A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"In the beginning," Asabel agreed. "When they'd just left the Academy, and they were making a name for themselves – did they realize where they were likely to end up, and all that they were likely to influence? Perhaps Uncle did… But I wonder if Dominus knew as well?"

"I don't know," Oliver said honestly. "I suppose, if he was looking for anything, it was probably just a way to improve his sword. I imagine he saw the world through that lens, and everything else was secondary. It wouldn't surprise me if even his friendship with Arthur he saw merely as a chance to improve his sword – at least at first."

"Do you miss him?" Asabel asked. She didn't look at him as she asked the question. She couldn't. She was busy seeing something in the flames.

It took Oliver a moment before he was able to give what should have been a simple answer. "…I do," he decided, irritated by the weakness that crept into his voice as he'd said it.

Dominus, despite his relatively short time with Oliver, was as important as family. More important, even when one saw the way the direction of Oliver's life had changed as a result of meeting the man. He'd dragged him out of the bowels of hell, after all. If not for him, then it seemed likely that Oliver would have rotted in the pit of his circumstances.

"As do I," Asabel replied. From the tear that fell down her cheek, it was clear that it wasn't Dominus that she was talking about, but her uncle. "If they were here… I doubt that it would be so hard. I doubt that there would have been such a mess of things made."

She kept her voice level, despite her tears. It seemed as if she believed that by looking forward, Oliver wouldn't see her. In the dim light, it was a well-ambitioned hope. Oliver saw, but he pretended not to. "I…"

"Don't, Oliver," Asabel cautioned, guessing what he would say. "Don't let me see guilt in your eyes, after what I did. I do not need your guilt. I need your strength."

"My strength, is it..?" Oliver said slowly. If he'd taken note of all the times that had been said to him recently, he would have had to buy a new inkpot. "People keep telling me that, but unless your problem can be solved with a sword, there are far better people than me."

"And as said to you before, it is not simply your sword. Trust in what other people see, Oliver. What Verdant sees, and what I see. You are not limited by the sword. You seem to have a greater likelihood of affecting this world than me. Than anyone," Asabel said.

"See, that doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me," Oliver said, unable to keep the annoyance from seeping into his voice. "Just what are you seeing that I am not? What can I possibly do, that you, Silver Queen that you are, cannot? You saved me from execution. Could I do the same for you?"

"My power was given to me," Asabel said, "yours was not. You're terribly frightening, to tell you the truth."

Again, he went quiet. In that, at least, she was right.

"It is more frightening still to see what weakens you," she continued. "It's not tiredness, is it? That night on the Academy grounds, it wasn't poison, was it?"

"…No, it wasn't," Oliver said.

"And if I asked you what it was?"

Enjoy new chapters from My Virtual Library Empire

"Then I couldn't explain it. No more than you can explain what you say you see in me," Oliver replied.

"Are you going to disappear as well?" She asked. It was hard to say who she was talking to, but Oliver didn't think it was just him. There was a tone to her voice that she'd never used with him. It was the voice of a far younger version of her. "There's something about you, Ser Patrick, that seems to not be real… Oh. No.

It isn't something. It's all of you. You're like a strange fog that I'm trying to grasp, in a world where fog shouldn't exist."

"A fog, eh?" Oliver murmured. "I suppose that beats being a monster."

"A monster?" She seemed puzzled by the comparison. "Ah. Yes. People fear you, don't they? I suppose they're right too. People fear the floods in summer.

They fear when the ear trembles and waves are sent towering high, wiping away villages. I suppose they would be right to fear you too. You will bring change, I think. Well, I suppose you already have… You who shouldn't exist. You who didn't exist, until just a few months before."

She turned to look at him, her earlier tears drying on her cheek. "Tell me, Oliver Patrick, are you real at all? Real enough that I could reach out to you?"

He held out his hand, scarred and callused hand that it was. "If you wish to know what is real or not, it's Verdant you should ask, not me. That man sees things that the rest of the world does not. But if you ask what I see, then I can at least see my own hand, at times."

She took his hand before he could draw it away.

"And how is your hand so terribly cold when the room is so full of warmth?" She asked. "Even the worst of poisons would not be so cruelly subtle." She put her fingers on his wrist, and felt his pulse. "Even your heartbeat is irregular. Your face is the palest I've ever seen it. If I asked you to stand now, could you?"@@novelbin@@

"I suppose it depends on what you ask me to stand for," Oliver said, offering the weakest of smiles.

She returned the smile, like a starving man, desperate for warmth. "Oh, how you sadden me, Ser Patrick. I wish to ask all there is to know about you, but I fear for what I'll find. I wish to know where you spent all those years away from the noble court, how it is that you got strong so quickly, how it is that I sense such pain behind your eyes...

Perhaps to simply sit and listen – to do away with my ambitions. To get rid of that girlish dream of attempting to be my Uncle, I could at least get a sense for that which is enacting change."