Chapter 571: How to build a crown (3)

The banquet roared on, a tempest of clattering pewter and bellowed toasts. Whole boars vanished to the bone; casks of amber cider drained like summer ponds. Every swallow, every spilled drop came from Blake’s own coffers—silver he could have hammered into swords and axes and more ships . Yet he watched the captains gorge without a flicker of regret. This was currency too: wine‑drenched loyalty, the kind no ledger could record.

He felt their eyes on him—sharp as grappling hooks thrown across a gap. Some stared openly, lifting brimming cups in silent homage; others only stole glances between mouthfuls, as though half‑afraid the legend might stare back.

They saw not merely a man, but the flare of their own myth stitched into living flesh. The raider who broke the Imperial keel. The storm that freed Harmway. The flint that struck flame beneath the sleep‑heavy embers of the Confederation.

Blake tasted the weight of their regard like sea‑salt on the wind. Fame, yes—but more than that. He was the Free Isles’ star, the lodestone that had dragged them from small‑time plunder into an age of hungering horizons. Where their ancestors prowled in shadows, he walked beneath a sky suddenly vast and bright with possibilities.

He was their soul. Their blade.

And tonight, while the hall shook with revelry, that blade lay sheathed—polished, silent—waiting for the next great cutting.

Blake tipped his head back, draining the last amber ribbon of ale in one long pull. The hall’s torchlight mirrored in the silver cup—then, with a flick of his wrist, he cast it clattering across the marble. The sudden ring cut through music and laughter, a clear bell of command. Conversations died midsentence; knives hung motionless over half‑carved meat.

He drew one deep breath, the kind that fills a sail from stern to prow, and let his voice boom across the chamber.

“Ho! Hear me, all you sons of the seas!”

If there had been a single gaze wandering moments before, it snapped to him now. A hush rippled outward like a stone tossed into water, spreading from table to table until even the servants froze, pitchers poised in mid‑pour. Hundreds of eyes—hard, hungry, admiring—fixed upon Blake.

He felt their stares settle over him like jeweled feathers on a peacock’s spread tail, each glint of awe polishing the curve of his pride. In that silence, the Protector of Harmway stood taller than the pillars, brighter than the braziers—ready to crown the night with words sharp enough to cut new destiny from the dark.

his voice rolled out over the hall, rich as port and twice as warming.”Well, my fine sharks and seabirds—are you enjoying yourselves? Stuffing bellies and swilling my best drinks at another man’s expense?”

A roar answered him, laughter jangling like tossed chains. He lifted a hand for quiet, though amusement still curled his lips.”Aye, I thought so. Food bought with someone else’s coin always tastes sweeter, does it not?”

One captain slapped his table. “Sweet as a tavern girl’s kiss!”Another bellowed, half‑drunk, “Sweeter than the cook’s own backside!”The hall erupted—cups banging, voices colliding in a riot of mirth.

Blake took a slow step forward, boots ringing on stone. The torches painted him gold, the din falling again beneath the gravity of his grin.”Eating and drinking,” he declared, “are two of the greatest pleasures the world lays before a man.” He paused, eyes scanning the sea of eager faces. “But not the greatest.”

“What, then?” someone shouted from the benches.”Fucking!” another howled, thumping his fist in time with the cheers that followed.

Blake chuckled, nodding as though considering a philosophical point.”A fair answer—food, wine, and the heat of a willing companion rank high indeed. Yet”—he raised a finger, voice sharpening like a blade drawn free—”there is one thing finer. One thing that sets the heart ablaze in a way no feast or bed ever could.”

Silence fell again, hungry. Blake’s smile widened into something incandescent.

“Glory.”

“Glory,” he repeated, letting the syllable linger like the aftertaste of rare wine. “It reaches the hollow hunger that food and drink can’t sate—and, mark me, once you’re famous, the good fucks come free and begging.” Laughter surged, but he rode over it with a rising cadence.

“Glory” he continued with a somber tone” is the echo of our names when the sea has swallowed our bones. It is what lingers when the tides erase our footprints and the gulls forget our faces. A feast ends with sunrise; a tavern girl laughs tomorrow at another fool. But glory—glory sits on the lips of strangers a hundred years from now, spoken in awe beside hearth‑fires we will never see.”

He paced before the head table, boots drumming like distant drums of war. “Tonight you drink, eat, and rut at my expense—enjoy it. Yet the greatest gift I lay before you is not wine, nor gold, nor flesh.” He swept an arm wide, as though offering the very horizon. “It is the chance to carve your names so deep into history that your descendants will measure themselves against you—not against dusty ancestors you never met.”

A low murmur rolled through the room, like the first growl of a waking beast.

“Think back to the day we shattered the Romelian fleet,” Blake continued, voice curling with promise. “The plunder, the cheers, the smoke of their proud eagles sinking beneath the surf. That was fine sport—riches enough to line pockets and bellies for a season.” He leaned forward, eyes blazing. “But compared to what I offer tonight, that victory will look like a child’s first raid on a fishmonger’s stall.”

He paused, letting the tension tighten—like a mainsail tugged sharp by a sudden wind. “For I have set my ship on a course that will make the last of empires tremble, that will sear our banners into the skylines of two continents, that will…

Let our name linger for a thousand years….We shattered a giant upon the waves,” Blake thundered, pacing the length of the high table.

