Chapter 570: How to build a crown(2)

Lord Blake strode through the torch‑lit corridors of Harmway’s ancient citadel, boots drumming against tiles still veined with old Imperial mosaics. Gold‑rimmed sconces cast restless shadows that chased him along the walls—a fitting escort for the new “Protector of the Isle,” the title the Free Council had coined when they dared not crown him outright.

Protector sounded temporary, harmless, polite; in practice it meant he held the same power the former Romelian governor once wielded—plus a tidy thirty‑percent share of every coin, bale, and barrel that crossed the island’s quays. A compromise basically since the older alternative was assigning the important isle to Blake as a fief.

A option that for obvious choice was disregarded.

Down the grand stair, his ears caught the rise and tumble of laughter—the banquet hall ahead, alive with raucous voices, clattering tankards, and the jangling of a dozen different sea‑shanties all being sung off‑key at once. He had summoned every captain who mattered in the Middle Sea, announcing the feast months earlier so none could claim ignorance. Tonight the hall was a churning tide of salt‑stained coats, braided beards, and scar‑bright tales of plunder.

The smells hit first: roast boar glazed in honeyed rum, skewers of squid still hissing from the spit, and casks of citrus‑spiced ale cracked open in tribute to the isle’s new master. Somewhere a fiddler sawed at wild chords; elsewhere captains bellowed wagers over arm‑wrestling and knife‑throwing, their laughter rattling the rafters.

Blake paused at the arched doorway, surveying the chaos he’d engineered. Every pirate, privateer, and bold opportunist within a week’s sail had answered his call—drawn by free ale, fatter promises, and the magnetic pull of a man who had humbled the Romelian fleet. Tonight, he thought, would stitch their loyalties tighter than any treaty. For men of the sea, nothing bound like shared meat, spilled drink, and tales of gold yet to be taken.

He squared his shoulders, smoothed the collar of his salt‑blue coat, and stepped into the roar.

Protector, governor, king in waiting—call him what they liked. Harmway was his deck now, and every captain in the room was a card he intended to play.

The banquet had gnawed a sizable notch in Blake’s coffers—barrels of wine and ciders, whole herds of island boar, and enough citrus to keep a fleet free of scurvy for a season—but the silver was well spent. By tomorrow, every toast and promise sworn under Harmway’s chandeliers would ripple out with the departing ships, carrying his summons farther and faster than any messenger schooner could hope to match.

This was after all a call for war.

As he crossed the threshold, the din shifted—voices spiking in recognition. “Hard‑Gut!” someone roared above the crush, and half the hall took up the cry. Tankards thumped tables, fingers pointed, and grins split weather‑beaten faces.

Hard‑Gut—a name originally barked in jest at a dockside tavern, now worn as a mark of iron constitution. At sea, where moldy biscuit and brined pork often soured the strongest stomachs, a man with a gut that never twisted was half–legend already. Hard‑Gut meant steady. Meant unyielding.

Blake let the nickname roll over him like spray off a bow. He lifted one hand in acknowledgement, the other resting on the gilded buckle of his coat, and the roar swelled to fill the vaulted ceiling. Every gaze in the room—flashing gold teeth, glinting earrings, smoke‑grey eyes—pivoted toward him, and for a breath the feast itself seemed to pause, as though the great hall inhaled on his signal.

He smiled, broad and effortless, the lamplight catching on the thin scar that curved along his jaw—a reminder of earlier, hungrier days, the little gift left by the Disgrace of Rock Bottom, which he had now avenged along with that of his family.

His gaze swept the uproarious hall like a ship’s lantern scanning a night sea—until it locked onto a familiar figure at the honor table near the dais. There, amid a knot of lesser captains, sat Kroll ‘nine fingers’ , a nickname given to him after he lost his finger at the latest battle against the Imperial Armada.

His hulking frame bent over a plate piled scandalously high with roast boar , a long braid of iron‑grey hair swung over one shoulder, and a priceless Romelian gem—probably stolen—glittered at his ear.

The instant Kroll saw Blake watching, his weather‑cracked mouth split in a grin wide enough to shame a shark. Without so much as an apology to the men he’d been regaling, he shoved back his chair—sending it skittering—and strode forward, barreling through the crowd like a longship breaking ice. Tankards tilted, chairs scraped, curses flew; Kroll ignored them all.

Blake’s lips curled upward, mirroring the joy on the old raider’s face. When they met in the open space beside a pillar, Kroll wrapped his enormous arms around Blake with the enthusiasm of a bear reunited with an errant cub. The prince’s own arms came up in return, clapping the larger man’s back hard enough to sound like drumbeats over the hall’s din.

