Feast(4)

The moon hung high above the world like a polished pearl suspended in velvet—silent, ageless, serene. It cast its argent glow over the garden, transforming hedgerows into silver-edged shadows and lending the night an eerie sort of peace. Alpheo stood beneath its cold, celestial gaze, his face bathed in its pale light, eyes distant as if searching for something far beyond its surface.

He had always loved the moon.

Even as a child—sold like chattel into the service of a noble house, nameless and voiceless, a wraith in their hallways—he had clung to that pale light like a drowning man to driftwood.

His sleeping quarters had been a hole more than a room, little more than a pit of mildew and wet stone, where the air reeked of mold and regret.

But the gods, if they had ever listened—and he doubted they even existed—had granted him a single mercy.

A window.

Small. High. Far too narrow to escape through. But just low enough that when he stood on his toes, stretched his spine, and craned his neck, he could just glimpse the moonlight slicing through the grime.

And every night he would drag himself to that window. Not to cry. Not to pray.

But to look.

He would let the moonlight fall on his bruised skin like a balm. It never healed him. But it reminded him that somewhere above the cruelty and rot of his world, there was still beauty. Still something untouched. Untouchable.

"Still chasing ghosts?" came Jasmine's voice, sharp enough to slice through his reverie.

Alpheo blinked, but didn't turn. His gaze remained skyward, locked on that old silver companion. Only his jaw tightened, ever so slightly, like a memory clenched between teeth.

"You must really like the moon," she said again, this time more pointedly, with that particular brand of irritation that came when someone was used to being listened to—and wasn't.

"Who doesn't?" he replied absently.

"None I know of stare at it like it's about to whisper secrets."

"I'm guilty of that, at least," Alpheo said, finally lowering his eyes to meet hers.

They were no longer by the firelit warmth of the feast. At some point during their quiet conversation, they had wandered into the garden. A modest thing by noble standards, but elegant—curved paths veined through hedges and low trees, with just enough cover to feel private and just enough confusion to lose one's way.

Alpheo exhaled slowly. How far had they walked? He wasn't drunk, but the wine's warmth still curled behind his ribs. He should have noticed sooner. 

"Is this proper, Your Grace?" Alpheo asked, his voice carefully neutral. "Walking alone with a man at night? The Yarzats strike me as a people who enjoy conversation—and scandal."

Jasmine laughed, the sound like chimes in the dark. "Oh, they adore both. Gossip is their favorite pastime." She extended her arm, her silk sleeve shimmering like liquid silver in the moonlight. "Come. Walk with me. There's something thrilling about these nighttime strolls, don't you think?"

He hesitated, unsure whether her charm was natural or a tool finely honed, like the jeweled dagger hidden beneath silks. Still, he took her arm—if only because refusing might be worse than accepting.

"Wouldn't your father be worried?" Alpheo asked, trying not to sound too probing.

"Worried?" Jasmine turned to him with a smile that gleamed like a blade in moonlight. "He has no reason to be. You're a trusted guest, aren't you?"

Alpheo didn't answer.

That smile unsettled him. Not because it was cruel. But because it was calm. Too calm. She was enjoying something he couldn't yet see.

"Your grace," he said carefully, his voice a mix of courtesy and quiet warning, "perhaps we should head back. An unmarried woman and a mercenary—alone at night? That's a story no one tells without a purpose."

Her laughter chimed on the night air like wind through silver bells—soft, lilting, and not entirely real.

"Oh, Alpheo," she said, glancing at him with a glint in her eye, "if I worried about propriety, I'd be dead of boredom already."

He didn't laugh. His instincts were whispering now—not screaming, not yet, but pressing cold fingers against the nape of his neck.

She walked deeper into the garden, steps light and untroubled, but deliberate. Too deliberate. Each path she took, each turn she led him down—it felt less like wandering and more like guiding.

Where are the guards? Where's the noise of the feast? The air was too quiet now. Even the insects had gone silent.

Alpheo's heart began to pick up speed, not with fear—but with calculation. His hand dropped subtly to his belt. His thumb brushed the hilt of the dagger hidden beneath his cloak.

Could this be a trap? he thought. Would they risk it? Risk killing me here, in the dark, under moonlight? Would they dare anger my company?

Would they dare… if someone promised them a cheaper replacement? Is there someone willing to kill me to take my place?

He scanned the trees, eyes narrowing. Every shadow looked like it could house a man with a blade. Every bush seemed to breathe.

And still Jasmine led him forward, her steps steady, her laughter fading now into silence as they passed beneath a trellis of white roses, petals falling like snow between them.

