A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1784 - 1784: A Coiling Serpent - Part 4

Those letters were the ones that Broadstone reached for most swiftly – those concerning his Queen, and all that they had achieved. Admittedly, against the likes of Tiberius, he had to say he felt a degree of fear, that he would not be up to the task. For the weeks that had passed here, defending as he was, that fear had dulled. For with each week, Queen Asabel Pendragon accomplished more, and the warmth of her rule reached even as far as the borders. She gave courage to a man that ought to have needed it not. In his more sober moments, Broadstone attempted to analyse it. He tried to study what it was that made him feel such an energy, like he was a much younger man than the current him was supposed to be. He came up with terms that he understood, like Command, like loyalty and inspiration. But it was different to that. Those were the terms of a General. She was something else entirely. The effects that she afflicted them with – not just him, but the entirety of the armies fighting in her name – might have been like Command in its effects, but Command had never spanned such a distance, and Command was never given by a non-combatant such as she.

He fancied it was that which only a true ruler could wield. He fancied it, because he knew it to be a fanciful, romantic sort of idea, that he clung to as a middle-aged man that had lost all the childish notions of the world. His world was grim, full of straight lines, known quantities, sharp edges. And still, he fell victim to such romanticisms. He quietly clung to them. He clung to them, and in certain ways, he almost knew them to be true.

The necklace that he'd always held close to his heart, bearing the delicate visage of the Goddess Claudia, who he liked to think watched over him – he kept that clutched tight now, as he did before every battle. He had more faith in she than any other. For through Claudia, he believed that even if he were to lose the battle that he fought, then it would still be in his best interests. That, despite it all, Claudia held all those best interests at heart. He had believed in her with a certainty since his youngest years. 'And by all the Gods, I had to,' Broadstone swore to himself as he thought on it. The crushing pain of continual defeat that so naturally came with the path of progress, what human heart could tolerate it without belief? He knew he could not. His first major defeat had seen him crushed, in a similar way to Karstly now was, and he had found himself on his knees in Claudia's Church, praying for her compassion.

If not for she, he wouldn't even have been granted the privilege of being a Commander. His was low-noble stock, that was his birth, and how far he had climbed despite that was eternally to the glory of the Goddess that he so worshipped. Decades had passed, and he had never once stopped the faith of his dedication. Nothing had come close to rivalling the dedication that he felt for her, she that was beyond him, the divine, the impossible, that which was so much more full of meaning than mere mortal ambition. Non could ever attempt to… None, except now Queen Asabel.

She wormed her way into his heart, and the hearts of all her subjects, most particularly those that had spent a significant amount of time around her, and those that had seen her change over the years, and grow in accordance with the circumstances that she had been afflicted with. She invited a level of passion, a level of sincere belief and sincerity that the logical mind could not pick apart. He knew not what swirled in his chest, only that it animated him, and made him higher than that which he was before. Eternally energy, eternal want for movement, to pursue that which would better her cause. A vision beyond him, a certainty of placement beyond himself.

The two loves of his life – or three, if he were to count his wife – bound into one. His love for his Goddess Claudia, and his love for his Queen. They were almost one and the same. For there was a belief in him now that had turned into a certainty. The way she had drawn the eye for so many years. Not in every single moment that she stood, nor when she tried particularly hard. It was the slight things that she understood not, when she acted without intention, when Queen Asabel was made to clumsily reach for things that were beyond herself. That was when those that had gathered around her, to swear loyalty to her, would pause and look at each other. They'd share the same glances, and wear the same questions on their faces. They'd be stunned by the slightest little gesture, and the light that it gave off.

Back then, it had been mere suggestion. The slightest little inkling of what might follow. The briefest flashes of greatness, when she had been both most at ease, and most uncomfortable. That which she could not do on purpose. They'd frozen them all in place, and made them see a light in her that they could see nowhere else.

It was beyond mortality, beyond all the mortal realm could hope to conjure. It was in line with that which Broadstone had always believed in, in the form of Claudia. Destiny. The same destiny that had brought his wife into his life – quiet part of his life, publically, she did indeed though occupy. But she had been as much a part of his success as a General as anything else. If not for she, and the support she provided him, he'd have been a lesser man. Destiny, he'd call that. It all swirled together in one great big cloud for him. It made him almost drown in his own sense of profundity, and linger in one place far too long.