Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Talek's spine quivered with every jolt of the carriage as it trundled along the uneven road toward the capital. The last he'd heard from the coachman, they were close, just a few more road until the towers would rise into view.

He looked down at his tunic, rich silk dyed deep green, the most refined piece in his possession. A thread had come loose near the cuff. Frowning, he caught it between thumb and forefinger, and slowly began to pull. The strand unwound itself like a vein unraveling beneath skin, long and stubborn.

He wrapped the thread around his index finger, then tightened it again and again, applying pressure until it bit into the flesh.

Gods how bored he was...

Finally, with a sharp twist, it snapped and his hand shot forward with the motion, slamming hard against the carriage wall.

That made him yelp. His hand spasmed, pain shooting up through the bridge of his palm to his wrist.

He winced and cradled the throbbing hand against his chest, fingers trembling.

The current clothing he wore had belonged to his father's killer. Taken by right of conquest, or so the law would call it.

He'd debated for days over what to wear to answer the prince's summons. Armor would have made a statement, but it felt presumptuous to arrive in steel before the man who had given him everything he had left. So he had settled on dignity

Still, the unease inside him coiled tight. Why now? What does he want with me?

He stared out the window, where the treetops began to thin. The sky was overcast, and the wind made the glass shudder in its frame.

Almost there.

"Are you nervous?"

The voice startled Talek. It was small, soft, barely audible over the wheels crunching gravel.

He turned to see the girl seated across from him. She couldn't have been more than nine. Her blonde hair was tightly braided, the plaits trailing neatly down the nape of her neck. Her posture was straight, as if she'd been taught young that children must earn the right to take up space, though she wasn't as she was as rough as the day she entered his house.

She looked up at him with wide eyes and pale...

Talek blinked once, then frowned. "My Lord," he said, the correction coming harder than he'd intended. His voice cracked sharp against the close air of the carriage, surprising even himself.

Her eyes widened. She looked down, quickly bowing her head as her hands clutched at her skirts. "I'm sorry, my Lord," she whispered.

The faint, dry rasp in her voice surprised him, just like the way her chin quivered ever so slightly as she spoke.

Gods, he thought bitterly, is this what I've become? Correcting a child like a tyrant? When she's the last thread left from the man who gave me my name?

Shame crept in, hot, raw, too familiar. Worse than when he'd been caught tangled in bedsheets with his first lover. At least then, the guilt had come with laughter.

This… this was a cold ache that took hold in his ribs and made it hard to meet her eyes.

He was disgusted by himself; there was no way to say it or circle around it.

He was a disgusting man.

He thought of his father then, and his chest tightened. What would he have said if he saw his son snapping at the last kindness he had left in the world?

The girl slowly raised her head. Her eyes met his for only a second before she looked away, twisting a strand of braid between her fingers.

"You… you do the same thing," she said quietly.

Talek blinked. "What?"

She glanced at his hands. "When you're thinking… or nervous. He used to do it too. Lord Robert. He'd bite his fingernail when something troubled him. Not all the time, but…"

Her voice trailed off, but her meaning lingered in the air.

Talek looked down and sure enough, his thumbnail was pressed between his teeth. He hadn't even noticed. Slowly, as if caught in some guilty act, he lowered his hand and studied the faint teeth-marks along the edge.

A strange warmth bloomed in his chest. Not joy, exactly. Not grief either. Something quieter, softer, a fragile sense of connection.

His voice softened, hesitant for the first time in their conversation.

"…Did my father speak to you often, Aina?"

The name felt strange on his tongue. He realized it was the first time he'd ever used it.

Aina nodded, though she kept her eyes lowered. "Not much, at first. He didn't speak at all the first few nights. But as the days passed…" Her voice grew quieter, more reflective. "He changed. By the final weeks, he spoke to me every night."

A pang of something cold and bitter twisted through Talek's stomach. Envy. Resentment. Regret. They came back once again.

He pushed it aside with a breath.

"What did he speak about?" he asked.

"Everything that passed through his mind," she said softly. Then, catching herself, she added quickly, "My Lord."

