A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"I do recall you telling me to trust in what other people see in me," Oliver said. "Then I say the same to you, Princess Asabel. I do not know what it is, but there's something to you that I have not seen in anyone else."

She blushed and looked away. "Do not say such things with such an intense look in your eyes. I am still a member of royalty, Ser Patrick. As weakened as I might have shown myself to you, I can not betray the trust of my people by engaging in anything that could be foolish… Ah, but that is not what you meant, is it? Now once more, I am embarrassed… Hm. Are you feeling well?

Your skin does not look quite as cold as it did… Could it be the fire?"

"I do not think it was the fire," Oliver said, looking at her. He'd had suspicions before, but now he was convinced. There was something to Princess Asabel that severed him.

That strange sense of void that had begun to come when progress was being made, it began to lessen in her presence, like ice melting away before a grand flame. He could not say why it was, or what it was, not enough to put it into words for the woman. But at the very least, it gave him the slightest shred of an answer where before he'd had none.

The risks that he'd been looking to take in order to unify the imbalance within him, as a result of the wounds left by the Gods, and the natural strain of carrying two Blessings at once, they all began to seem foolish now.

He'd thought that, somehow asking for the Blessing of a third God would have helped to ease it and to mend it, but from what his fragments had told him, that seemed unlikely to be the case. If anything, it seemed likely to make it worse.

And yet, what the Gods themselves were unlikely to fix, Princess Asabel Pendragon had managed the slightest nudging. Enough to take the edge of it off. That earlier spark, Oliver guessed, was not static, but something else. Something unique to her.

He shivered. With that knowledge in mind, before that fire, she seemed a far different woman. A woman of giant and radiant proportions. Beauty is as difficult to look at as the sun itself. Quantities of power that he could never seek to emulate with his sword. The sort of natural phenomena that put the sea itself to shame.

Somehow, despite being the warrior that he was, in constant search of further power, of greater enemies to slay, in this area alone, he was fine being inferior to her. It frightened him enough to scare him away.

In the same way that a bird knew not to fly straight at that flaming ball of fire in the sky, so too did Oliver know that it was foolish to chase the Pendragons down into the well of divinity from which they sprang.

"Oliver?" She said, tilting her head at him, as unable to understand his own reaction to her, as he was able to understand her seemingly inflated view of him.

"It is nothing," he said. "Thank you, regardless."

"For what?" She said, curious.@@novelbin@@

"You have healed me once again."

She drew back from him a step, as though he'd pushed her. "However do you mean, O-oliver?" She stuttered. "Heal you? However could I heal you in just a few short moments?"

"The same way you heal everything beyond your reach, I expect," Oliver said, standing up to face her. He could see just a tiny fraction more of her now.

She turned her head away, as though ashamed. "How on earth do you know about that..? Besides, I tried it on you, and it did not work. Do you think I would cry otherwise? If both the power I was born with failed me, as well as my title, then I was nothing. I could not even save hope itself, as he lay sick in his chair."

"Yet you have regardless," Oliver said. He could feel the fatigue abating back to normal levels. The sort of thing that was acceptable. The hole that had developed as a result of the excessive progress patched itself up. No, it was more than that. It wasn't just fixing the damage he'd dealt – it was making his whole system stronger than it ever had before.

Standing over her as he was, Asabel seemed to find it intimidating. In his eyes, she saw an accusation that wasn't there.

"I'm sorry…" She mumbled quietly. "I shouldn't have done it… I know it's wrong. You don't have to tell me. I know it's wrong. A devilish, dark power. If the priests knew, they'd… Oh.

But you will have to tell the priests, won't you?"

"Asabel?" Oliver said, horrified to see her trembling. He hadn't intended to frighten her. If anything, he was excited by the discovery. Find more chapters on My Virtual Library Empire

"I am sorry, Ser Patrick… I am not what you thought I was," Asabel said sadly. "I am tainted by a power that I should have kept far better hidden… No one has found out until now. No one ever should have. Oh Gods. I should have never been. How dare a creature like I reach for a crown?"

"Asabel!" He said more firmly, grasping her shoulder. "What on earth is the matter with you? What has you so afraid?"

She was forced to look into his eyes. "That power… You found out," she said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why on earth would you fear it? It's a wondrous thing," Oliver said.

"It's unnatural. It's mage-like. All magic is sin. A product of the Dark Gods," Asabel said.

"It isn't based in mana," Oliver corrected, startling her.

"How do you know?" She said. She wasn't at all like herself. It was as though he'd clicked his fingers and she'd regressed the instant he'd mentioned it. She'd transformed into a different person entirely. A quivering wreck of a person.

"I've fought a mage," Oliver said, "this doesn't feel like that. It feels like divinity."

"Divinity?" Asabel said. "Like the Gods? Oh, goodness… No, that's even worse."

"Do you not know of Blessings, Asabel?" Oliver said.