"You stand in the presence of Shaaza, second of his name, Prince of Sharjaan, Lord of Scidna, Sovereign Protector, and High Steward of the Five Edges! Let all men pay their due!" A herald, wearing a hat topped with a plume of three-colored feathers that bobbed with every self-important breath, bellowed his proclamation to the rafters. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

This was the moment ordained by tradition for Aron to kneel.

The fire would have his soul and body before he did.

He remained upright, offering only the shallowest dip of his head.

"Sir Aron Mizio," he projected "Envoy in the stead of Her Grace, Jasmine Veloni-isha, First of her Name, Princess of Yarzat and Herculia, Protector of the Highlands and the Lowlands, presents himself to the court of Sharjaan!"

The presentation was as bitter a pill to the Sharjaans as their arrogance was to him. Had a torch been thrust between the Yarzat envoy and the Sharjaan lords, the flame would have flickered out from the sheer chill in the room.

War brought fire to the fields, but in the courts, it brought nothing but ice.

"We are glad to welcome the man of Yarzat. Give him bread and salt," Shaaza continued, a mocking glint in his eye. "And wine. I am certain he must be famished after months of grazing on weeds and drinking from puddles. This war has demanded much of men, but a stomach is a weary thing to punish."

The prince was a man who looked as though he would benefit from a diet of grass rather than the greasy poultry he favored. They called him the ’Man of Three’: three chickens for breakfast, three cups of wine for lunch, and three new women for his bed every night.

A sycophantic ripple of laughter rolled through the Sharjaan ranks. May you choke on the next bone, Aron thought, his face as still as a tomb.

He may have been extravagant with his lover’s choice, but he was also active with his wife, who was yet again pregnant.

He knew the rumors of the Sharjaan court, how the Prince’s wife, desperate after two miscarriages and one frail, sickly son that yet still breathed, had asked for the city of Malshut as a birth-gift.

It was a pathetic imitation of Princess Jasmine’s own legend; when she had asked for Herculia, she had meant the city but Alpheo had delivered her a crown within three years. In nine, Shaaza would have nothing to offer his wife but cinders, and the wife to him naught but yet another failure that died in her womb.

"Your Grace is most charitable," Aron said, dipping the bread into the salt. He chewed slowly, then drained the wine.

The bread was hard, the wine less than good.But he swallowed all the same.

He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, his eyes never leaving Shaaza’s. "But I can reassure you, while the fare was hard, it was never meager. We found plenty of meat on the road which we butchered and skinned, you could see their carcass swingfrom the trees had your Grace bothered to take a step away from Malshut. The path to heaven is often fraught with a little hell, after all."

Aron straightened his surcoat. "It is the others who truly deserve your pity. The Habadians,the Oizenians, the Kakunians and the Ezvanians... those are the ones who starved on our soil. Gratitude to the Allknower that gave them a measure of widsom, for It was sharp of them to flee while they still had legs to carry them,Warrior know what we had done to those had we caught them, though a pity for us, we still had quite a bit of fight left in us."

Shaaza’s fingers twirled the tip of his pointed mustache. He was no fool; he heard the words behind the words.

"Still It was unfortunate that the Crownless Prince did not find such an opportunity to retreat," Aron continued with a mocking smile. "Though we were pleased to have a proper battle at last. As we speak, Sorza’s banners litter the fields of Diroli. The ravens and rats are being given their due, and the Prince of Oizen has done what he does best. Run.’’

The mention of Diroli sent a ripple of agitation through the court, and the smugness was beginning to fray into confusion.

"The Oizenians bested? Why haven’t we heard anything?"

"What of Lord Domiek? He was on the field with Sorza. My cousin is in his retinue, he would have sent word!"

"They are lying.It could not be elsewise."

Aron watched them all with patience , waiting for everyone else to catch up.

They didn’t know.

He looked at Shaaza, wondering if the Prince was playing a deeper game, but as the man raised his hand to still the chatter, Aron saw it in the tightening of his jaw. Shaaza didn’t know either.

