The white sails of the returning ship glistened like banners of triumph under the midmorning sun.
From the harbors of Ro, trumpets blared, bells rang, and the scent of roasted chestnuts and flower garlands filled the air. Crowds had gathered long before dawn.
Children perched on shoulders, waving small flags. Elderly veterans lined the front rows, their eyes misted with pride.
Merchants paused their trades, nobles stepped from carriages, and the church bells tolled as if the gods themselves welcomed their general home.
When Alexis disembarked in full uniform—polished, unmarred by the storm of emotions he buried—cheers erupted like thunder. His boots touched familiar soil.
He smiled.
But it never reached his eyes.
Petals rained from balconies above as he passed. Musicians played victorious marches.
Women tossed roses into his path, and men clapped their chests in salute.
Alexis acknowledged each one with grace and practiced warmth. But his thoughts wandered to the waves he'd left behind, and to a figure who hadn't looked back.
Hours later, under the high vaulted ceilings of the royal palace, the celebration changed color.
What began as a hero's welcome had become a gilded performance.
A grand ball.
Gold-clad courtiers spun in languid circles beneath crystal chandeliers, their silks catching the light like blades.
Goblets overflowed with aged wine. Laughter rang high and brittle, clinking like glass against glass.
Whispers curled like smoke between dancers—politics dressed as pleasantry.
And at the center of it all, Alexis stood like a returned relic—polished, poised, a symbol more than a man. A living myth carefully displayed for maximum effect.
Toasts were raised.
Songs were composed in real time, each verse exaggerating his victories, while in captivity.
The King, seated upon his opal throne, basked in the reflected glory, smiling wide and magnanimous—as if he had suffered the months as a prisoner, as if Alexis had been delivered back to him through divine favor alone.
When the last toast had been made and the final crystal flute poured dry, the King rose and summoned Alexis with a wave of his bejeweled hand.
To the public, it was a gesture of warmth—an intimate discussion between a king and loyal nephew.
But the moment the chamber doors closed behind them, the air shifted.
Gone was the fanfare. Gone the music.
Silence fell heavy, broken only by the soft snap of the King's fingers as he dismissed the attendants. When the last servant bowed out, the celebration bled from the room like wine soaking into black cloth.
The King leaned back against a velvet-lined divan and fixed Alexis with a smile that didn't quite touch his eyes.
"Well?" he said at last, voice casual—too casual. "You had one task: return—and return dominant. Yet you let the East keep face. You let them dictate the story."
Alexis did not flinch. "On the contrary, Your Majesty," he said smoothly, the edge of a bow in his posture. "They were forced to pardon me not out of grace… but necessity."
The King's brow arched. "Necessity?"
Alexis took a measured step forward, unspooling the lie he'd polished over the weeks like a diplomat's dagger.
"While under their custody, I took control of the island where they exiled me. Their guards—complacent, outmaneuvered—became tools. I rallied the abandoned. Created order from their neglect. By the time word reached their ministers, I had turned their own outposts into my eyes and ears. The court was cornered. If they exposed me, they exposed their own failure."
A pause.
"They chose silence to save face. A pardon was the only path forward that spared them shame."
For a long heartbeat, the King said nothing. Then, with sudden laughter, he clapped his hands together.
"You sly bastard." His voice boomed with amusement, though his eyes glittered with something else—calculation. "Here I was, thinking I might have to cut your tongue out and feed it to the court just to keep the jackals from circling."
Alexis offered a humble smile, precisely measured.
"You never needed to worry, my King."
The King's grin flattened into something thinner, sharper. "Good. Because your work isn't done."
Alexis said nothing.
The King's voice dropped lower, oiled with implication. "The court is restless. You've returned a little too celebrated. A little too clean. And some"—his fingers danced lazily through the air—"wonder if your time in the island under the Eastern Empire made you… soft. Sympathetic."
His eyes locked on Alexis like a blade resting on his throat.
"They murmur. They question your loyalties. And frankly… so do I."
The words hung there, not a threat—but a test.
Alexis bowed again, just low enough. "Your Majesty's doubts are always well-founded."
"Then prove me wrong," the King said with quiet finality. "The Eastern border stirs. Send word to the nobles. Ready your banners. You will march. You will remind them that their cheers belong to me. That your victories are mine. That you returned not as a rival... but as my blade."
Alexis didn't blink. "Your wisdom is unmatched, my King."
He bowed low once more.
But behind his lowered gaze, his mind sharpened like whetted steel:
You speak of unrest as if you didn't encourage it. You want the court wary of me—afraid, but not united. You want them questioning just enough to isolate me, but not enough to act. And you want me to spill blood in your name so they forget who held the sword.
