Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 640: Grand Opening(2)

When Alpheo had first spoken of his intention to launch a reprisal campaign against the Herculeians, Jasmine had thought little of it in the moment. Not out of indifference—never that—but rather out of respect for the quiet, brutal clarity of her husband’s mind. There was little use, after all, in a goat telling a tiger how to hunt.

From the earliest days of their union, she had understood the vast difference between them in the realm of warfare.

So they had come to an agreement, verbal but sacred. Alpheo would hold absolute command over the sword—the armies, the marshals, the campaigns. Jasmine, in turn, would command the court—she would endure the nobles, soothe their bruised egos, manipulate the factions, and receive the endless stream of emissaries and petty feuds that Alpheo had never had the patience for.

A blessed division of labor, for all involved, happy for all party as it would turn out she was pretty good in dealing with the newly empowered Crown Faction, to which many new nobles aligned to in recent years..

And yet... something about this plan had been gnawing at her. A quiet thing, persistent and shapeless. Like a draft in a locked room.

She took a breath as they turned along a hedge of rosemary, then spoke with measured caution, laying down each word like a stone in a wall she could retreat behind, should it prove unnecessary.

"I imagine most in the realm—at least those who matter—know full well who commands the reins of our armies," she began, voice calm but edged with something more intimate than protocol. "So what I’m about to ask might sound foolish. Please treat it as a personal curiosity, nothing more."

Alpheo, ever perceptive, glanced sidelong at her, the barest arch of a brow inviting her to go on. He said nothing—he rarely interrupted once curiosity was piqued.

She pressed her lips together for a heartbeat, then gave a small smile. "It would be tactless of me to pretend I know better just because I’ve seen a few maps and heard a few tales.’’

Alpheo gave a quiet chuckle. "If only all stones spoke so carefully before trying to grind the blade."

He slowed his pace near a marble bench where violets grew at the base.

"You know, at Aracina—when we finally buried that preening villain Shamleik—I very nearly got us all killed," he said with a wry smile, as if confessing a foolish prank from his youth.

"My original plan," he continued, "was to split the forces. Infantry would press the Oizen camp from the front while the cavalry flanked from the rear. Textbook hammer-and-anvil. I even thought to add a sortie from inside the city itself, slipped in by sea under cover of night. A three-pronged strike—ambitious, glorious."

"And doomed?" Jasmine asked lightly, already knowing the answer.

"Jarza thought so," Alpheo replied. "He pointed out that the time it would take the cavalry to wheel around the camp’s perimeter would be far too long. Either the Oizen dogs would spot them and flee, or worse, have enough time to mount a defence.

She listened, watching how his eyes flickered with the memory.

"It was Jarza who proposed the signal," Alpheo said. "A torch cast from the city’s highest wall, to be seen by Egil’s riders lying in wait beyond the western ridge, that were brought there by a detachment of the royal fleet.

When it dropped, the sortie would begin, and the cavalry would thunder in. Timing was delicate—horses outrun men, after all—but it worked. We caught Shamleik’s force in disarray. Broke them like kindling and there we had the victory that turned the war."

He smiled, not at the glory, but at the elegance of the maneuver—the coordination, the satisfaction of making a battlefield dance to one’s rhythm.

"So," he added, turning his gaze back to her, "by all means, ask your question. If nothing else, it might point me to the crack I haven’t seen yet. And if it doesn’t, well—no shame in sharpening a sword that’s already keen."

Jasmine, of course, a bit surprised by the knowledge that her consort was not a omniscient being of war and that he relied much on his retainers, which he believed were only used only to carry out his order, stopped a bit after hearing the mirth in Alpheo’s voice when speaking about it .

She, of course, reined herself in quickly.

"I’m sure you’ve considered this already," Jasmine began, hands folded in front of her as if physically restraining her thoughts. "But if your plan is to starve the Herculeians into surrender, then..." she paused, the thought forming fully in her mind before it found shape in her mouth, "shouldn’t the campaign have begun before August? Before the harvest?"

Alpheo, intrigued, glanced at her with one raised brow.

