Chapter 675: Open up(2)

Like marauding warlords come to claim their spoils, the three of them stormed the room with all the subtlety of a battering ram. The door slammed open against the stone wall with a thunderous crack, echoing like a siege engine breaching a castle gate.

Inside, Alpheo jolted upright from his desk, his chair screeching backward across the floor. In one swift motion, his hand flew to his hip—where instinct told him a sword should be—while the other braced against the table to steady himself.

"What in the name of every saint and bastard are you doing!?" he gasped, his voice caught between fury and panic as he reealised there was no danger . He clutched at his chest like a man narrowly escaped death. "Are you trying to kill me? You absolute bastards!"

Egil, grinning like a devil, sauntered in with his arms open wide. "Come now—are you really that scared of your own friends?"

"Yes!" Alpheo barked, jabbing a finger at him. "I am when they

burst through doors like assassins

in the middle of enemy territory! Do you understand where we are? This was Lechlain’s palace! For half a second, I thought my soul was headed straight to the Hells."

He turned sharply, still breathing hard, and shouted toward the door. "Vrosk!"

Silence answered.

"Where the hell is he?" Alpheo’s voice dropped, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

Egil stepped around him, all innocence. "Oh, him? Went for a hike. Said he needed fresh air."

Alpheo stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

"Without telling me?"

"Technically," Egil shrugged, throwing a companionable arm over Alpheo’s shoulders, "we may have

strongly encouraged

him."

Alpheo sighed, closing his eyes for a moment like a man on the verge of a spiritual crisis. Then, as Egil leaned in to snatch one of the papers from the desk, Alpheo deftly elbowed him in the stomach.

"

Ow—

Gods damn it, Alph!"

"That’s

Prince Alpheo

, when you’re looting state documents," Alpheo muttered, snatching the parchment from Egil’s fingers with the irritation of a man long past the end of his patience. He slid it back into a chaotic stack of maps, letters, and reports—each one ink-stained, corner-folded, and heavy with the burden of a nation. "This—" he tapped the paper with firm finality "—is the result of weeks of coordination, back-and-forth negotiation, and exactly zero sleep."

It must have meant something important. It probably

was

important. But from the look on Egil’s face, you’d think Alpheo had just shown him a tax report on manure quotas.

"Well, I’m sure it’s all very noble and vital to the future of the campaign and all," Egil said casually, rubbing the side of his stomach where Alpheo had elbowed him earlier. "But how about

you

hear why

we’re

here now?"

Alpheo gave him a sideways glance and sighed, already bracing for the absurd. "Come on, then. Make my day."

"Well," Egil began, grinning like a boy about to confess a prank, "you’re being kidnapped."

"Voluntarily," Jarza added with a smirk.

"Temporarily," Asag corrected.

Egil spread his arms. "We, your

dear

and

loyal

companions, believe it is high time for you to pull your head out of the ledgers and remember what breathing feels like. So we’ve graciously come to rescue you from this self-imposed bureaucratic prison. What do you say? Ditch the ink. Come hang with us."

Alpheo’s fingers paused mid-motion as he straightened a stack of requisition forms. For a moment, there was a silence, the kind that lingered just a second too long before breaking.

"I appreciate the sentiment," he said, his tone softer than before. "Really, I do. But as you can see—" he gestured broadly to the table, the papers, the maps marked with red lines and pinned positions "—I’ve still got work to finish. Especially now."

"Come on, Alph," Asag said, stepping forward, his voice tinged with an edge of concern. "You’ve been holed up in this room since we took the city. You haven’t ridden, you haven’t trained, you barely eat unless someone brings it straight to your table. You can afford one day to rest."

It was harder to ignore Asag. The voice of reason, the one who’d once taken a blade for him without hesitation especially since he nearly died from it . The statehood melted just long enough to show the man beneath.

"I

want

to," Alpheo admitted quietly. "More than I can say."

But even as he spoke, his expression hardened again, like a mask slipping back into place. He turned back to the table, hands bracing its edge like an anchor.

"But I

can’t

. Not now. We’re not just sitting on a city—we’re holding a prize that I spent years to claim. Every hour I don’t spend reinforcing supply lines, organizing garrisons, and negotiating with nearby lords is an hour closer to collapse. The nobles I brought are clamoring to return home to get their loot and so do the soldiers."

His voice was calm, but there was weariness in it, the kind that settles in bones and doesn’t go away with sleep.

"I’ve already issued orders to redistribute the army among the castles that bent the knee. Our hold here is stable—for now—but the next step requires more than steel. It requires precision. And I’m the only one who knows the whole of it."

Egil frowned, arms crossed. "You think the world will stop spinning if you step away for half a day?"

"No," Alpheo said, with a tired smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. "But I’m afraid it might

start spinning the wrong way

."

Jarza groaned and shoved him lightly to the side, though the movement lacked real force. "Damn it, Alph. Your work will

still be here

when you get back. You could sleep with your eyes open and still be more competent than any lord in this bloody realm."

"I know," Alpheo said, voice low. "But I can’t afford the luxury. Not yet."

There was another pause, heavier this time. The light from the tall window fell across Alpheo’s shoulders, haloing him not like a saint, but like a statue—solid, unmoving, worn by time and expectation.

Egil exhaled, long and slow. "You’re going to burn yourself down before this war ends."

"And when that happens," Alpheo said with a faint chuckle, "I expect you three to carry the ashes forward."

Jarza opened his mouth to argue, but Asag raised a hand to stop him.

