by Pirateaba
“Yes, my l—”
Trey bit his tongue. Flos shook his head.
“You see? Already you are so much like the others. But it occurs to me that I am missing something dearly.”
“What’s that?”
“Honesty. Clarity. Someone who will treat me as a friend, a man, a nuisance. Not as a [King]. From you two, I ask it; and I will have it from my people today, one way or the other. I have had such relationships few times before. But it was that honesty I needed. Isn’t that right, old friend?”
Trey had no idea who Flos was talking to. But then the [King] moved and Teres screamed.
There was a head sitting on Flos’ dresser. A head, encased in ice. It was one Trey recognized. His stomach threatened to empty itself as he stared into the bitter expression of the Architect, one of the King’s Seven.
Drevish.
Teres’ scream hadn’t gone unheard. Almost faster than thought, there was someone pounding on Flos’ door.
“My King?”
“All is well.”
Flos stepped towards the door and opened it. Trey heard him reassuring whomever was outside in the background. His eyes were fixed on the block of ice. He kept staring until someone blocked it from view. Flos.
“I did not mean to startle you. I apologize. I had forgotten such sights were not common in your world.”
He spoke gently to Trey and Teres, with a hint of chagrin in his voice. The two stared at him. Teres lifted a shaking finger.
“Why—why do you have—”
“Why didn’t it melt?”
That was Trey’s question. Flos turned and stared at Drevish’s head.
“It was a simple preservation spell for the ice. As to the head…I kept it as a reminder. Of my fallen companion. Of the man I knew. Of my failure. And as a promise.”
“Promise?”
Trey’s voice was faint. Flos turned and nodded.
“I promised Drevish to build a city like none the world had ever seen. In my kingdom. I told him that it would be his plans by which every brick was laid and every house built. That was my vow to him. And I have not kept it. He did not live to see it, but perhaps…”
“You’re going to show it? To his head?”
Teres’ voice was a horrified whisper. Flos nodded gravely. It made a terrible kind of sense to Trey, but his sister was pale and swaying.
“It is all I can offer him. When I show him my kingdom, then perhaps my conscience—”
“No.”
Trey felt a shock. But the word didn’t come from him. It came from Teres. She was staring at the block of ice with Drevish’s head. Flos was surprised too. He stared at Teres.
“What do you mean?”
“No. You can’t let him stay like this. You have to bury him.”
Both Trey and Flos stared at her. There were tears in Teres’ eyes. She looked at Flos, angrily.
“You can’t keep his head like this. Not frozen. Not—you can’t do it. You have to bury his head.”
The [King] froze. Trey froze. He had never heard Teres use that tone in Flos’ palace. He had never heard anyone use that tone with Flos, either. The King’s head bowed. He turned and stared down at the block of ice. His voice was low as he replied.
“He is my vassal. I owe him this.”
“It’s wrong.”
Trey looked at Teres. She stood with her fists clenched, staring at the [King]’s back. Trey reached out—to stop her?—but she knocked his hand away.
“It may seem odd to one from another world like you, but it is how I honor my sworn companion. Drevish would understand—”
“No. I know it’s wrong. Trey knows it’s wrong. Anyone would know that! Ask Orthenon, ask Mars or Gazi—”
Teres voice was pleading. She was trying to make Flos understand, but the [King]’s head didn’t move.
“Don’t keep him in this room. Don’t make him stay here. Let him sleep!”
She raised her voice and nearly shouted that last bit. Trey was petrified. As Flos’ back turned, he saw an expression he had only seen once before on the [King]’s face.
Anger.
“This is not a matter on which I will change my mind. I failed Drevish. This is his last memory. Here!”
Flos gestured at the head angrily.
“I will not forsake him again. I abandoned him once, and he paid with his life for it. I will not bury his memory and turn away from it as I have so much before. This conversation is over. You two—leave. Seek out Orthenon until I call for you again.”