Now wasn’t that queer?

"What the Oizenians do or do not do in their time is no concern of ours," Shaaza declared, his voice lacking its previous oily comfort, as he now realise he was the only enemy of his prince still standing. "As it is for the Habadians or the Kakunians. We are Sharjaan. Where we stand, we take root."

Until an axe comes to hew your trunk into firewood, Aron thought. There was a time for friendship, a hand that had been extended and spat upon, and a time for the bribe. But today was for the threat, veiled though it might be.

"Your Grace speaks truly," Aron said. "You are Sharjaan. But it would do no harm to look at the horizon. You came to our lands with five crowns, five thrones, and five princes. Three fled through the door, one we broke upon the threshold, and now? Only one remains in the house."

Shaaza leaned forward, his face reddening. "We remain because our roots are firm. Your Prince cheated us. We were promised half of all the iron mined in the South, yet he swindled us on the weight."

"He cheated you of nothing," Aron replied flatly.

"And yet word comes of how much iron Yarzat produces. You have nearly doubled your yield!" He bulled over him.

"Perhaps you should address your questions to your own smiths, then. Whether the fault lies in the stone or the forge is your trouble; leave us out of it."

The insolence was too much for the Lord of Emoduri, who stood with the white lobster of his house stitched upon a sea of blue.

He one of the lord of the Five Edges.Each a city wowen in one alliances, they were all kin to one another if stories were to go, as they tended to marry with one another to keep their alliance alive.

An alliance that allowed them to deny homage to the prince of Sharjaan for decades, so much so the only reason they bent the knee some half a century ago was thanks to privileges and titles granted them to buy their allegiance.

Privileges they held to this day.

One of those five took a step forward, his hand white-knuckled on his hilt. "Are you calling our Prince a liar, clerk?"

Aron knew better than to attempt the dice twice. He had narrowly escaped a blade in the Oizenian camp; it would be foolish to lose his head before the chest was even opened. "I meant no such thing. But I cannot stand idle while my Prince is called a swindler."

"A swindler is a kind word for a man who rose from the muck," another voice rose, Aron would have answered in rage , but he too surprise to have seen it was a priest who interjected.

"The Gods ordained all men to their stations. Your Prince was born common; he should have stayed in the dirt with his plow."

Aron turned a frigid gaze toward the holy man, he considered spitting on his white garb for a moment, in the end he only spat words.

"You are welcome to make that affirmation at Diroli, Father. Stand before my Prince’s legions and say it aloud. Five times for Five Gods. But you would do well to remember there is only one grave. I am certain they will shower you with kisses of steel."

The room flared with sudden heat, hands moving to hilts and breath catching in throats. Shaaza, sensing the atmosphere was a spark away from an explosion, raised a sharp hand to call his dogs to heel.

"Enough," the Prince barked, his eyes settling on the priest until the man lowered his head. "We did not bring the Yarzat envoy here to debate theology or mining techniques. Sir Mizio, you are ten minutes late for the reason you came. Proceed."

Ten minutes too late for many things, Aron thought. He turned and gestured to the two guards standing like statues behind him.

They stepped forward, their armor clanking in the sudden silence of the court, and hauled the iron-bound chest into the center of the mosaic floor. They set it down right at Aron’s feet, the weight of it vibrating through the stones.

Every eye in the room, from the lowliest page to the most arrogant lord, fixed upon the box. Even Shaaza shifted in his seat, his eyes gleaming with the unmistakable green glint of greed, already mentally counting the gold he assumed was inside.

"My Prince believes this entire affair to be a tragic misunderstanding between neighbors," Aron said, his voice smooth and soothing, like oil poured over choppy water. "He believes that words should always be the first choice over steel. For the Weaver weeps every time a thread is snapped before its time."

Shaaza’s eyes didn’t leave the iron-bound chest. He was barely masking his hunger now, his fingers drumming a restless rhythm on the gilded arms of his throne. "I am sure a gift would go a long way in drying the Goddess’s eyes," he replied, his voice thick with anticipation.