She pressed on. "I understand the nobles would have balked at a summons during the Great Harvest, but even so... could you not have moved the White Army ahead of the campaign season? But now... now the harvest has passed. Their warehouses must be full to bursting. Don’t they have enough stores to wait us out? ’’"

She looked at him as if she’d found a seam in a polished breastplate—perhaps nothing more than a scuff, but a weakness nonetheless.

But Alpheo simply smiled. Not smugly, not arrogantly, simply happy that someone had asked a questioned he wanted to answer.

"Oh, that had already been worked out," he said, almost cheerfully. "After all, you can’t expect a man to starve when his kitchen is full, can you?"

Jasmine tilted her head, the fine lines of confusion forming between her brows. "What...?"

Alpheo’s grin widened, and his tone shifted—just slightly—to the cadence of a riddle. "Tell me—when was the last time you saw Egil?"

She blinked. That was not where she expected the conversation to go.

"Egil?" she repeated. "Well... my days have been rather calm as of late, haven’t they? I suppose I haven’t seen him in... several months. Four, maybe?"

"Three," Alpheo corrected, holding up three fingers playfully. "He left three months ago. Shortly after his first trueborn son came screaming into the world. He stayed home for a while, of course. Two months. But then—well—he went off again. Vanished without ceremony."

She narrowed her eyes slightly, her mind moving through possibilities. "So where is he now?"

Alpheo turned toward a row of olive trees swaying gently in the breeze and answered with a softness that was almost reverent.

"Right now?" he said, as though recounting the precise ticking of a mechanism. "He’s in the south, behind Herculeian lines, doing what he does best—putting the torch to anything that can’t be carried, and stealing anything that can as per the directives I gave him."

Jasmine’s lips parted slightly in stunned silence.

"Granaries, herds " Alpheo continued, still watching the trees sway as if picturing the flames himself. "He and his riders have been busy.

Every village that was supposed to send grain to the capital has been cut out of the picture. Anything edible is either gone or ash.’’ Then as if remembering a good momen he smiled

"Remember," he said, slowing his steps until they were both standing still beneath a canopy of vine-laced arches, "before Basil was born... you asked me for a gift?"

Jasmine turned to him, brow furrowing slightly with the effort to recall, before a soft, knowing smile curved her lips.

"You wanted Herculia, didn’t you?" he finished for her, the corner of his mouth lifting into a roguish grin.

She let out a breath of laughter, the memory returning with vivid clarity—those days of anticipation, her body swelling with life, while Alpheo leaned over the maps of the south with a gleam in his eye that had nothing to do with fatherhood and everything to do with conquest.

"I did," she said with a light chuckle, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "But that was more than two years ago. A bit late for that gift, isn’t it?"

"Perhaps," Alpheo said with a shrug, his smile unshaken. "Perhaps it’s late for Basil’s birth—but not for the next one." freewёbnoνel.com

He reached out gently, resting a warm palm against the slight swell of her stomach. It wasn’t visible to others yet, but he had known the moment she first told him.

He was hoping for a girl

His fingers lingered there as if feeling for the pulse of a future not yet born.

"I can promise you this time," he said softly, "Herculia will fall. And who knows..." His voice turned playful, yet somehow still deadly serious. "Perhaps it won’t be just the city alone. Perhaps the entire princedom will lie at our feet by the time this child draws their first breath."

Jasmine tilted her head, studying him with a glimmer of amusement, but her voice bore the curiosity of a queen who understood all too well the cost of crowns.

"And how exactly are you supposed to do that?" she asked, her tone dancing with intirgue "Take an entire princedom in a single campaign? You talk like you’re handing me a necklace."

Alpheo’s hand fell from her stomach and returned to his side. He took a breath and looked out across the garden—the marble fountains burbling quietly, the sculpted falcons and lions.

"You just need to trust the process," he said at last, calmly. "I have a plan. A long one. The kind you can’t write down, only feel in your bones, that you can change if something goes awry."

He turned back to her, that dangerous spark dancing behind his eyes.

"It’s already moving. Piece by piece. You’ll see it soon enough—Herculia first, then the rest will follow like stones rolling downhill,

Jasmine raised a brow. "You always speak of war like it’s poetry."

"It is," he replied. "The kind that rhymes with fire and ends in silence instead of clapping.

And I am but its muse."

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