They shared a plate of fresh oranges between them, the sweet, sticky juice providing the fuel to rethink of the ghosts of their past.

The very first meal they had ever shared had been a heel of hard bread, chewed silently beneath the moldy, rotting wood of the slave pens where they had been forced to eat, shit, and sleep every night. Many of those crusts were ones they had stolen, eaten in the pitch black of the night. You chewed without making a sound in those pens; if the desperate bastards in the cages nearby caught wind of food, they would either rat you out to the guards for a scrap of favor, or tear you apart to get a piece themselves.

Sometimes both.

More than fifteen winters had passed since those dark nights, and yet the memory of those hard chips of bread, which Alpheo would hold in his mouth for half an hour just to let his saliva soften it up enough to swallow, never quite left his tongue. Even now, with all the rich, exotic food he could possibly command, there was something about that wretched slave bread that kept a hold on him. Perhaps it was the memory of how brutally hard it had been to come across. Or perhaps it was the thrill of knowing that if a guard had found them chewing, their lives would have been forfeit on the spot.

"We have got quite far, Alph. From the desert to the marble. From runaways to kings, eh?"

Clio muttered the words with a wide, easy smile. He had a matted blond beard the color of dry hay, and a drop of orange juice was currently running down the thick hair, making it look dreadfully sticky.

They now both controlled their lives, bite after bite.

"When I had the hot wind of the Arlanian desert kissing my face, with a sharp blade in my hand and my freedom finally secured, I honestly thought that would be the absolute peak of my happiness," Clio mused, wiping his mouth with the back of a silk sleeve.

"Never say ever, my friend," Alpheo replied smoothly, taking a slow bite of a sweet wedge of fruit himself. "Mayhaps I may yet become an emperor before our bones go cold."

Clio let out a snort. "You already lost an ear just to buy a kingship, Alph. What body part you’ll have to pay to foot the bill for an empire?"

The heavy stone walls of the private room echoed with their sudden, thunderous laughter.Had he asked that in the past he would have probably have gladly paid a arm or a leg. Now?He was happy as he was.

As the mirth faded, Alpheo’s dark eyes quietly took in the whole of his old friend. Time had not been particularly respectful to Clio. A lifetime of excellent palace food and a lazy, comfortable lifestyle had completely dimmed whatever modest fighting skills the man had possessed when they were still clearing camps as mercenaries. His face was significantly rounder now, his long, wild beard clearly hiding the soft onset of a double chin. He wore a fine velvet doublet of rich green, though the expensive fabric did very little to hide the prominent, round gut pushing against the seams.

To be fair, Clio had never been a great warrior. He had been a simple fisherman before falling into bondage over a bad debt, and his present position in the realm didn’t actually require him to swing an iron broadsword anyway.

While Egil, Jarza, Asag, and Laedio had all naturally carved out glorious careers within the high ranks of the military apparatus, Clio had dived headfirst into another arena, one that was, however, no less critical to the survival of the state than the vanguard legions themselves. After all, how could a cart roll forward without its wheels?

The King of Yarzat needed someone he trusted implicitly to oversee the vast, burgeoning manufacturing industry that built the economic pillars of the state. It wasn’t just a mundane matter of making sure the laborers kept working; the carefully guarded recipes for soap, high-grade paper, distilled alcohol, and sweet cider were all profound state secrets.

A single leak to a rival principality could ruin the treasury. That meant the entire manufacturing quarter had to be a fortress, a space entirely cut off from the prying eyes of the rest of the world. Such an operation needed a man with a heavy hand to enforce absolute order, to ruthlessly ensure that no unauthorized soul ever slipped in, and that no worker ever snuck out with their secrets.

And in that business the fat fisherman was the perfect jailer.

For fifteen winters of continuous service to the crown, there hadn’t been a single incident of treason or espionage, not for a lack of attempt.

After all keeping the kingdom’s greatest treasures secret was not an easy task. A colossal four-meter-high wooden wall completely surrounded the manufacturing compound, its top ridge aggressively spiked with jagged iron shards and crushed glass to shred the flesh of any foolish thief brave enough to attempt a climb.

