Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 873

Capítulo 873: Start of the end(1)

There was a time when the second Prince had been a statue of beauty, as if carved by She Who Brings Mercy and Love herself. Every house in the eastern provinces had once whispered his name, their daughters or sons boasting of a night under his gaze. His beauty had been a weapon that could struck all.

That splendor was gone.

Now, Mavius sat alone among the relics of his vanished charm, a cup of red wine trembling in his scarred hand. The mirrors of the chamber had been shrouded long ago; he could not stand to see what looked back. Still, he needed no reflection to know the truth. He saw it in the way courtiers flinched, in how servants found reasons to bow from afar, in the silence that followed wherever he went.

He lifted the cup to his lips. The wine was bitter, everything was bitter. Was this the life he had clawed for? The throne he had dreamed of for half a lifetime had become a cage of gold and shadows. He no longer wanted to rule; he only wanted to own what had once been promised him. Too much blood, too much pride, too much of himself had been spent to turn back now, at this moment it was that he wanted it as much as he thought he deserved it.

His gaze drifted across the chamber and caught on a maid dusting the far desk. Nothing special, plain hands, plain hair, plain face. Yet even that simplicity burned his eyes with a cruel nostalgia. Once, he would not have noticed her at all. Now, she was a reminder of what fled from him: beauty, desire.

Her eyes met his for an instant, and he saw the spark of fear before she quickly bowed her head. That brief flinch struck deeper than any dagger. He laughed, though it came out more like a cough

”What is your name?” Mavius asked as she approached the maid who promptly shivered when his attention was on her.

“M-Martha, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“Martha,” he repeated, rolling the name across his tongue as if it were a memory he could almost taste. “A beautiful name… for a not-so-beautiful flower.” He tilted his head, studying her like an insect pinned beneath glass. “You are a flower, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty,” she whispered, voice trembling.

“Good,” he said. “I would hate to think I had plucked one already wilted.”

He stepped closer. His mask caught the light of the sun, half-hiding the ruin beneath. Beneath the rim, blackened flesh peeked out where the skin had died but refused to fall away. The air around him smelled faintly of metal and smoke. He saw her shiver and felt, for the briefest instant, a flicker of pain pass through him.

At least she still felt something when she looked at him.

”Do I frighten you?” he asked quietly, rising from his chair. His voice was hoarse, dragging like gravel over stone. “Am I so monstrous that even the lowborn tremble?”

The maid froze, not daring to look up. “N-no,, Your Imperial Majesty.”

He smiled, an ugly, thin thing. “No? Then why do you shake?”

Her lips parted, but no sound came. Mavius leaned closer. He stopped just short of her shadow, the scent of wine still on his breath

The maid made a small sound, a stifled sob, maybe, and hurriedly bowed lower.

“Once,” he murmured, half to himself, “they called me the Flower Prince. I would walk into a hall and laughter would bloom. Now…” He raised one gloved hand, staring at the seams of the leather. Slowly, he peeled it away.

The hand beneath was a corpse’s hand,skin marbled with black and grey, the veins dark as ink. Where his fingers bent, the joints cracked faintly. He turned it over in the light like a relic. “Once, these fingers wrote sonnets. Played the lute. They made noble daughters sigh.” His tone turned almost wistful. “Do you think they still could?”

Martha’s breath came in short, frightened gasps. He could see it now, how pale she’d gone, how her knees trembled. The sight made his stomach twist. Not in pleasure, not exactly. In something sharper. Loneliness, perhaps.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

She did, briefly, and in her eyes he saw his reflection as he took off the mask: the ruin, the mask, the monster. It was too much. Her hands flew to her mouth as she turned aside and retched onto the marble floor.

For a moment, he simply stared at her. Then, softly, almost tenderly, he laughed.

“Ah,” he said, voice thin and distant. “So that is my face now. Your stomach speaks the truth.”

She dropped to her knees, stammering apologies through tears. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, please, I did not mean—”

He waved a hand, still staring at it.

