A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 2081: Hurried Footsteps - Part 7

"Are you deaf?" He asked King Patrick. "Do I have to speak it, for you to hear what the rest consider obvious. Do you know what you attempt to do, in cutting down the High King? Even the Gods are against you. Do you think it’s that easy, to remove a crown from one King’s head, and put it upon another – to upset centuries of tradition? Do you believe yourself to carry that weight?"

Edward found himself in agreement. They all seemed to act and talk as if it were normal. Something that they had the right to consider. To dethrone a King, to take a King’s life. Normal men could not carry that right. Normal men could not interfere with the affairs of royalty – only another King, or Queen could. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"You are a nobleman, at best, Patrick," he said. "The Pendragon crown you wear is an insult to every true blooded royal. A crown is not something you can grasp out of want. A crown is something destined for you from the moment that you are born. You are not a pure enough creature to carry it."

"That is why you betrayed me?" King Patrick said. "You supposed that the natural order of things would be set against me? That I had done something that could not be undone? You bet on your philosophy – you supposed that justice to support my death?"

"I did, and I still do," King Emerson said. "A world in which you go on living, wearing a crown that is not yours is not a world that I can imagine."

"You lack imagination," King Patrick said, walking around the table, and dragging his sword with him. "You seem to expect that it is a great deed for a man to cut down a King. It isn’t. There are no special shields that the Gods offer to protect your flesh from my blade. When I slew Germanicus, great warrior though he was – in the end, he was simply that, a great warrior. There was no change in killing a King."

"The Treeants are different. They have no true royal family. They change their crown based on strength, and sully it. They are barbarians, strangers to divine might," King Emerson said.

Oliver Patrick came closer.

King Emerson eyed the blade that came closer with him, as Oliver Patrick dragged it along the length of the table. Lord Merkel stretched his arms out wide, preventing King Patrick from getting any closer, but with a lazy slap of the back of his hand, King Patrick knocked him to the ground.

All the while, King Patrick’s retainers watched dispassionately. They did not rush forward to protect him from what was left of the enemy. They feared nothing for him – they could see no danger.

King Emerson’s building fear gave way to laughter. "You’re an idiot, well and truly, King Patrick," he said. "When I saw you crown yourself, despite having no land, I had thought as much. When I saw your inability to hold your temper, I was assured of it. But now, standing before me, waving that sword, as if you truly have any reason to use it – I am even more convinced."

Oliver Patrick let the sword sit right in front of King Emerson, as he loomed over the man. He looked over at Prince Hendrick, but the man stood, looking resigned. It seemed he had already fought for a cause that he did not believe in, and now he was prepared to let the pieces fall where they may.

"You don’t understand, do you?" King Emerson said. "Why it was Blake offered me up as a sacrifice – the purpose to which he betrayed me? Congratulations, Patrick, he respects your abilities on the battlefield enough to make use of even me. But it will get you nothing. Everything you do now, you do out of his wants."

"Kill me, then, and see what it buys you. Kill me, and the High King wins. Kill me, and you are a tyrant, a kingslayer. Kill me, and Lord Blake unites the entirety of the Stormfront against you. The Pendragons will rise up. The Treeants will see a new ruler selected, and rise up against you. The Wyndons will do the same. There have been many noble factions in this war that have remained neutral, who favoured neither one side, nor the other. In killing me, you allow Blake to rise up all of them. You become that which you accuse the High King of being. You become a tyrant."

Oliver Patrick looked around. He could see, as Edward did, the faces of all the men in the room changing. The grandness of Lord Blake’s plan. That he would sacrifice even the Emerson King for it. He believed he knew who Oliver Patrick was, and what he would do when pushed. And supposedly, if the Emerson King’s word was anything to go by, his predictions had been right the whole way through.

Now, Oliver Patrick had already done the damage. Used like a puppet, Blake had the two allies in the Emersons and the Patricks destroy each other. They’d wasted tens of thousands of men, and ruined settlements, all without Lord Blake lifting a finger. And now, Oliver Patrick was to be denied his justice. He would be made to look weak, in being betrayed, and doing nothing about it.

From the very start, they had all been dancing to the tune of the one they called Lord Blake. Verdant Idris had his face crunched into a frown as he wrestled with the problem with all of his intelligence. General Blackthorn suddenly found himself looking uneasy. Lady Blackthorn beside him parted her mouth enough that it seemed like she might bite her lip, but she refrained from the action, just before her teeth could grasp hold.

"See?" King Emerson said, oozing venom. "We’ve all been had! We’ve all been made fools of. Sit down beside me, King Patrick, for you are as big a fool as me."