A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"Of course, it would mean that I, as well as your other retainers, would be forced to remain behind on this particular visit, which I must admit I am somewhat bitter about," Verdant said. From the look on his face, he did seem as bitter as he professed himself to be, but he still put Oliver's wants ahead of his own and laid out the plan that would suit him.

"You've mentioned that to me before," Oliver remembered with a grimace. "Sorry, Verdant… I'll make sure to bring you another time. I appreciate you making the concession for me."

"I understand, my Lord," Verdant assured him. "I confess, that I have wondered myself whether I should send you on such a trip. I know that you seem to feel far more endeared to that village than you do to the Academy. I had wondered, as things began to pick up, whether it would be good for your health to spend a weekend there.

I am pleased that Lord Blackwell has seemingly forced our hand in that regard."

"Are you that excited to go to a little village?" Amelia asked, puzzled. "Surely it can't be that exciting?"

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There was no venom in her words. It more seemed as though she genuinely couldn't understand.

"He's returning home, Amelia," Pauline said. "Is there not anything more that needs to be said than that?"

Lasha nodded in agreement. "Home…" She murmured. "I imagine it to be a pretty place."

That was not the way Oliver would describe it… Not unless he viewed it from a distance. Of course, its isolated placement, and its situation with the picturesque Black Mountains behind it certainly ascribed it some sort of beauty… But as a villager living there, the life was anything but beautiful. It was hard, both on the mind and on the body.

Oliver's most intense memories of it too were stained by blood. Pretty wasn't quite the word he'd use.

"I suppose home is a way to put it," Oliver said, considering it. It was at least more of a home than he'd had in many years. Of course, there was no way he could replace his true family, or his village that had been burned to the ground, but Solgrim at least was a tether that kept him affixed to the ground, before he grew too lost, drifting at sea.

…

…

He spent the rest of that week with two conflicting thoughts in mind. Those of Solgrim, and those of Asabel.

Thought of Asabel he firmly wrestled free from his attention whenever they came up. It bore no use thinking about it. It was an irrationality in an otherwise levelheaded and brilliant woman. It wasn't something he could even think about addressing.

That too, meant any thoughts as to the state of his own condition were off the table. They would inevitably lead back to Asabel, and the question of her healing. Had she healed him, or had she not? The more the days went by, the more unsure Oliver was. The fact still remained – she was capable of it. Weak though she claimed that power to be, she'd been born with it.

A fragment of divinity that she could wield from birth, is that what it was? If it were to be true, it crushed everything that Oliver thought he knew of Blessings.

Thoughts of Solgrim, however, were far easier to entertain. He wondered what had changed for Nila and for Greeves and Judas in the times that they'd been away. He wondered how Mrs Felder was doing, and whether Stephanie had properly recovered after her traumatic experience at the hands of Francis.@@novelbin@@

He wondered too how the rebuilding had gone for the villagers, and how they'd dealt with all the dead that had followed the wake of the attack. He doubted that they could have stayed too optimistic after it all. He supposed that there would likely have been a sombre air about the village now.

No doubt they were struggling, having all that damage done to them right in the heart of winter – what worse time could it have been done?

Still, though, he was excited.

Apparently, the land that he'd been given wasn't the village itself. It was an area just outside of the village, an area approximately as big as Lombard's house itself.

It made for a confusing question: what was the village then? If only that patch of land was his, why did Verdant refer to the village too as his? Apparently, he was meant to be its protector and ruler of sorts, but he didn't own it. Not exactly. Its true owner would always remain Lord Ernest… and yet, as far as the law was concerned, Oliver could do whatever he pleased with it.

It seemed that, for every matter that mattered, the village was indeed his, apart from in name. It was his, but he couldn't call it his, just act like it was his. It was a complicated thing to wrap his head around and yet another thing that he'd set to the back of his mind.

He'd thought that the quiet flames of rage that Asabel had stoked would have begun to die down within the days to come, but they hadn't. That same itch and want to do more didn't settle. Even in his lessons, his teachers were surprised to find something in him that was near ferocity.

"By goodness, boy, you wouldn't have happened to have indulged in that Southern coffee, would you?" Volguard asked him accusingly, after Oliver assailed him with the third of many rapid-fire questions.

"Not at all, professor," Oliver assured him. "I merely insist that I finally make some sort of progress in my academics, and I am doing what I can towards that end."

"Well, I do not scold you for it," Volguard said, "it has been a delight to see a pupil so hungry for that which we teach, though your intensity is somewhat… off putting, at times, I daresay. Nevertheless, allow us to re-examine these different positions once more."