Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 293

Chapter 293: Failed plots Chapter 293: Failed plots A man hunched over the desk with a black band stretching over r one of his eyes.

His head was tilted slightly forward, his brows furrowed in concentration as he observed the thing in front of him .

He scratched lines and loops onto the sheet in front of him-a material far lighter and more pliable than parchment, smooth under his fingertips.

It folded with ease and seemed almost frivolously cheap compared to the coarse, brittle parchments he had used his whole life.

He paused mid-stroke, the ghost of a wry smile tugging at his lips.

Another southern invention, he mused, thinking of the notoriously resourceful princedom.

Their innovations seemed endless, each more confounding than the last, this one however manage to creep into the Empire’s burocracy.

He ran a finger along the edge of the sheet as if inspecting its secrets.

This particular innovation had stoked his curiosity already having had sent wave after wave of spies southward, he had nothing really do anymore except wait for a miracle .

Each returned with promising leads but no clear answers.

Eventually, his agents pinpointed a single manufactory nestled in the southern princedom.

Yet the true enigma began there.

As all the men he had sent failed to enter any of those manufactory.

For a man who prided himself on knowing what others sought to hide, the impenetrable silence was both infuriating and fascinating.

More than a dozen spies had disappeared-either dead or captured, no doubt-but the few who returned had only useless scraps of knowledge to offer.

None could describe the manufacturing process, the ingredients, or the mechanism behind this marvel.

Leaning back in his chair, he tapped the pen lightly against the desk and allowed himself a moment of grudging admiration.

Not bad, he thought, his lips twisting into a smile that was equal parts frustration and respect.

Whoever guarded this secret knew their trade well.

Their defenses were tighter than a miser’s fist holding a coin.

A backwater country, insignificant on the maps of grander minds, had suddenly become indispensable for a great nation.

Who would have thought?

he mused, his expression souring.

The ingenuity of their prince, though perhaps unintentional, had saved the empire’s finances from falling on themselves.

Extensive trade agreements with Yarzat had pumped life into the empire’s shriveling veins, creating a lifeline that had miraculously staved off economic collapse.

He exhaled a slow, measured sigh, his gloved fingers tracing the edge of the desk.

Even that plan-one carefully calculated to sow discord and economic ruin-had failed.

The chaos he sought to unleash had been thwarted not by imperial might or cunning but by the unlikely intervention of a small princedom.

What he needed now was instability.

No, more than that-chaos.

Without it, his plans would crumble into dust.

The grand country that his old liege had ruled with an iron fist for three decades he was now trying to break.

Quite ironic…

His lips pressed into a thin line as he straightened in his chair.

His thoughts turned to Gratios, the late emperor, and a faint, fleeting smile crossed his lips.

Despite all his eccentricities-the strange whims, the peculiar habits-Gratios had been a ruler of exceptional caliber, the kind that emerged once in a century.

A man of vision, of strength, of cunning.

It had been an honor to serve him.

Yet now, that legacy lay in tatters.

He ran a hand over his face, frustration seeping into his features as he thought of the chaos that had followed thinking whetever what he was doing was betrayal .

No, not as he saw it.

He was trying to salvage what was left of an empire already splintering when Gratios’s shadow faded.

It wasn’t my fault, he thought, his jaw tightening.

The fault lay elsewhere-with the sons and their competing ambitions.

The eldest son, obsessed with the northern snows, had buried his head and his potential in the ice and frost.

The second prince had thrown his lot in with the roses, spending its time sleeping around with both males and females nstead of studying and actually making his wardenship useful.

And then there was the empress herself, that useless pupping bitch , who thought herself a lioness when she was a foolish pup, snarling against things bigger than her .

He sighed again, leaning his head against the high back of his chair.

By the time he had grasped the breadth of the collapse, it had been too late to act decisively.

The foundations of the empire were already crumbling, and any hesitation on his part would have seen him swept away by the tides of change.

Was it his fault he’d had no choice but to play his part in the game?

His mind drifted to Tiberius,his only pawn that he could use as king, the unwanted bastard who had taken up more space in his thoughts than he would ever admit aloud.

He had extended a hand to the boy reluctantly at first, skeptical of the usefulness of someone cast aside by the imperial family.

And yet… the boy had surprised him.

It was a pleasant surprise, indeed, to find that his gamble had paid off.

Tiberius pleased him in ways he hadn’t anticipated-sharp-witted, observant, and unflinchingly pragmatic.

The man let the thought linger, his gaze fixed on the ceiling as a faint smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

Perhaps, he mused, the bastard will do more for Gratios’s legacy than his legitimate heirs ever could.Though he certainly got more arrogant…

The heavy wooden door creaked open, the sound echoing through the dimly lit room.

Julian’s single visible eye flicked toward it, his thoughts interrupted as the very person he had been musing about strode inside.  Julian didn’t bother hiding the irritation in his voice.

