, but behind the falcon shall rises the eagle . So let the lines be drawn here, before every man in this hall. Friends and foes alike, show yourselves.

For now there is one who will fight for what is right, and he hopes that by his leads other will follow that example.”

The hall shuddered with the silence that followed. Mesha’s gaze, sharp as a spear, turned upon the remaining envoys, one by one, pinning them beneath his youth and yet his majesty.

“And now,” he said, voice lowered but carrying with an iron weight ready to strike “those who have not spoken where do you stand? On which side shall your names be written? I have cast my stones where I saw it most fit, now we wait for yours.

But remember above all, that honor shall be his own reward at day’s end.”