A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 2079: Hurried Footsteps - Part 5

It was difficult to tell, but thankfully – as far as Edward was concerned – that nobleman was the only man foolish enough to try Kaya’s patience. They could tell that they had almost reached their destination from the level of the voices that were speaking on the floor above them. For miles around, those people, in that room, might have been the only ones that dared to speak levelly, without a whisper to dampen their tones.

"You," Kaya said, turning around. "Why are you standing still? Do you not have a message for my King?"

Edward said nothing. The gravity that had pulled him here became overwhelming. No longer did it pull him forth, it rooted him in place. That sense that he’d had that he was walking into a dragon’s den was amplified tenfold. He was right here now, right at the foot of that dragon. It was as large as the horizon, and could gobble him up on the slightest whim. He had the very real feeling, that in any instant, on the slightest whim, he could die here.

"...You came this far, fool," Kaya said, crossing back towards him. "Was it not important to you?"

"It was. And it is," Edward said. "It is a matter of the utmost importance."

"Then what do you fear?" Kaya said.

"Everything. I fear that this is not my place. To intrude on a meeting between Kings."

"It is far too late for that," Kaya said. "Go all the way, idiot, if your heart tells you to do so. Only then, would my King respect you. If you attempt to shield yourself, and to shy away from the fear that clouds you, he will see through you. Go honestly, and with the same will that you had at the bottom of the stairs. I know not what you wish to tell him – but I will have him told."

"...You Patrick men, odd you might be, but you truly are the servants of Claudia," Edward said, feeling his strength, and his will returning to the slightest degree. The push on the back, given to him by a man that ought to have been far from being his ally.

Kaya snorted. "We’re servants of King Patrick."

The young Commander had Edward walk up those final sets of stairs. Then, with a knock on the sturdy wooden door, he announced their presence.

"Commander Kaya, escorting a messenger," Kaya said.

"Enter," came the voice. King Patrick, Edward knew it to be in an instant. The firmness of it, like a boulder to the head – but also that airy quality to it, as if it were fluid, and just as well as crushing an obstacle, could it flow past it.

Kaya, without hesitation, let himself in. Edward came after him, his heart in his mouth.

In an instant, Edward was exposed to a level of grandness that he had never encountered. Three different crowns, on three different heads, and all of them silver. On the red hair of who he assumed to be Prince Hendrick, there was a small crown, indicating his station as a prince. The man wore a bruise just under his right eye, and his lip had been split, and bloodied.

Then there was an older man, with hair straight, and pure in their whiteness, and an angularly cut but relatively lengthy white beard to go with it. Edward knew him to be King Emerson, and he marvelled at how calm the man seemed to be.

The Emerson King was sat at the head of a large wooden table – he was the only man in the entire room seated. There must have been thirty or forty individuals of rank gathered there, with the large majority cloaked entirely in bloodied armour, and only the Emerson King sat, as if he were on trial. Never had Edward seen a more lonely looking man. It was as if the very world itself was against him.

King Patrick stood at the other end of the table, his sword sheathed at his belt, and one of his arms placed behind his back. He looked stern, and noble, but also terrifyingly at ease. For the magnitude of the situation that such a young man found himself in, Edward didn’t detect the slightest trace of discomfort for him. He did not have the sense that the man was wrestling with any sort of difficult decision, or that he was troubling himself to the slightest degree.

Just next to him, Edward detected another man of rank, an overwhelming presence. From the size of the man, and the deepness of the black of his hair and beard, Edward supposed himself to be looking at General Blackthorn. It was not a man that he was allowed to look at for very long, for the General returned his look with the angry glare of a bear that was ready to charge at any moment. Relaxed, King Patrick might have been – the General was anything but. He oozed bloodlust. Edward had the sudden sense that the man might be his foremost enemy in the room.

Kaya saluted. "Your messenger, King Patrick."

"Indeed," Oliver Patrick said, turning his gaze Edward’s way. Stormy grey eyes, with the occasional lightning bolt of gold and purple flashing through them. They didn’t look real – they looked like a magic spell. Edward had to wonder if he was simply imagining what he saw, based on his preconceptions of greatness that he supposed from the man. "And who might you be, Ser?"

"Edward, Your Majesty," Edward said, collapsing to one knee, and dipping his head. He had no trouble kneeling before King Patrick. He knew it before he had travelled here, but he knew it even more strongly when he had laid eyes on him. The man before him was his King. Annointed by Claudia, he was given that right, and her Blessing. A Blessing beyond the likes of which the swordsmen called the Boundaries. It was the Blessing of the Goddess of Progress, allowing a man to rule.

"Ser Edward, then," King Patrick said.

"A distraction," Lord Blackthorn started to say, as he dragged a seat from the table, all the way to the other end, next to King Patrick, where he had been standing before. "Not something we have time to waste on, if that fool is to be believed," he said, pointing at King Emerson.