He made to walk towards his door. But Teres barred his path.
“You can’t do it. You have to let him go. He deserves better than this!”
Trey’s breath was gone. He gaped at his sister. Flos’ brows shot together.
“No. Move out of my way.”
“I won’t.”
Teres was shaking. She pointed at the block of ice.
“You’re keeping him—just like he was when he died! Bury him! It’s disrespectful. And he deserves rest!”
Rest. That word rang true to Trey. He stared at Drevish’s head. It was preserved, so that he could be by his king’s side even in death. Whether he liked it or not. Just like…Trey. And Teres.
Flos’ voice was very quiet.
“Do not talk to me about disrespect. I was not the one who killed him. I was not the one who froze him.”
“But you’re the one who’s keeping him this way.”
Flos’ head turned and Trey realized he was the one who spoke. The [King] stared at the two twins.
“Begone from my sight.”
It was a command. Trey’s legs moved him towards the door. But Teres stayed where she was. She clenched her fists. She was shaking with emotion. There were tears in her eyes.
And there was something in Trey’s heart too. Something that made him stop, despite the urge to listen to the [King]. His King? Yes. No! A King, but not one Trey had ever sworn allegiance to. A King, but one who had made Trey and Teres his servants against their will. A King, yes.
But not a God.
Trey looked back over his shoulder, and saw a man. Flos towered over Teres, but he was a man. Not just a [King]. And she stood in his way. Because it was right.
Slowly, Trey turned back. He walked over to Teres, and stood in front of Flos. The man stared down at them, unable to believe his eyes.
“I told you to move.”
Again, Trey felt the urge to move, but he didn’t. Flos was a [King]. Trey was serving him. He had to—
But he was wrong. And someone had to say it. Trey opened his mouth.
“No. It’s wrong.”
He stared into two burning eyes. There was fury there, uncontained.
“I gave you an order. Are you disobeying your [King]?”
“We’re not your subjects! We never asked to be!”
Standing next to him, Teresa screamed at Flos. She gave vent to the feeling the twins had felt this entire time. She pointed at him.
“You’re the one who decided everything! Well, we’re sick of it! You want us to tell you what we think? We think you’re wrong! And you can just live with that!”
She stood next to Trey, shaking with anger. And he remembered, dimly, that it was always Teres who started fights. When the twins got angry, she was the one who popped her lid first. He stared at his twin sister with horrified admiration as she finished shouting at the King of Destruction in his own bedroom.
“No matter what you say, we won’t change our minds, you—you bloody twit!”
Trey heard ringing in his ears. Teres’ voice echoed through Flos’ chambers, and then there was silence. Dead silence. Trey stared up at the King of Destruction and saw him staring down.
This was where he died. Trey waited for wrath and fury, but heard nothing. He chanced another peek up, and say something strange.
Flos’ face had changed. There was no anger there any longer, but rather another emotion. It looked like amusement, but there was something else there.
Trey had seen Flos laugh many times before, but this was different.
It was amusement and joy. And nostalgia. It was rueful, melancholic. And it was there for an instant, before Flos turned away.
“Oh Drevish, would that you could have been here. Would you have laughed, or told me I was a fool?”
He walked back, away from the twins. Slowly, Flos bent and picked up the block of ice. It did not melt in his hands as he stared down at the man’s head. His friend’s head. When he turned back to the twins, there were tears in his eyes.
A King wept. Unabashedly, his eyes overflowed as he held his friend and stared into his eyes.
“You are right.”
He said that to Teres, and then to Trey.
“You are right. I—I have asked so much of my vassal, my companion over the long years. So much, and yet in death I ask more. To wait for so long…it would be far kinder to let him rest. It was my selfishness that demanded he watch over me even now.”
He turned away from the two. Flos stared down at the block of ice and then bent. He kissed the ice over Drevish’s brow.
