A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1766 - 1766: Wounded Pride - Part 1

If not for Tavar's interference, matters might have moved worse for the King. The Tavar men around him were set to shifting, preparing for a withdrawal, and King Germanicus was caught up in their tide before he knew what was happening, though he did not step down onto the ladder until a soldier whispered the order in his ear.

"Tavar wishes to discuss a new strategy below with you," he'd said, the choice of words awfully careful, as if they were crafted to avoid wounding King Germanicus' pride even further.

The King had nodded, not needing any further convincing. He gave Oliver one last look, before he took to the ladder himself.

It had come so suddenly, that blood on Oliver's sword – the blood of a King. He hadn't had time to reflect on it. The way he'd made that mountain of a man cower, and retreat before him. He didn't have time to understand the emotion whirling in his chest, nor all the chaos of the battlefield.

Hod had been relentless in the orders that he'd given. He'd told Oliver to claim the entirety of the southern wall, and to do it quickly. Oliver had done just that, before he had time to process anything else. Riding the wind that he had brought, he found himself moving more quickly than he ever had before. His heaviest blows were thrown with a lightness of the arm that he'd never have been capable of before. Everything was lofty, and effortless.

His inner world had been still as he fought. He hardly needed the violence of rage and angry control that he usually did battle with, as he tried to keep track of all that was important to him at once. It was reminiscent of what he had tapped into in his battle with the Emersons, but it was ever so slightly different, ever so slightly closer to the truth of the reality that he ought to aim for.

The exhaustion that had come with it, initially, had only been abated by more action. Now, alone, back in his quarters, after speaking to Hod, and to Blackthorn, and hearing their praise for what he had achieved that day, he sat before his desk, and his hand shook.

He laid it there against the bare wood, now devoid of the armour that he had seen the day with. Just his hand, bruised on the knuckle, and scarred on the palm from all the wounds that he had taken. And there, after what ought to have been a victory, it quivered.

Not in rage, not in excitement. Not in anything but the cold dreaded hands of fear.

Oliver Patrick was afraid, and he knew not why.

With wide eyes, he looked at the results of his actions. He fought through them. He remembered the power. He could not deny it any longer. And it made him frightened. A terrible, terrible, dreadful fright. It curled around his heart. It wormed its way past all the strong defences that he had built up. All that he had once held Ingolsol at bay with seemed so suddenly useless.

If it had been forceful, as Ingolsol had been, he might have been able to fight against it. Oliver Patrick had trained himself entirely to deal with that forcefulness. There was some part of him with an inane belief that he could endure any problem, any weight, any storm.

But this was weightless, it was gentle, and it wormed its way straight through him, in the terrifying way that Nila's love did. When she said her sweet words, and she caught him off guard, and she made his heart ache. That was a pain that ought not have been there, the pain of a kindness that he was not entitled to.

This was such a kindness. Delivered to hands that he knew to be unworthy. It tempted him. It told him that, after all, it was there for him. When he needed it again, he could search for it, and that wind would come. A thousand times over, it would be there to hold him, and to drive him forward.

And all that brought for Oliver was pain. Pain of the most dreaded sort, an attack on the heart that rendered him no better than a child. Perhaps he was even weaker than a child. For the young Tempest would never have frowned to see such a hint of love.

"Fool I am… Fool I am," he told himself, grabbing his shaking hand with his other, in an attempt to hold it in place, only to find that the two shook together. He felt tears coming up to his eyes unbidden. He knew not why he dared to cry, why he was so frightened. "It's not even certain… Could I do it again? I control it not. Why… Why does it frighten me so? We're so incomplete, we're so ready to complain, and yet we sit here with shaky hands."

If he was asked to perform the same feat against Germanicus again, he was not sure that he could. Just as he was not sure he could bring about a defeat of the Emersons again, no matter how hard he tried. For it was not the will of Oliver Patrick that brought such things to bear. It was the will of something else, incredibly gentle, and incredibly light. It was the wind of the world that buoyed him, and allowed him to dance along it.

He knew the wind to be there, like he knew the certainty in his heart – something that had been present even before the battle with the Emersons. That strange little sentiment, a voice of something else. A creature with a voice like Ingolsol, but not entirely him. Something that was ever so certain, when there was no reason to be, that they could build a bridge to victory. It was that maddening certainty that had made the battle so cruel for Oliver. For how could that part of him dare to be so certain, when he would not point to the road to victory?