A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1676 - 1676: A Captured Capital - Part 11

"…Have you?" The King said. "Look at me when you say such a thing, daughter of mine."

Queen Asabel did look at him. Her gaze did not waiver. "I am not your daughter, King Pendragon. I am Queen Asabel."

"You look for my title, daughter, and my lands," King Pendragon said. "Where did we fail you, to have raised you into the creature that you are?"

"You did not fail me. I thank you for the upbringing that you gave me," Queen Asabel said.

"And yet you turn on us. You spit at us. All that we have given you – you betrayed it. You Quarter Inherited before your time, and you pushed our kingdom into minor chaos. And all for what? For what? For Oliver Patrick?" King Pendragon said.

"For justice," Asabel replied. "For what was right. I would not see an innocent man be sentenced to death. I would have been just as complicit if I had not acted."

"You can not solve everything. There are limits to the power of royalty," King Pendragon said.

"The limits you believe in, King Pendragon, are different to the limits that I believe in," Queen Asabel said.

"What if I were to slay you here, Queen Asabel?" King Pendragon said, his tone shifting, as he addressed Asabel by her title. "Do you think a Silver King would surrender so meekly, just because you asked him to? Do you forget the might of our men?" He nodded to his bodyguards. "These men are Swords. You have bested me with Generals, but would your Generals overcome my Swords?"

"I would not try it, King Pendragon," Queen Asabel said. "Enough blood has already been spilled."

"There was enough blood spilled hundreds of years ago! You add to the pot, unnecessarily, with these schemes that you carry out, with this unjust rebellion that you head," King Pendragon raged.

"I would also warn against it, King Pendragon," Blackwell said. "Nearly twenty thousand men surround your fortress. Your Swords would not best me, nor them."

"Perhaps it is as you say, Blackwell. Perhaps it is not," King Pendragon said. "Is it still not a more honourable death than surrendering, and slowly starving to death in a cell somewhere? Or being executed, when your rebellion does fail?"

"I can guarantee your safety, King Pendragon," Queen Asabel said.

"You can guarantee me nothing, daughter!" The King said. "Nothing. You have not obeyed a single one of my commands. At every instance, you have flaunted my word and showered me in disrespect. How could I expect you to treat me with dignity now, when you attempt to strip my power from me?"

He had risen in his fury, and he pointed his sword at them, waving it to accent his words. His wife looked at him as if she might shake her head. She spoke before he could go much further.

"You fight for your Uncle's cause, Asabel," the Queen said. "That much is evident. It is hardly our daughter at all that we speak to, but the remnants of Arthur. He had far too much of an influence on you, far too young. I should have been more careful. If normal men could not resist his charms, how was I to expect that a girl as young as you might?"

"I would not have had it done differently," Asabel said. "Arthur taught me much. He taught me of justice, and of purpose, and the role that a ruler ought to have. Without his guidance, I would have been a far worse person."

"Worse than this?" King Pendragon snorted. "Worse than pointing weaponry at your own kin, and threatening them with death and with surrender? You think you could stoop lower than that? The man that you worship was a false idol. My brother was a foolish man. He was blessed by the Gods with his swordsmanship, that is true – but that is all he received from them. He did not know sense, he did not know governance. He certainly did not know politics. He did not know how to deal with the High King – and so he died, before his time, despite my warnings. Just like you, he failed to heed my advice, and he was killed for it."

"He went to do his duty in fighting the Pandora Goblin," Queen Asabel said. "I do not think that to be a lacking of character."

"He was ordered to do so for the trouble that he was causing," King Pendragon said. "What sort of High King would tolerate such a volatile spark as what Arthur turned out to be? He sealed his own demise. He riled up the peasantry with promises of better. And then the cycle of succession was to come around towards the Pendragons. Some started to whisper that it ought to be hurried on – that Arthur should be King earlier. I warned him, that brother of mine, I warned him, and did he listen? Both you and he, you're too wrapped up in delusion to see what it is that is right before your eyes."

"What is right in front of my eyes?" Queen Asabel said.

"You've killed tens of thousands!" King Pendragon said. "That is right before your eyes – a mountain of corpses. My own daughter, who always touted peace so highly, and look what it is that you have become. You're possessed. Arthur would not have done what you have done. You have taken his ideals, and they have distorted you. You're neither him, nor yourself. You're just a monster."

For just a moment, Queen Asabel wavered. The sword that King Pendragon waved at them was nothing compared to those words that cut straight through the Queen's heart. Blackwell's heart sank. He knew just how difficult a position Queen Asabel was placed in. If the right thing was said, from the right direction—

"You are wrong, father," Queen Asabel said, her fist clenched, her voice filled with power. Addressing him not as the King, but as the father that she refused he was. "You are wrong. I will prove it to you. What drove Arthur to his death, and what has confronted so many others. The difficulty that we have all cowered from, in the name of peace. It has to be dealt with now, before it can grow any worse, before it gobbles us all up."