“Sleep, old friend. I am sorry. It has been far too long since you treated me like a fool. Somehow, I had forgotten what it felt like to be one. But these two can speak the truth to me in your absence. So rest.”
He turned and placed the head back on the dresser, only this time faced away from the room. Teres opened her mouth, but Flos turned and forestalled her.
“I will bury him later. Tonight, in private. Now is not the time.”
Slowly, the girl closed her mouth. Flos looked at the two of them, and laughed. It was not the laugh of a [King]. It was man’s laugh, shaky, and rueful. With a hint of tears.
“I asked you to speak the truth to me, and seconds later demanded you do the opposite. A fool should not do so, let alone a [King]. I apologize to you Teres, and to you, Trey. I am only grateful you could speak the truth to me.”
He bowed his head to them. The twins stood as a [King] and a man bowed to them and neither knew what to say. When Flos had raised his head again, Trey found his voice.
“Your majesty…”
“Flos.”
Teres said that. Trey looked at her, and then at Flos.
“Why haven’t you gone to war? Why are we here?”
Flos looked at them and sighed.
“Because I am hesitating. Because I fear war. Because…perhaps I lack the stomach for it, after all these years.”
They stared at him. The King of Destruction. He smiled at them, looking haggard, weighed down by something they couldn’t name. He raised his hand, and touched the sparkling broach.
“Perhaps you do not understand. I was never good at explaining such things. Well, I can show you.”
He gestured to the door.
“Follow me, my friends. You two deserve to follow. I am a [King], but I need someone to tell me I am a fool. So come and let me look upon my faded kingdom. At last, let me have the courage to see the cost of my folly.”
He turned and led the twins out the door. And they followed, swept up in his wake as before. But there was something different this time. Trey and Teresa followed Flos, the King of Destruction. But the back they saw belonged to a man.
Just a man. Carrying the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders. And as he walked, Trey wondered. He wondered if Flos had ever had a friend. Perhaps Drevish had been one. Not a vassal, but a friend. Perhaps he had been, perhaps not.
His head sat frozen in his room, a grim reminder of the past. And that would never change. But the ice would melt. The head would vanish from the room, and time would move on. For the King had lost one of his Seven, but gained something else. Two friends, perhaps. Maybe that was what it was.
And he was awake. Awake. The King of Destruction was awake at last.
And the world would know what that meant soon enough.
4.01 K
Trey followed Flos out into the corridor. He walked seven steps, then felt someone grab his tunic from behind.
“Wait a second. Don’t follow him.”
“Teres! What are you—”
His sister pulled the startled Trey back into Flos’ room. Then Teres shut the door. Trey stared at her in disbelief.
“Teres! What are you doing?”
“I’m staying here. I’m not haring off this time without knowing what’s going on.”
“Yeah, but he—but—”
Trey stared at the door. Flos had been striding down the corridor. What would happen when he noticed the twins were gone? Would he notice they were gone?
But there was no arguing with his sister. Trey knew it just by looking at Teres’ face. Her jaw was set. Teres was still breathing heavily, her cheeks flushed from her earlier outburst.
“I think he’s going to be pretty cross when he realizes we’re gone. We’re supposed to follow him everywhere, remember?”
“Well I’m bloody tired of it. Aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but—”
Trey gave up. He agreed with his twin sister. He just wasn’t sure being rude to a King’s face was the best way to go about it.
Resigned, he stared around Flos’ room while Teres crossed her arms and stared at the door. There wasn’t much in the bedroom at all. Except for the head—Trey hurriedly averted his gaze, relieved it was facing the wall—he couldn’t spot anything remotely interesting. Besides the dresser, there was a wall closet, and a door that led out onto a balcony. But no objects of note. None whatsoever.
Well, there was an empty scabbard propped up against one wall. It was like a footnote, especially since the sword it belonged to was nowhere to be seen. Trey stared at it. That wasn’t the same scabbard Flos wore at his side. This one looked fancy, dark crimson and black leather or fabric capped by metal filigree at the tip. The metal looked like gold, and it shone dully the longer Trey stared at it.