“Hard‑Gut, you salt‑kissed bastard!” Kroll boomed—half‑laughter, half‑battle‑shout.

Blake’s answering chuckle rumbled deep in his chest. “You old walrus—still missing the one or have you misplaced any others since we last drank together?”

A roar of approving laughter rippled around them as the giant of the Free Isles broke their embrace, hands still gripping Blake’s arms, eyes gleaming with shared mischief .

Kroll stepped back a pace, eyes roving over Blake as if the man were a prize bull at market. He prodded Blake’s upper arm with the blunt ends of two knuckles and whistled through the gap where a front tooth used to be.

“By the depth of the sea , Blake —what have you been eating?” he barked, squeezing biceps that strained the seams of Blake’s coat. “Nearly cracked my spine with that hug. You’ve put on fifteen whole kilos, all muscle by the feel!”

Blake laughed, the sound rolling through the hall like a friendly broadside. “Oysters and Imperial fear,” he said, flexing for show, knowing however, too well that it wasn’t food that made him so strong

“I’ve never felt stronger. I can lift a man by the neck with one hand and gut his friend with the other—saves time in a tavern brawl.”

Kroll threw his head back and roared. “A tidy trick! Teach it to my cabin boys; they still need both hands for a single throat.” He slapped Blake’s shoulder—hard enough that nearby plates rattled—and the two moved aside as servants appeared with fresh ale, eager to keep the legends lubricated.

Blake took a deep swallow, wiped foam from his beard. “But enough of my vanity. How sail things with you, old walrus? I hear whispers you’ve bled every coast from Romelia to Oizen this season.”

Kroll’s grin shone beneath the hall’s chandeliers. “Who could complain, eh? These are fat days, friend—ships laden with silk, ports soft as butter. Ever since we flattened the Imperial fleet the seas have lain open like a tavern door. I swear, every harbor we nose into seems ripe for the plucking. There are fish who haven’t tasted water as sweet as this freedom.”

He hooked an arm around Blake’s shoulder, lowering his voice just enough that only the closest revelers could eavesdrop. “We are kings out there, . Kings without crowns, aye, but kings all the same. And the landlubbers know it. They see our sails on the horizon and remember the Empire’s eagles sinking beneath those waves—remember who taught the world that the sea answers to no throne of land .”

Blake’s smile sharpened, mirrored in the bright steel of his ambitions. Together they turned toward the roaring feast, mugs raised high. Around them, captains toasted, musicians screeched cheerful discord, and the night roared on like a high tide—hungry, reckless, unstoppable.

Kroll leaned in, voice dropping beneath the racket of fiddles and sloshing ale. “Heard there’s been great commotion in that little princedom you fancy,” he said, tapping a sausage‑thick finger against Blake’s chest. “The one south of the Romelian—Yarzat, isn’t it?”

Blake’s grin narrowed, eyes sharpening. “I’ve kept an ear to their shores.”

Kroll nodded, braid swaying. “I still remember your dreaming. Fresh off sinking the Romelian eagles, swore you’d one day nip that prince’s coastline and take his capital . And now look—he’s up to his neck in wars: two foreign princes at his gate and half his own lords snapping at his heels. If ever a time was ripe for your… little ambition, it’s now.”

A spark flickered in Blake’s gaze, but he only sipped his ale. “I’d have sailed south already, but preparations for another venture occupy my charts.”

Kroll’s brows climbed like gulls on an updraft. “I know you, Blake. If you turn your back on an easy sheep, it’s because you’re stalking a fatter ram. What beast has caught your eye this time?”

Blake lowered his goblet, the candle‑flames catching in his eyes like twin sparks from a forge. “We broke one giant already, as you may recall” he murmured, voice pitched for Kroll’s ears alone. “Why not fell the other?”

The mirth drained from Kroll’s face as though a lantern had been snuffed. His jaw tightened; the lines around his salt‑bleached eyes deepened. For an instant the hall’s rowdy glow seemed to dull, the music fading beneath the weight of Blake’s words.

Blake’s smile lengthened, half predator, half prophet. He clapped Kroll’s shoulder—an iron gesture meant both to steady and to spur. “Come, old friend,” he said, stepping past the stunned raider into the swirling heart of the feast. “Let’s share the tidings. The great crown of sand across the sea has gone unbroken far too long. Time it learned how easily gold crumbles when struck by iron and salt.”

He strode forward, coat flaring, laughter of captains turning curious as he went—like a tide leaning to the pull of a new moon. Behind him, Kroll exhaled, the echo of distant surf roaring in his ears.

The pirate lord appeared on the hunt again, and the desert empire—sun‑bright, sand‑bound—had just been marked for ruin as a great tiding was to reach their sandy shores.