A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 2088: King Patrick - Part 6

He simply shook his head. "Glory certainly awaits us, King Patrick. I wish you luck in your endeavours. I will see the southern border guarded to the last."

"Both borders, Hod," Oliver corrected. "Both you and Blackthorn must see the entire length of that which we defend. Our enemy shall be doing the same through Lord Blake. The two of you must match him – though your posts are currently as you have said."

Hod nodded his understanding, and turned to leave. By the time he had turned back around, King Patrick was already disappearing behind the gates. He was a man that seemed a veritable storm of activity, and if Minister Hod did not know any better, he could have sworn that he was happier than he had seen the man in a long time. Behind that serious mask, there was a whirlwind that delighted in smashing every single one of the boulders that the rest of humanity called problems.

...

...

Nila reached for the handle of the door, preparing to leave. She had gathered herself properly. She even wore a dress that day. It was green, and lengthy, embroidered with golden thread. She had told herself that she ought to start doing more – that she ought to start supporting Oliver properly, as a Lady should support a King. The two had courted for a good amount of time, but supposed, on reflection, she had spent a good amount of that time running away from the curious gazes of those around them, knowing full well how they would look down upon a peasant courting a noble. Even if Oliver himself was a peasant, there was no way she could tell them that.

She had prepared to leave, and turned the handle, but the door was opened before she could think of departing, and Oliver was already standing there, crown upon his head, and another one grasped between his fingers.

There was a literal rush of air that came with, from the windiness of the day – but there was also the rigidness of his presence. She took a moment to compose herself. It was like a different man had returned to the one who had left, just a short time before.

"...You did it, then," she said, noticing the crown that Oliver held. She wondered how she felt about that. Her heart had sunk when she first heard the news. She didn’t want Oliver to play the role of executioner. It seemed different to what occurred on the battlefield. Closer to something morally ambiguous. She didn’t want the boy that she had loved, and delighted in, to begin to wander in such murky domains.

"I did," Oliver said, entering in, and closing the door after him. "And I have begun a war with it."

"So I have heard," Nila said.

"A war I intend to win," Oliver said, striding across to the fire, and holding his hands in front of it – though he made sure to hold Nila’s gaze when he said those words.

’Frightening,’ she thought to herself, beholding the look in his eyes.

That was part of Oliver Patrick too, she knew. Or more part of Beam. That stubborn forwardness that he would get at times, when he was convinced that there were no other solutions. He got that when he was working towards his Hobgoblin test with Dominus Patrick. Despite how foolish it was to fight the creature with those wounds, and how much Nila had hated him – and feared for him – because of it, he’d done it anyway. A path that only Beam could have seen at the time. The tightrope towards an impossible victory, one that she’d been privileged in seeing. He’d shone a light bright enough that it had illuminated even her future.

That boy had grown up, however. He had grown up, and he’d risen impossibly far in the world. Now, when that same emotion descended over him, that same scary look in his eyes, he did so with all the power of a King. Now, when he declared a reckless course, and dedicated himself entirely to it, without question, he did so with the weightiest of consequences on his shoulders. He had not only his life to take into the balance, but the lives of all under him, and he knew that Oliver Patrick struggled with that more than anything else. They were what had him trembling in his sleep.

The man that stood there, before the fire. He was not the largest of men. Not the oldest of men. Nor did he even look any different than he had when he had returned home, before the civil war had begun, and asked Nila to marry him. Yet that man now carried two crowns. In such a short time, the world had changed so much. Everything was set to spinning at an impossible speed, and Nila knew not any more where there was certainty.

King Patrick – that was who stood before the fire. It was not the Oliver that she knew, not the Beam. There were traces of both those people, but he was not the same. He was beyond the realm of peasantry, and nobility, he was royalty through and through now. Something had infected him. Perhaps it was just the weight of the decision that he was forced to make. Perhaps he had always had it in him. Perhaps this was a future that Oliver Patrick had longed for from the start.

A terrifying man, she found him to be, for the fact she knew the weakness in him. She knew how he had suffered. More certainly than any other person in the Stormfront could possibly know, she was sure that he would defeat the High King, no matter what armies he raised to stand against him. She was sure there were none that could defeat Oliver Patrick when he was like this. For him to find that degree of strength again, despite how much he had suffered – there was no other man who could do it as she had.

A part of her was glad. She did not want to see him eternally weak. Another part of her felt sorry for him. There was a strange delight that came from Oliver whenever he had such an obstacle, but that did not change the fact that he would suffer. She didn’t want to see the man that she loved suffer, not anymore. A third part of her, after all, was lonely. She felt silly in her dress. It was not her style, it was far too noble. It was the small effort that she had made, when compared to the magnitude that Oliver had needed to change in order to bear his burden.