He wondered where the sword had got to while he waited. Trey kept staring at the door. Would Flos notice? Or would he send someone to get them? He’d feel like a complete fool if he and Teres ended up staying here for hours.
One minute passed, then two. And then Trey heard footsteps, and Flos thrust open the doors to his room. He stared around, a confused and mildly miffed expression on his face. He caught sight of Trey and Teres and stopped.
First the King looked quizzical, and then his expression shifted to annoyed, and then amused once more. He smiled ruefully and chuckled before thrusting the door wider.
“What is it you two young lions object to this time? I asked you to follow. Honesty is one thing, but I do require a pair of legs so you may follow me about.”
“Will you explain what we’re doing first?”
Teres glared at Flos. He blinked at her, and then at Trey. The young man had crossed his arms to show solidarity with his sister.
“I am not used to explaining myself.”
“Well, we want to know.”
It was not witty repartee, but it worked. Flos laughed, and stroked his beard as he regarded the twins. He looked thoughtful, and happy again for some reason.
“Too long. Too long since I have heard dissent. Too long since I remembered—yes I will. I will explain myself. Thank you Teres.”
He turned and walked around the twins, towards one of the windows that looked out onto the city. Flos stared down at the streets and people below before turning his head.
“I am Flos. The King of Destruction.”
“We know tha—”
Teres’ peeved voice shut off as Flos raised a hand. This time Trey felt his jaws clamp down, though he hadn’t tried to say anything. There was a difference in the way Flos spoke now. He was serious, quiet and thoughtful, as he spoke.
“You have heard of my legend, at least, part of it. Once I ruled over this continent, and sent my armies to the other continents of the world. Some may have said I was poised to create a kingdom that would last a thousand years. But at the moment when the world feared me most, I gave up my throne. I recalled my forces a
nd let my kingdom fall to ruin. I slept. For ten long years, I slept.”
Trey had heard all of that before. But seeing the King’s face change, he felt like he understood far more. Flos’ face was bitter with regret.
“So I slept. The sleeping King of Destruction, sitting in his rotting kingdom as other nations picked apart my empire to pieces. My vassals scattered, and only Orthenon stayed by my side. Until I woke. Now my kingdom stirs, and my people rejoice. They say the King of Destruction has awoken, and that is true. However, that does not mean I am yet ready to act as a [King].”
He looked at the twins, something like pain in his eyes. That was a human expression, a mortal one. Not the look of a King. It was intimate, private. Perhaps not even the Seven had seen Flos look like this before.
“Ten years. I feel as though I am still sleeping some days, Teres, Trey. It is not as if I can begin again so easily, you see? I doubt myself. I fear I have forgotten how to be myself. And yet, I must be myself, and as sure as I have ever been. Because now I am awake, I owe it to my people not to disappoint their faith again. And yet—”
He sighed.
“Earlier I mentioned my fears. I fear what I must do next. You see, I am a specific kind of king. You know it is my class as well as my birthright, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
The two twins nodded. Flos smiled unhappily.
“Ah, but do you know the secret of rulers? Not all [Kings] are the same. Those who sit upon thrones become different kinds of rulers. Some pursue peace, and their Skills and classes reflect that. Under their rule crops grow mightily, and their people rest under an aegis of protection. But not my people. No, my kingdom knows only one thing. War. I am a King who pursues war. It is in my nature, and when I act, it will be to lead my people into battle, not replenish the land or rebuild.”
A king who specialized in war. Trey released the breath he had held and asked the only question he could think of.
“Are you afraid of war?”
“War? No.”
Something shifted in Flos’ eyes. He smiled, and his gaze revealed something hungry and eager. And just as quickly it was gone, replaced by another, somber thing.
“I am not afraid of war. I do not fear battle. I long for it. But it is the cost I think of. I cannot shake the cost from my mind.”
