Chapter 1433: Crowning feast(4)

He watched the boy spin the Herculian girl through the reel, his eyes narrowing as the candlelight caught the sharp, cocky grin on Basil’s face.His father’s grin.

The lad had his mother’s high, aristocratic cheekbones, but the stride, that swaggering, was pure sellsword, pure paternal.

The king felt a hint of pride making port in his chest.

He twirled the grand-daughter of his father’s vanquished enemy with all the effortless audacity of a man who had never tasted the mud of a retreat or the bile of a lost campaign.

Thirteen winters old and already dancing upon the ashes of dynasties without a single drop of ash on his velvet.

He had perhaps seen the metal of war firsthand, but it was one thing to witness it with little part in the over-all concotion, just a small cog int he whole machine, and another to be the one jerking the wenches of it to get a reaction..

One day he would be the one leading it.How would he fare then?

Would he one day trail through the mud ,a defeated king, his army lost in some battle, all the glory and heritage his father left him crashing down around him, taken piece by piece while being hunted down by horsemen eager for the kill?Or would he instead be the one doing all the hunting?

All those worry seemed so far-fetched as the king watched his boy danced.

Misia tossed her red head back, her laugh sharp and silver over the music. She was among the last unbroken branch of a tree Alpheo had personally brought the axe to, yet here she was, her small, ringed hand tucked into the palm of the conqueror’s get.

Miriah’s words hung in the warm, perfumed air between them, lingering heavier than the smoke of the frankincense he smell all the way during the procession.

The future need not follow the same anvil.

Alpheo turned the thought over in his mind. It was a pretty notion, the sort of pious dream highborn ladies stitched into silk cushions and hedge priests mumbled over their beads.

The idealistic tripe of fools.

Realms were never forged on pleasant songs. Blood called for blood, an eye demanded an eye, until every man in world was blind , except for a few chosen one.

Still, the sheer ruthlessness of the match had teeth.

The girl came from ancient, unblemished stock. Unlike himself, a lowborn bastard whose humble beginnings would remain a sneered-at stain on the house of Yarzat for generations, Misia carried the pure, blue blood of the old houses. His origin was a stain the realm would only swallow because twelve hundred legionary spears stood behind it, but bloodlines possessed an insidious power all their own.

For now, until her father managed to quicken her mother’s womb with a proper son, Misia remained the heir apparent to the fallen principality of Herculia. One day, she stood to inherit not merely the title, but the great mountain keeps, the deep iron vaults, and the ancient fealties that should have been hers, as they were bound to her lineage.

The statecraft was intoxicating in its simplicity.

If she remained her house’s heir, a marriage would mean Basil’s sons would reign as the undisputed masters of both Yarzat and Herculia. With a single exchange of rings, Alpheo could snuff out the embers of a dozen future rebellions before they ever caught spark. When he finally kicked the bucket and the ravens came for his carcass, the great Herculian houses, instead of rallying around a exiled claimant to butcher his boy.would be bound to defend the lad’s throne as their own.

That would leave only the greedy snakes of Oizen to watch, and a lone viper was far easier to pin with a spear than two.

Alpheo’s gaze drifted back across the crowded floor. The dance had ended, but Basil hadn’t scampered off to raid the roast pig or badger his uncle as he would usually do.

Instead, the boy was offering the Herculian girl a cup of something with an easy, boyish charm that had her hiding a flush behind her silk-draped sleeve. They were laughing, unburdened by anything that they could have inherited from their houses’ history.

Well, Alpheo thought, watching the girl swat playfully at the prince’s shoulder with her fan.

Why she even had one during winter was beyond him?But who cared?

He could certainly do far worse.

It was rare for marriage to align so neatly with a boy’s fancy. If the cub had to be shackled to a throne, he might as well take a bride whose smile didn’t sour the morning for the rest of his life.

It was a proposal worth thinking it over , indeed.

“It appears the pair of them are getting on well enough,” Lady Miriah murmured, her voice dripping with intention, just in case her earlier hints had been too delicate for a soldier’s ear.

Even her husband’s recent leg loss hadn’t cured her of her taste for politics.

Alpheo turned the prospect over in his mind. He would dissect it far more thoroughly in the cold, sober light of dawn. He lived by a simple rule: never make an important decision when wine was involved.