“Their proud eagles thought themselves masters of every tide—yet we proved to be the kraken beneath, dragging their galleons into the black throat of the sea.”

A hush fell, filled only by the hiss of torches. He let the image settle—burning ships, flailing masts, Imperial banners swallowed whole—before pressing on.

“That day will be sung for centuries,” he admitted, then tapped his breastbone with a fist. “And yet my heart aches when I hear good comrades boast they are already ‘kings of the sea.'” His gaze swept the benches, daring contradiction. “Kings? We hold but one slice of ocean wrested from Romelian hands. The middle straits lie ours, aye—but the world’s waters are wider than any map upon these walls.”

Blake’s voice dropped to a growl. “We cannot claim a true golden age while another colossus still strides the desert beyond—rich, arrogant, unbroken and unbent. Its caravans fatten on spices we have never tasted; its ports grow lazy beneath suns our sails have yet to shadow. As long as the Sand Empire stands proud upon its dunes, we remain usurpers of half a throne!”

Faces around the hall drained of color, eyes widening in a ripple—realization dawning like red dawn on cloudless water.

“Our forefathers dreamed of such conquest,” Blake went on, “and met only spears and scorching wind. Their ships broke upon unfamiliar waves; their ambitions dried to salt in their mouths. For centuries that hunger slept—waiting and craving .”

He straightened, every inch the storm‑crowned lord. “I intend not merely to wake that hunger—no. I will feed it until it rises taller than any mast, fiercer than any gale. We cracked one giant’s spine; now we sail to break the other.”

Blake sprang onto the nearest trestle like a boarding, boots thudding among platters of half‑devoured boar and puddles of ale. Tankards toppled; gravy splashed. He strode the length of the tabletop, scattering pewter and bone under his heels, every step a drumbeat that hammered the hall into silence.

“There is no finer hour,” he shouted, voice rolling off the rafters, “to fell the last great giant and raise a new colossus from its smoking bones!”

He kicked aside a platter, roast onions exploding across the floor. “Look west, brothers! The Sand Empire slits its own throat—civil war rages from oasis to sea. Two fools hack at each other for the right to rule dunes and mirages, a child one of them even! Their nobles barter loyalty like dice; their desert tribes ride in circles chasing banners that change with every dust storm!”

Blake stamped forward, the table quaking beneath him. “Hordes of horsemen raid their borders, sacking towns while the would‑be sultans squabble over whose turban shines brightest. The empire’s famed fleet—those cedar‑hulled leviathans that once shadowed every horizon—lies rotting at anchor, forgotten as corpses left in sun!”

He spread his arms wide, sweeping the room with blazing eyes. “I have seen it with these eyes! I have taken slaves and silver from their undefended coasts. I have tasted the ripe sweetness that waits beyond those dunes. And I swear to you: break that empire now, and the plunder will drown us in gold. Their palaces will smoke, their minarets will topple, their silk roads will run red and feed our coffers!”

The captains’ breaths came faster; fists tightened around hilts and tankards.

“Imagine!” Blake roared, voice climbing like a storm surge, “our masts rising against their desert sunrise! Imagine their caravans seized, their ports aflame, their treasures piled on our decks until keels groan! We will drive iron through their palace gates, split their minarets like rotten spars, and forge their holy gold into links for our anchors! We will do what the Oil fuckers failed to accomplish in a century”

He kicked aside a goblet, and it clanged to the flagstones like a distant bell of doom. “Do you smell it? That wind from the west—that is not sand you taste, brothers, but opportunity! While they bleed each other for a jeweled stool, we shall carve a throne from their bones. Their war‑drums beat for us now, calling us to claim what they cannot keep!”

The hall seethed—captains rising, fists hammering tables, cutlasses rattling from belts.

“Food, drink, and coin are mere sparks in the night—but glory is a conflagration that never dies! Sail with me, and the world will remember your banners long after your skulls bleach white beneath the sun. Sail with me, and your sons will swagger in every port, boasting they were born of men who bled the desert drier than it was!”

He tore a roasted leg from a platter and hurled it into the fire, sending up a burst of greasy flame. “Let them howl prayers to false gods—our answer will be thunder and steel! We will brand our names into their dunes so deep that even centuries of wind cannot erase us.”

Blake snatched a fallen flagon, ale sloshing over his wrist, and thrust it skyward, the torchlight glinting off the frothing brim.

“—and we will teach the desert to fear the tide!”

The walls of the great hall quaked beneath a tidal roar of voices. Tankards slammed, blades rang from scabbards, and fists pounded rhythm on splintering tables. The captains bellowed his name in a rolling chant—”Hard‑Gut! Hard‑Gut! Hard‑Gut!”—until the very rafters vibrated and dust sifted from the carved beams overhead.

Some leapt onto benches, waving axes and cutlasses in wild arcs. Others locked arms, spinning in ragged circles while ale sloshed in shimmering arcs across the rush‑strewn floor. The thunder of their boots beat time like drums of war, each stomp echoing the promise of sails unfurled and blood‑red dawns ahead.

Blake stood at the center of that maelstrom, flagon raised, the chant of his name crashing over him like surf on iron cliffs. In their blazing eyes he saw the storm he’d summoned—loyalty sharpened to a spear‑point, greed wedded to glory—and he knew the sea itself would tremble when this host set forth.