He stepped forward again, slower this time, his tone no longer coaxing but quietly weighty—like a man trying to tug someone back from the edge of a cliff without alarming them.

"Alph," he said, voice gentler than usual, "who knows when we’ll have a moment like this again?"

Alpheo glanced at him, saying nothing, his eyes hard but listening.

"You know how war works. Unpredictable. A messenger goes out and doesn’t come back. A horse stumbles and the rider breaks his neck. A battle that should be a walk turns into a pyre. We don’t get to plan when we die. Or when we get to laugh."

The room seemed to shrink around those words. Even the rustle of the parchments quieted.

"We could be halfway across the continent in a week," Asag went on. "Choking on dust, burying our dead, or chasing ghosts. So I’m asking you—not as a soldier or a commander—but as a friend worried for you. Come have a walk with us. Just this once."

It was a sharp move—Asag rarely made emotional appeals. But Alpheo’s shoulders didn’t shift. His hands didn’t stray from the table. If anything, he seemed... tighter. Like a rope drawn taut.

Then Egil, ever the optimist, clapped a hand on Asag’s back and tried to lighten the mood.

"Bah. You worry too much," he said with a wink. "Alph always finds a way, he has a lucky star. Doesn’t matter if it’s three-to-one odds, a starving garrison, or a pissed-off god—we pull through. Every time.Why would this any different?"

That was when Alpheo’s hand slammed down on the table, rattling the ink pots and sending a sheaf of papers fluttering like startled birds.

"You think that’s luck?" Alpheo growled, voice low but brimming with heat at having his worth undermined by the concept of luck

"You think it just

happens

? That victory just falls into our laps because I was born under the right damn star? Slag that, I wasn’t! I had been given bad cards since I reached for life, all the good things I have weren’t given to me by anyone!"

He pointed at the documents with the fury of a man insulted not personally, but fundamentally.

"Every time we’ve eaten warm food instead of mud, every time we’ve marched through the enemy’s front lines instead of being dragged behind them in chains—it’s because I

plan

. Because I sit here, day and night, staring at ink and names and roads and trying to see

ten steps ahead

of every man alive.

You have seen what we have done, how many things we have achieved from the precipice of defeat, and many times you have aided me in these plans. How can you call it luck?It is demaning not just for me, but for you who bled as we worked for it all"

His eyes, dark and burning now, met Egil’s.

"We don’t appear ahead of our enemies by chance—we are ahead. Because I work for it. Because I

never stop

.I break the backs of my own hours trying to keep you and as many as my soldiers all breathing."

"We are on the precipice of something greater than any of us. Greater than this war, greater than this stolen palace and the victory parades behind it.

Something enduring

. And I am

so close

I can taste it. A throne not built on blood alone that will fall with my death, but a real kingdom with a strong grip on itself."

He paused, eyes scanning the table, the room, the walls once adorned with the pride of a different dynasty.

"One wrong step," he said more softly now, almost to himself, "and it vanishes. The moment slips away. The map folds inward. And we go back to being just another group of killers with pretty names."

He turned to them at last. "So forgive me if I’m not ready to drink and laugh. Not today."

Alpheo stood still, breath shallow, shoulders rising and falling beneath the weight of words he hadn’t meant to hurl like knives. The silence after his outburst lingered longer than it should have. No one interrupted it. No one had to.

When he finally turned his gaze to them again, it wasn’t defiance he found—but worry.

This wasn’t the first outburst he had or showed; of course they knew how Alpheo was made, he had them since the start, but they werebecoming more frequent....

Asag stood still, arms crossed, but not with frustration. His eyes held a quiet sadness, the kind only a soldier who had seen too many friends buried with unsaid words could carry. Jarza looked aside as if to hide the slight furrow in his brow, while Egil—usually all teeth and laughter—just stared, mouth drawn in a rare, uncertain line.

It was the absence of their usual ease that struck Alpheo the hardest. These were the men who would charge through hell if he asked, but now they stood before him unsure how to reach him.

Alpheo looked away, back down at the scattered papers. Maps, orders, plots—so many moving parts, and all of them pulled by his hand. He tried to refocus, to trace a route on one of the charts, but Asag’s words crept back like a whisper.

Who knows when we’ll have a moment like this again?

He blinked.

A moment. Just an afternoon. How many had they already lost to war, to duty, to ambition? Would the road ahead even leave room for afternoons like that again?

The thought hovered like a mist he couldn’t shake.

Alpheo didn’t speak for a long moment. His fingers slowly lifted from the table, ink-stained and calloused from the old days.

"For a day..." he said at last, voice low, "...perhaps the world won’t fall apart."

The words had barely left his mouth when the room erupted.

"

Ha! There’s our prince!

" Egil cried, throwing a fist into the air.

"I was about to drag you out myself!" Jarza grinned, already stepping back to open the way.

"You’re lucky you gave in," Asag said with a rare smile. "We were going to force you out...."

Their laughter echoed through the chamber like sunlight after weeks of overcast sky. Together, the three of them guided Alpheo from the room, Egil throwing an arm around his shoulders, Jarza whistling a half-forgotten tavern tune, Asag chuckling under his breath.

The doors closed behind them with a soft thud.

And as Alpheo stepped out into the fading day, leaving behind the weight of ink and paper, the burden on his chest lightened—if only a little. Their laughter ahead of him, the low rumble of friends at his sides, he felt something stir in his chest. Not the fire of conquest, nor the pressure of command.

But something simpler.

Warmth.

And for the first time in weeks, he smiled.