“Countless women once blessed this fingers from all lips ” Mavius murmured,”Will you bless them, too?Oh unfair maiden?A kiss is all it needs”

Martha’s lips, stained with puke, quivered. Her whole body trembled as she reached forward.

Her face drew closer, then faltered. Her stomach lurched, and she gagged once her lips touched the foul meat, doubling over as the contents of her stomach splattered across the floor between them.

Evidently she was not done at the first and once more the prince was told the truth.

For a heartbeat, silence.

“Ah,” he said softly, “there it is again. The truth.”

He knelt beside her. One gloved hand caught her chin and lifted her face. His grip was steady, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw as if examining a rare and pitiful artifact. Her eyes were red, wide, wet. His, behind the iron mask, once more, covered his face.

“Martha,” he whispered, voice hoarse as he leaned closer. “Martha.” He said it again, and again, almost as if tasting the sound.

His other hand moved to her hair, letting the brown strands slip through his fingers like silk turned to ash. “Such softness,” he muttered. “And still, you look away from me…Am I to feel offended by that?”

A knock at the door was what saved her. For a heartbeat the scrape of wood and the quick intake of breath filled the space. Mavius did not loosen his grip at once; only when the voice beyond the door named the visitor did he let the maid fall away like a rag.

“It is Lord Landoff, Your Imperial Majesty. May I enter?”

The door eased inward at Mavius’s assent. Lord Landoff stepped in with the polite, practiced gait of men who spent their lives turning bad news into diplomacy. He spared the trembling servant nothing more than a passing glance then let his eyes drop to the two small wet stains mottling the marble floor.

Mavius finally released her. “Clean it up,” he said, the words flat, a command without heat. “And be gone.”

The woman moved as if struck , swift as a shadow, gone before a thought had time to form. Lord Landoff watched her go, then fixed his son with a look that did not pretend the matter had not unsettled him. It sat on his face like a bruise.

He had seen enough rot to know what it meant. The Emperor had been falling apart for months; now the decline was public. Landoff understood, with an unpleasant certainty, that every visible fissure weakened them further

“You have disturbed me and yet do not speak,” Mavius said, fingers fussing at the corner of his handkerchief as he wiped a smear of pukes from his fingers

Landoff stepped over the damp patch without comment, neither for the state of the room neither for how he had found Mavius. Who knows how it would have gone if he had come minutes later?It was bad enough that bad rumors of magic sorrounded the Imperator, they didn’t need to fan the flame by adding voices of rape, even of lowly maids.

He kept his voice steady, practiced giving none of the inner turmoil he had.. “Many things, sire. News from the provinces, reports from the border outposts, word of troop movements. We thought it prudent you hear it at once.”

“Pray, then,” Mavius said, his tone brittle porcelain. He sat back in his chair and let the wine hang untouched.

Landoff swallowed. “Your younger brother has moved,” he said finally. “He has sent summons to the lords; they are mobilizing. We cannot expect the same leeway we had before, surprise are no longer one of our cards. Preparations have leaked.As soon as our troops march forward we will be met with an immediate response.

It would seem that our preparation have been far too loud and somehow the voice moved south to the boy.”

Mavius’s hand stilled. The mask hid the smallest twitch in the muscles; only those nearest could have read it. After all the mask meant that his face was hidden at all time and for most , the Emperor remained a statue of black and white, unchanged.

“There are more,” he went on. “It would seems that the words of your brother’s infatuation are true.

The Prince of Yarzat has answered Mesha’s call. Their banners move to aid him. They will reach the border within days if their speed holds. We do not know of their numbers, but it seems that the reinforcement they will bring will be heavy.”

Landoff watched for the sign that his news had landed. Mavius said nothing, not in voice. He simply picked at the ragged edge of his handkerchief, as if the world could be tidied by cloth and gesture and started to wipe at his finger once more and repeatedly, even though they were already clean.