A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1538 - 1538: Where Art The Fire - Part 3

Oliver was able to move unmolested, admiring the whiteness of Solgrim, so stained by snow. The signs of the battle that had been fought there seemed so utterly vanished with the help that the Gods had provided in terms of the weather. They had done their own work, in terms of repairs, and in the new houses that had been put up to accommodate the new residences, but one could tell at a single glance what was new and what was old, even with the greatest efforts being made to keep everything of the same style. The wintery weather unified that.

It had come earlier than one would expect, for they were still late autumn, and not quite winter, but Oliver found it to be a good sign. He dared not plunge into the fullest of the problem that they now faced, nor hold it entirely in his head. He could only dance around it in Claudia's manner, and when he did so, he did declare, the white canvas that the Gods had presented them seemed to be a good sign. He chose to interpret it as their will that the Asabelian army might draw up their own future.

"An Asabelian army so far from actual Asabelian territory…" Oliver had to laugh at the thought. From the very off, their campaign was set to be fraught with difficulties. All their territories were too scattered. They had no unified front. It was certain to be a mess of problems. And that was certainly not the only one. The loyalty of the army that they had practically forced under their command was to be called to the highest degree of question. Those men and noblemen that did not belong to trusted Generals were to be treated with distrust from the off. As soon as their war showed signs of going in the enemy's favour, Oliver fully expected them to route.

And then, even the Generals that they did think they could trust, could they? One single betrayal and they'd all be… Oliver cut off such a line of thinking before he could pursue it too strongly. His strategic mind had been honed, from all his time spent trying to improve his strategic skill. It was almost a default mode of thought for him now, for all the good that it did him, for he was still very well aware that when it came to strategy, he was still far from being the level of a General, despite his newly found title.

He had to force himself not to think on it. He ran faster, by Claudia's encouragement, following the footsteps to their destination, a dog's playful smile on his lips, whitening his mind, as the world had been whitened around him, imagining the surprise of the man that he was in pursuit of, when Oliver finally caught up to him.

The footsteps brought him all the way up to the base of Dominus Patrick's statue, now covered in snow. It made the serious face of the wise master look incredibly silly, to have snow perched like a bird's nest on top of the wide brimmed hat that he had always worn.

His sword was held beside him, pointed towards some imaginary enemy. A larger rendition of the very blade that Oliver wore at his hip always – even now, when he was dressed in nothing but his night's clothes. He reached for the sword's hilt, as he always did, when he needed reassurance.

There was a feeling in his chest that was difficult to process, seeing Dominus like that, so lifelike, as if he might step out from stone at any second. If anyone could break free of stone restraints, it would be Dominus. He stepped free of the concrete restraints of the Fifth Boundary and had shattered all the way to the Sixth Boundary, in a way that no other human in history had – not even the First King, as far as Oliver was aware.

It made Oliver's smile waver. If he looked too long, he was certain his smile might disappear entirely. He looked for the footprints again, remembering his game, convincing himself of it. A game was all it was, he was sure. Just a grand game, a grand puzzle – and if it was simply that, Oliver Patrick could tackle. Just one foe, one adversity, he could overcome it. He could trust himself to do that…

And yet the simple little puzzle that he had clung to, to start his day off with childishness, it turned on him too, those footprints led straight into a bog of profundity, and the longer Oliver stared, the more the mud clung to him, threatening to drag him down into its depths.

He could not deny his rising terror when he saw those footprints simply stop where they were, right in front of Dominus Patrick's statue, as though they had stepped right inside of it. Not because of what that might to, if thought of in its most supernatural state, with the most ghostly of conclusions, but because the puzzle was so beyond him, in his fragility of mind, that he could not stomach it. He could not even conceive of it.

He bit his lip, and he collapsed in the stone, in front of the statue of his old master. He felt weakness stir in him. Nila had nudged at it with her finger the night before, ever so gently, she had managed to find a crack that not even Oliver's greatest foes could have. She had surprised him in a way that even the greatest of Generals never could have. She'd defeated him, well and truly, and liberated him, and weakened him.

He could almost curse her for it. Her comforts were too kind, her will was too warm, the ice that Oliver had built around his heart, for all the years that he had continued to move forward, she had threatened to melt it, and the very thought terrified him. He had existed as he was for the longest time. He had made himself value strength above all things. He scorned not such weakness in other men, but in himself, he could never allow it.