“It is a notion well worth weighing, my lady,” the King replied, his tone smooth, clearly respectful, and even more clearly noncommittal.

Miriah held his gaze for a long heartbeat before dipping her chin in quiet acquiescence. She had laid her wager on the table; the King had neither swept it away nor taken the bait.

A wise subject made their plea once and left it to breathe. To press the sovereign a second time in the same breath bordered on insolence.If it was accepted the king would write back. Nothing else was to be done.

When the music finally died, she offered a flawless curtsy and melted gracefully into the press of the court.

It was the first true measure Alpheo had taken of Arnold’s wife. She was sharp, composed, and possessed of enough steel to match her beauty. It made sense now why Arnold had nearly driven himself mad with despair when their girl was born under the shadow of bastardy, and their marriage undone with it, and why the prince who was not had wept when Alpheo personally squeezed the decree of legitimation out of the Pontifex, restoring the child’s rightful claim to Herculian royal blood.

Seeing a momentary gap in the swirling crowd of sycophants, Alpheo seized his chance. He slipped through the flank of the guard line like a shadow through a breach, collapsing back into his high seat before another eager baron could thrust a daughter into his arms.

He let out a long, ragged exhale of pure bliss. The sweet, agonizing relief of taking the weight off his bruised, throbbing soles was almost divine.

He was so utterly enchanted by the simple miracle of sitting down that he didn’t even scowl when a dazzling figure in cloth-of-gold and turquoise silk sauntered up the dais steps.

“Alpheo!” Merelao’s voice cut through the clamor, as graceful and bright as the ring of silver. “A magnificent triumph! I confess, I feared Yarzat’s provincial charms might grow tedious during the two moons I intend to grace your halls, but you have put my anxieties to shame.”

The Kakunian prince took a lazy sip from a flagon of pear cider, a new product of theirs, his golden eyes sparkling with predatory amusement. “I couldn’t help but notice you cornering that auburn-haired swan on the floor. A stroke of fortune that our dear Queen was off walking from the hall, lest she mistake your diplomatic maneuvers for a sudden appetite for an union.”

Alpheo gave him a flat, weary stare. “I have never given my wife cause to doubt my respect for our marriage. And that ‘swan’ is the lady-wife of Lord Arnold. The last thing I intend is to dishonor a man who lost a limb under my standard by ogling his hearth.”

“Ah, but scatter enough little seeds on the wind, my friend, and soon enough you find yourself standing in a forest.”

Alpheo had neither the wit nor the patience to untangle Kakunian poetry. “You watched us long enough. Did you have a point?”

“You spoke at unusual length,” Merelao countered lightly, leaning against the arm of a nearby chair with effortless poise.

“She made a proposal,” the King grunted, scanning the tables below. Basil was gone again, likely hunting capons. “A betrothal between my boy and her daughter.”

Merelao arched a delicate, golden brow. “A formal match? Not the sort of union I was jesting about. And did you take it?”

“I’m turning it in my head. There is iron in the idea.”

“A pity!” the Kakunian sighed with mock tragedy, clutching his chest. “Had the gods blessed me with a daughter sooner, I would have had the contract written and the boy under lock and key before dawn. I would suffer no shame in calling your fierce little wolf my goodson. But alas, what good is dreaming of the carriage when the stables are empty?Maybe in a generation your son’s get may be with my own.”

Alpheo caught the opening and drove straight through it. “Speaking of weddings… what ever became of that highborn flower you had tucked away during the campaign? You could hardly be taken off from her”

A subtle shadow flickered across Merelao’s sculpted face, there and gone in the space of a heartbeat, instantly smothered behind an easy, aristocratic shrug.

“Recalled by her brother,” he murmured, swirling the cider in his cup. “The boy had grand notions of a swift ceremony and a hefty dowry. I have not yet found the time to make up my mind.Though I am thinking it over.”

“Is that so?” Alpheo asked, leaning forward, suddendly interest “And when do you suppose you’ll find the time?”

Merelao’s lips curved.

“Why, the moment I have my uncle’s severed head to present on the silver platter to her. We are people of passion we Kakunians” A grin ”As I am sure you already noticed. Our maidens delight in severed head and shun pretty flowers. Has there ever been a more lively of people?”