“What happened to knocking?” he asked dryly, leaning back in his chair, his hands folding across his lap.

Tiberius ignored the remark, his gaze sharp and focused.

“Did you find her?” he demanded, his tone clipped and brimming with barely contained frustration.

Julian studied him for a moment, his thoughts taking an unspoken turn.

If it weren’t for her, he’d be perfect, Julian mused with time I should be able to deal with it .

The bastard prince had all the qualities Julian admired-determination, intelligence, and a steel spine that so many of Gratios’s legitimate heirs lacked, although he was a bit too peotic.

And yet, this relentless obsession with that maid was a crack in an otherwise flawless façade.

Julian shook his head slightly, pushing the thought aside.

Tiberius’s jaw tightened, the muscles in his face twitching with frustration.

“Are you even searching for her?” he pressed, his voice rising just a fraction.

Julian’s expression hardened as he raised his gaze, his visible eye locking onto Tiberius with a stern, unyielding intensity.

The boy held his ground, his glare unwavering, unblinking under the weight of Julian’s scrutiny.

What happened to the meek boy living in the imperial palace?

“I have my men searching for her,” Julian said, his voice low and measured, each word deliberate.

Tiberius scoffed, his frustration bubbling over.

“Your men’s skills don’t seem to be as good as you’d like me to believe.

Finding her isn’t the only thing they’ve failed at doing.” Julian’s brow furrowed slightly, his gaze narrowing.

There was no denying the sting in the boy’s words.

Sharp-tongued as always, Julian thought, though he was true they were so close on winning, sword poised to behead the current imperial court , when suddendly an ant so small that should not have had any impact, suddenly ruined all of his plans.

Julian leaned back slightly, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, though his tone remained even.

“It was a good plan, the one you made, we could have had our own forces around the emperor and take control of the court when the time was right , cutting the head of the boy whenever we wished ” he said, his voice calm but with a trace of bitterness.

“It failed because of an unplanned variable.

That happens.At least we have saved the red bitch, maybe in the future she will come useful again…” Tiberius’s expression hardened further, his frustration palpable.

“I doubt the regent will let his daughter ever have a come back, I still don’t understand why you wasted her time capturing her on her way to a temple, she has no use for you anymore. Still, I don’t care if the plan worked or not,” he snapped, his tone laced with anger.

“We had a deal.” Julian raised a hand, cutting him off mid-sentence.

“And I’m still dealing with my part,” he said firmly, his gaze sharp as steel.

“That hasn’t changed.” The younger man clenched his fists, his jaw set in a stubborn line, but Julian gestured toward the chair opposite him.

“Since you’re here, sit down,” Julian said with a touch of sardonic amusement.

“Perhaps you’ll grace me with another brilliant plan-one as good as the last.” Tiberius narrowed his eyes but complied, dropping into the chair with a controlled, deliberate motion.

“That’s not possible,” he said flatly.

“Not with the stranglehold the old regent has on the capital.

We can’t move against him-not yet.

Not until he leaves for his campaign in the north.

Until then, your men should stay low, keep quiet, and avoid drawing attention.

Anything else is too risky.” Julian’s brow arched slightly, his gaze sharp and unrelenting.

“I asked you for a plan, Tiberius,” he said, his voice taking on a harder edge.

“Not a repetition of the information I gave you.” ”You can give a genius or slow-headed man a stone, and none of them will be able to make a tower out of it” Julian leaned forward, his singular eye piercing as he fixed Tiberius with a withering stare.

“I have no use for birds that repeat my words,” he said sharply, his tone biting.

“If you’re here to echo back what I already know, then you’re wasting both our time.” Tiberius’s jaw tightened, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Inside, his mind churned with silent contempt.

Fool.

The word repeated itself in his thoughts, venomous and precise.

If he thinks for even a moment that his grand schemes could ever come to fruition, then he’s far more deluded than I thought.

He knew exactly what Julian was-a relic of a bygone era clinging desperately to notions of control and legacy, when the reality was that nobody could control who the empire had evolved into.

If he truly believes that taking the capital will hand him the reins of the empire, he should have stayed dead on the Sands of Arlania.

It would’ve been a better fate than coming back to chase shadows.

But Tiberius wasn’t here for power, nor for the empire that Julian schemed to reclaim, he had half a mind to ditch the fool when the time was right, he was tired of being used as a pawn when he had no interest for their game .

The vastness of the empire, its riches, its throne-none of it mattered to him.

The only thing he wanted, the only thing that burned in his chest with unrelenting fervor, was her.

Yet it seemed as though the moment he was imprisoned, she had disappeared into the ether.

Not a single trace of her remained in the palace or any of the places Julian’s men had searched.

The longer the fruitless hunt dragged on, the more the gnawing void inside him grew as he wondered if she was even still alive, and he was not searching shadows too , like the secret blade now blunt of the previous emperor, too blind to realise he was walking toward a wall.