Alpheo's jaw clenched.

He'd been poor. Beaten. Betrayed. Bought and sold more times than livestock.

But he had survived it all.

And he didn't intend to die in a moonlit garden because Someone's daughter smiled too sweetly.

"Since when do mercenaries worry about what is proper?" Jasmine's voice cleaved through the tangle of Alpheo's thoughts.

Alpheo's face shifted—not with surprise, but with the practiced stillness of a man who had been trained not to show what he truly felt. "Since when they are treated as honored guest" he replied, his voice cool, measured. "And since when they don't want to risk angering the hand that gives the coin...''

But Jasmine didn't back away. Instead, she stepped closer, her fingers tightening ever so slightly on his arm. The moonlight turned her eyes into molten silver, and when she looked at him, it wasn't with flirtation—but with command. "He won't take offense," she said. "I can assure you of that."

Alpheo's eyes narrowed slightly, catching the weight in her words.

"He?" he asked.

"My father," she answered smoothly. "He was the one who told me to accompany you on this walk.Isn't that permission?"

Alpheo halted mid-step, his boots crunching softly over gravel. His whole posture shifted—no longer casual, but coiled, alert. A tension snapped through the air like a drawn bowstring.

Then he laughed.

A quiet chuckle at first—then louder, deeper, until it echoed off the marble garden walls like a madman's hymn to the stars.

Jasmine's brows pinched, confused.

Alpheo wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, the laughter settling into something colder. "Apologies, Your Grace," he said with a sardonic tilt of his lips. "It's just—people truly never change, do they?"

"Explain," she said

"They see a young man—no title, no lineage—leading five hundred men in steel. Men twice his age. Veterans. But they see only youth, not the blade behind it." His voice had hardened now, sharpened like a whetstone drawn across steel. "They laugh behind their hands. Whisper that he was lucky. Or worse—manipulated. Bought."

He turned to her, eyes gleaming like twin embers in the dark.

"They never stop to ask how such a man earned the loyalty of killers , soldiers and brutes. They just assume he can be played. That one flower in bloom will make him fumble and fall." He sneered faintly. "Like a mutt sniffing after the first bitch in heat."

Her face stiffened.

"And now I must ask…" he went on, tone acid-laced. "Is your father so desperate to save coin that he would whore out his daughter to negotiate a cheaper contract? Or did he simply think I'd be too busy untying your laces to read the fine print?"

The slap came so fast he didn't even try to stop it.

Her palm cracked against his cheek with such force it echoed, the sound like a whipcrack in the stillness. His head snapped slightly to the side from the impact, a red flush rising on his skin.

And then—he laughed again. Quieter this time. Almost fond.

"Apologies again," he said, voice dry as old parchment. "I'm still too quick with my tongue, it seems. Youth has its hazards. But age has its rot, too—men like your father see every problem as a game of thrones and bedsheets."

Jasmine's smile vanished like breath on glass. She took a step back, slipping her arm from his as her eyes cooled.

Still, her voice was steady when she spoke. "You were not wrong," she said at last. "He sent me to seduce you. The charade is over, then." Her gaze held his, unflinching. "Did I play the part poorly?"

Alpheo shook his head, rubbing the sting on his cheek with a faint smirk. "No. You were flawless. The perfect mix of charm and mystery. I even doubted myself—for a moment."

"Only a moment?" she asked, one brow rising.

"I'm a paranoid man, Your Grace. You don't lead five hundred blood-hardened killers without being cautious. But…" He inclined his head, almost respectfully touching his cheek. "Strong arm. Truly. My compliments."

That coaxed a reluctant chuckle from her. "You're lucky I didn't draw blood."

"Perhaps," he replied. "But I've bled for less beautiful reasons."

She studied him then, something in her gaze shifting—curiosity replacing disdain. And just when he thought the encounter might end in cold goodbyes, she surprised him again.

"Then let us consider my father's business finished, but mine is still undone" she said, stepping forward once more. Her smile returned—not warm, but wicked. A blade's edge smile. Daring him. Inviting him. "Open to hear it?"

She extended her hand toward him again. It floated between them, slender and pale in the moonlight—graceful as a noblewoman's gesture, and just as dangerous.

"I would very much like to continue our walk," she said. "You may find this next conversation… more to your liking."

Her fingers remained suspended, as if she were offering him a pact written not in ink but in tension. Not a seduction this time—but something else.

A meeting of equals. 

Alpheo regarded her hand for a long moment, the ache in his cheek pulsing in time with the rhythm of his heartbeat.

Then, slowly he took it.