There was only a single entrance into the entire fortress of industry, a heavy iron gate barely a meter in width. Only those strictly authorized by the crown could ever step inside, and even then, they were thoroughly searched, stripped of pockets, and constantly supervised by armed guards. All those outsiders did was either bring raw food in or haul finished products out. Nothing more, nothing less.

That impenetrable wall, however, was still not enough to stop the cleverest of thieves.

"I have heard that that thieving boy finally hit it big," Clio asked with a wide, roaring smile, watering down the sweet taste of the fruit with a heavy gulp of ale. "I wonder, did he learn his skill from a certain someone?"

"Will you truly never let that go?" Alpheo groaned, a look of dry exhaustion passing over his face. "It was fourteen winters ago, Clio!"

"Lucky for you to say, you were not the poor bastard being stolen from," Clio chuckled, shaking his head. "Still, to go from a desperate boy begging in the mud and making a precarious living by stealing, to holding one of the highest titles in the state... and married, well, eloped, with a Princess of Yarzat herself? In a mere two decades, this land has crashed through what would normally take older kingdoms an entire century to achieve. Still, pass along my sincere congratulations to the man. Despite his sticky fingers, I wish him happiness."

"We were thinking of holding a quiet, private ceremony to mark the occasion," Alpheo said, picking up another slice of orange. "Could you spare two days from your grueling schedule to attend?"

"I can’t see why not," Clio replied with a boisterous laugh, patting his prominent velvet-clad stomach. "There’s not much for me to do here anyway, apart from drinking the finest vintages, eating exotic foods, and having a bit of fun at night."

"How absolutely dreadful for you," Alpheo murmured, his sarcasm smooth and dry. "The common men on the street might indeed weep out of pity for you if they knew of your plights. The poor bastard who eat , fuck and dream in a soft bed.Truly, how sad’’

The jab made the former fisherman jolly and happy, his round shoulders shaking with mirth.

"Better their pity than their pure hate, my friend," Clio muttered, his tone suddenly dropping into a softer, more grounded register. "Because in the south, out in the fields of Oizen, they absolutely hate you. Just as they do in Habadia, Ezvania, and Kakunia. A crown of conquest makes you very few true friends, I fear."

"Kakunia will soon fall to Merelao," Alpheo countered smoothly, his eyes fixing on the corner of the room.

Maybe then I’ll finally have a secure friend on my borders, the King thought silently.

"That is not my place to discuss, nor do I want to," Clio said, waving a hand dismissively. "What I am truly meaning to say, Alph, is that you are currently surrounded by people who harbor a desperate wish to see your head on a spike, both inside your court and outside your borders. I would humbly suggest a bit more parsimony and caution in your designs. You are running across the map as if you’ve got red-hot spurs burning into your heels, leaping instantly from one bloody conquest to the next without catching your breath."

"I do not trust stillness anymore," Alpheo admitted, his voice quiet, almost hollow. "Stillness is when the blades find you. Stillness is when the enemy set his move. If I have time to play around and rest, then something is very wrong for i should not have that."

"But running around from one battlefield to the next will ensure you stop ever attempting to slow down at all," Clio countered gently, looking at his old comrade with genuine concern. "But then again, what do I know? I am not well-versed in the grand arts of warfare, nor do I understand the delicate knife-play of high politics. This is just my humble opinion as a man who used to catch fish for a copper. It is good and grand that hot, conquering blood still runs through your veins, Alph, but pay care to sometimes look behind you. See whether it might not be more worthy to stop for a season, to settle the dust, and to nurture the lands you already have. For your son Basil’s sake, at the very least."

The room fell into a heavy, thoughtful silence. Alpheo stared at the orange peel in his palm, the echoes of his friend’s wisdom weighing on him. "You have given me a great deal of food for thought, Clio. Truly."

But what I am doing is for my son.

Clio nodded, his sharp blue eyes twinkling through the mass of his blond beard. "As I am entirely sure you are about to give to me now. As much as I always genuinely enjoy your company, Your Majesty, I heavily fear this is not merely a social visit to reminisce about stolen bread or old sorrows. Do I see true?"

Unfortunately he did.