"Indeed it would. It brings me great joy that your Grace and my Prince are of one mind on the matter."

Shaaza nodded sharply, leaning so far forward he was nearly out of his seat, waiting for the lid to pop and the golden glow of coin to illuminate the pavilion.

Aron signaled with a flick of his fingers granting the prince his wish.

One of the Yarzat guards stepped forward, unlatched the heavy iron hasp, and hauled the lid open with a violent, screeching groan of hinges. Instead of reaching in to daintily present a treasure, the guard planted a heavy boot against the side of the chest and kicked it over.

The court held its collective breath, expecting the melodic chime of a thousand falling crowns.

Instead, the sound was a harsh, discordant clatter, a thud-clank that rang out across the indigo silk.

As rolling across the floor, spilling out in a tangled, grey heap, were hundreds of iron stirrups. They were dented, scorched by fire, and many were still crusted with dried, black mud and the unmistakable rust-color of old blood.

The silence that followed was so sharp that could cut hair. Shaaza stared at the pile, his mouth slightly agape, his brow furrowing in genuine, bewildered confusion.

"Stirrups?" Shaaza whispered, the word escaping him like a slow leak from a punctured bladder. "Iron... stirrups?"

"Six hundred of them, your Grace," Aron replied, his voice bright and airy, as if he were discussing the vintage of a fine summer wine. "Freshly harvested from the churned muck of the Ford. My Prince is nothing if not a meticulous gardener."

Shaaza’s face began to flush a deep, bruised purple. The veins in his neck throbbed against his silk collar. "You bring me... scrap iron? You dare stand in my court and present me with the refuse of a slaughter?"

"Iron it is, your Grace. But scrap?How could you say that?" Aron picked up one of the heavy rings, turning it over in his hands so the light caught the rusted edges.He gave it a kiss.

"Scrap is a word for things without a soul. These? These have stories, your Grace. They have the weight of desires and the ink of ambition written into every dent."

He tossed the first one back into the pile with a harsh, metallic clink. "This one came for glory."

He kicked another, sending it skittering across the mosaic toward a group of trembling lords.It fell short of the boots of the lord of Emuri. "This one came for honor."

Then, with a sudden, violent sweep of his boot, he sent a flurry of them clattering toward the base of the throne. "And these? These came for our land, our silver, and our lives. They arrived on the backs of screaming stallions, dreaming of crowns and soft beds. Proud in their manner , courageous int heir charge.

And yet, look at them now. The metal remains, but the men who filled them are currently being digested by crows and rats in a field that didn’t even know their names."

Aron stepped closer to the throne, his shadow stretching over the spilled iron. The "soft-tongued" clerk had vanished; in his place stood the cold, unyielding mouth of the Fox.

"Your Grace, your Lordships, your Sers, I suggest you look at this heap until your eyes ache. And if your sight is too poor to see what is right in front of your toes, look North. Look to where the Sun of Oizen is currently being pissed upon by common levies. Look further still, where the Kakunia is tearing itself apart in a fever of civil war."

"You all came for my Prince. You came with five armies and a thousand lies. You brought him nothing but fire, yet he still stands. You are the last leaf on a dying branch. The only ones left in a house that is already catching fire."

Aron reached down and plucked a single, blood-stained stirrup from the pile. He held his hands out, his left palm open and empty, his right fist clenched around the cold iron.

"I say to you what I said to Oizen’s prince before he became the Prince of Crows," Aron whispered, the silence in the pavilion so absolute it felt like the world had stopped breathing. "In this hand, I offer you the peace of a neighbor. In this one, I hold the iron of war."

He let the stirrup drop. It hit the stone with a final, ringing thud that echoed like a hammer on a coffin lid.

"Make your choice, your Grace. But choose quickly. My Prince is not a man who likes to keep his legions waiting, and he is soon to decide whetever he shall march to Malshut or pay back dividend to the Oizen with his army of monsters."