Typical.
****
Later that night, with the echo of the grand hall fading behind him—its music now nothing more than a memory—Alexis slipped through the side gates of the palace beneath a borrowed moon.
Gone were the gilded tunics. Gone the ceremonial armor that weighed more as a symbol than protection.
He wore a simple cloak of worn gray wool, the hood drawn low to shadow his features. His polished boots were traded for scuffed leather ones that had known dust and distance. No royal banners fluttered at his back. No knights flanked his side.
Only the creak of a tired saddle and the soft clink of modest gear.
To the world beyond the palace, he was no general. No noble heir.
Only Miren, the merchant.
But beneath the fabric and disguise, Alexis' gaze stayed sharp, sweeping the streets with the precision of a commander and the caution of a hunted man.
He moved through the capital like a ghost among the living.
Children chased each other under the amber glow of lanterns, their laughter bouncing off cobblestone and shuttered stalls.
Vendors barked the last of their wares, pushing dumplings, threadbare coats, fire-dried herbs. The city pulsed with warmth, fatigue, and a kind of stubborn survival.
He passed an alley where two city guards cornered a baker, accusing him of underpaying taxes. The baker trembled, his face streaked with flour and desperation.
Alexis intervened without confrontation. A flick of his wrist pinned a discreet Royal Knight insignia to the corner of the bakery sign—a token granted only to royal-affiliated suppliers. Then, casually, he nodded toward it.
The guards, pale and suddenly apologetic, retreated with muttered excuses.
Alexis said nothing. Just gave the baker a brief nod, and moved on.
Not far ahead, a sick child sat slumped against a crumbling wall, his thin shoulders shaking with a wet, hacking cough. No one stopped. Everyone hurried past, blind by necessity.
Alexis didn't.
He knelt and lifted the child carefully, feeling how light he was—bones wrapped in too-little flesh. He carried him to the nearest clinic, barged past a complaining assistant, and set the boy down on a cot.
"Bill it to the health department," he told the attending doctor. "Under the Prime Minister's account."
"But—"
Alexis gave him a look that brooked no refusal. The doctor paled, then nodded.
Only when the boy was taken in and seen did Alexis leave. Silently. Quickly.
He didn't expect thanks.
He didn't want it.
But even as he walked away, a quiet grief stirred in him. These small acts—these repairs to a crumbling system—were fleeting.
His efforts, no matter how precise, could be undone with a single decree from the throne. His uncle's greed ran deeper than rot, infecting the very mechanisms Alexis tried to preserve.
He calls me his blade, Alexis thought bitterly. But what use is a blade if the hand that wields it cuts its own people, the very thing the blade is meant to protect?
He wanted to believe his loyalty still meant something. That it could protect.
Preserve.
But coming back and once again, go through a night like this, that belief frayed.
And still, despite it all, another ache pulled at him—one that had nothing to do with duty.
When he finally reached the quiet shadows of the old quarter, tucked between forgotten temples and sleeping inns, Alexis leaned against a cold stone wall, breath steady but strained.
He reached beneath his tunic.
His fingers found the necklace.
Two koi, carved in graceful arcs—forever circling, forever bound. The metal was cool from the evening breeze, but it seemed to burn against his skin.
One koi bore his name.
The other—
"Hiral…"
The name escaped him like breath held too long.
Low. Warm. Threaded with ache.
His voice cracked, barely audible above the wind that rustled loose banners and laundry lines above.
He clutched the pendant to his chest, fingers trembling slightly. It wasn't just a token. It was a wound—beautiful and deep, and never fully healing.
A part of him wanted to laugh. To curse. To tell himself this longing was foolish.
He was a general. A strategist. A man of war and silence and consequence.
And yet—
The ache was real.
More real than the crown that sat on his uncle's undeserving head.
More real than the lies he had to spin for the royal court full of nobles who wear masks.
More real than any of the hollow toasts and false smiles given in his honor.
It was absurd.
Impractical.
Impossible.
And it lived in him like a secret illness—unseen, unspoken, and incurable.
He closed his eyes, forehead resting against the stone.
"Hiral…" he whispered again, softer this time. As if the name alone could bridge the miles between them.
But the wind answered only with silence, cold and indifferent.
And Alexis, alone beneath the stars, swallowed the ache and wore it like armor beneath his cloak.
Because there were still things to do.
People to protect.
Schemes to survive.
And even if the one he truly longed for was a world away—
He had to keep moving.