He ignored the formality this time. "Define everything."

Her face brightened just a little, as though relieved by the conversation, the first one they had shared that wasn't rigid with rules. "At first he would just tell me about his day. Who visited, what the birds sounded like outside. But then…" she shrugged lightly. "He started talking about his past. His childhood. What he liked, what he hated. He would ramble sometimes. Often. Sometimes he even joked."

Talek gave a quiet, almost imperceptible smile.

"Did he speak about Alp—about the Prince?" he asked, the correction coming just in time.

Aina hesitated, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve. "Yes," she said, cautiously. "He did. He… he hated him, My Lord. He spoke many ills of him."

That, Talek had expected. His father's loathing of Alpheo had been carved deep for most of his latter life.

But what came next surprised him.

"But… when I met the Prince," she continued, voice gentler now, "I didn't see those things in him. He's a strange man, My Lord. Not cruel like I imagined. He asked about your father. He really listened when I spoke of him. Especially about his final days, and what he said."

Talek's brow furrowed. "What did he want to know?"

"He asked how he acted. What made him proud. He didn't mock him, My Lord. He looked… sorry. Like he'd lost something, too." She paused, then added, "He's the one who sent me to you. Said your father would've wanted it."

Talek was quiet for a long time.

Of course, Robert had spoken ill of Alpheo. But something must've shifted in his heart before the end. Perhaps he had seen what Talek now understood.

The prince had after all, honored Robert's death by protecting the last thing he had left behind.

Wasn't that a sign of gallantry and honor?Why would he have done that if they two had not made peace?

And perhaps… perhaps his father had come to understand the cost of his own rebellion and his wrongdoing in it.

He must have found peace at the end. Made his reckoning. Handed over Aina and his last words, not as spoils of defeat, but as a final attempt at redemption.

Why else would he do any of those things if he did not come to see the truth?

Talek's jaw tightened, but not from anger. Something heavier stirred in his chest. A sad, quiet respect.

He found his path again. Even if only at the very end.

Could he say the same of himself?

The answer was as sad as the question.

Talek shifted slightly in his seat, the wood beneath him creaking with the movement. The light sway of the carriage continued as the wheels rolled steadily over the unpaveed road. He glanced at Aina again, so small, sitting properly despite the bumping of the carriage, her hands folded in her lap like she had been taught to be still her whole life.

He hesitated, then asked, voice lower than before, almost afraid of the answer:

"…Did my father ever speak of me?"

Aina looked up at him slowly. Their eyes met for a heartbeat, and for a moment she didn't speak. Then, softly, she nodded.

A warmth bloomed in Talek's chest so sudden and pure he nearly gasped. His heart beat louder, fuller, as if the answer had reached deep inside the hollowness he had carried for so long.

"Yes, my lord," Aina said gently. "He did."

He waited, almost unable to breathe.

"He didn't speak of you often at first," she continued. "But as the days passed, you came up more and more. He would talk about you as a boy… and sometimes about what he had hoped for you. He remembered things you did when you were little. Laughed at them. Smiled."

Talek felt his throat tighten. He looked away briefly, blinking hard at the sudden sting behind his eyes. The image of his father, severe, proud, looming, was not one that ever softened in his memory. But to imagine him smiling as he spoke about his son...

"But," Aina added, with hesitation, "even when he remembered happy things, he still looked sad by the end. Like… like he was holding something he had already lost."

It was enough.

The carriage rocked gently as they rode on, the city's walls just beginning to pierce the horizon in the distance.

Talek didn't know it yet, but this moment, this quiet ride, this girl, this memory, was a turning point. Once again, the course of his life would bend around the will of one man. The same man who had taken everything from him and would now give him a new life.

But for now,ignorant of that, he only leaned back into his seat, the edges of his mouth lifting in a quiet, broken smile.

''Talk to me'' he ordered. "Whatever you want,about father or anything else, just...keep talking.''

And she did, of course, surprised by the words, but still obeying them.

The sounds were soft as they accompanied the two on their way to the city.