The Will [on hold]

4000s - Episode 4

4978

Two moons had passed. Since that day the Glorian company had arrived from Daerion, they’d now spent two moons on these Zoll Zoran shores.

In these two moons, King Xor had learned and felt more than in all the years before.

It was a different king upon the throne. No one knew it—the true provenance of these new Glorian guests was kept secret. The public at large knew nothing of their presence. To those here in the palace who did know about these guests, Xor said that they hailed from an island outpost. They had come to offer a contingent of their island population as palace slaves, in return for mainland spices. Negotiations were underway. And in the meanwhile, the king enjoyed their company, as they had many stories to tell of this exotic isle, which Xor had never visited firsthand.

It was a questionable story. But the king’s word was never questioned. And despite the moons that passed, his alibi losing credibility every day, that alibi never changed.

Xor had decided it was best to keep his people in the dark. For if they knew the truth—that he was harboring foreigners from far across the sea, come from a land full of peace and free from imperial rule, whose very nature and existence stood against the empire—if they knew that truth, then there would be whispers throughout the city that the king was weak.

These whispers would not be enough to depose him. But they would be enough to spread word of his weakness. And if he were rumored as weak, he’d no longer be feared. Every king who’d ever sat upon this throne had drawn his strength from widespread fear.

And so Xor was determined to stay strong. He was determined to keep the truth of Glorion a secret, till he decided what to do about its presence—about the presence of these visitors in his palace, and the presence of their land beyond the sea.

He had yet to reach a determined decision. The changes in his soul had made much progress, but that progress was slow and, as of yet, far from complete.

But at any rate, the seedlings of these changes were enough to make of him a different man.

No one knew it was a different king upon the throne, save Olbe.

Olbe saw and knew and feared it.

On this day, Xor spoke with Crion and Gorovan in his council hall. The hall—its table large enough for a sizeable assembly, its stone vaults high enough to echo many voices—was currently occupied by these three men alone.

It was on this day that Xor neared the brink of a final decision.

A great many things had impelled him toward the choice he’d made. Of these things, these reasons, there were very few that he could understand, and fewer still that he was able to control.

Xor often doubted whether there had ever really been a choice, for him, to make.

And he found that, despite having reached this decision, he still wanted to keep all the Glorious things and people—which he had come to learn and love—a secret from his subjects. He was not sure how long this secret could be kept. But he knew that it was dear to him, and dangerous. A dynamite diamond in the rough of this dark earth.

He regarded the men seated beside him. “You are unlike any men that I have ever met,” he told them both, his dark eyes deep and earnest. “And the land that you call home sounds unlike any place of which I’d ever dreamt, before you came.”

Crion and Gorovan returned his gaze with equal depth and earnest.

“And I pledge to you today,” Xor continued, “as a friend and as a brother, that Glorion has the alliance of Zoll Zora. And that you have the allegiance of its king.”

These two Glorians, with their ever-open hearts, accepted and returned the pledge wholeheartedly. Alliance among empires and nations was a foreign concept for them, as their continent had no need for diplomacy. But allegiance among men, they could wholly understand.

The triad spoke and smiled and laughed of many things, the air of gravity having lifted from the hall as soon as the great promise of peace, friendship, and brotherly loyalty was made. That promise made, new worlds of endless promise seemed to open up to them.

Olbe listened, his robed back pressed against a column at the far end of the hall. He had not meant to eavesdrop. He had been passing by, but the sound of mirthful foreign laughter had assailed his ears, and rooted him in horror and disgust here at this pillar.

That laughter reeked of promise.

There then came quite another sound—the sound of muffled sobs.

He turned his head.

“Lord Morowyn!” Anorrah gasped as she rounded a corner, breathless with the urgent haste of a weary, anxious mother, cradling her young son in her arms.

They had been the sobs of a child. It was Kevriel whose cheeks were red and wet with tears. His mother’s eyes were clear and tearless. Her face was flushed with worry, but Anorrah had not been weeping.

And yet, as Olbe regarded the woman who approached him, he could have sworn the sea in those wide eyes was made of tears.

“I am looking for my husband,” she informed him.

Olbe blinked. “He is in audience with the king.”

Anorrah nodded and drew a deep sigh. Her bare collarbones came into relief, smooth and sharp, as her pale throat hollowed visibly with the heavy indrawn breath. “Of course.”

The high lord blinked again. “Could…”

She hadn’t heard him. Or she had, but had not listened.

It was no secret that Olbe opposed Xor’s growing fondness for the Glorians. It was no secret that he was a faithful servant of the empire, and resented the foreign menace that these visitors posed thereto—to the empire, and to the faltering soul of its king.

He mistrusted them. He hated them. He was the only thing here in this palace, in this city, that the Glorians had to fear.

Anorrah did not need to hear him ask what he ‘could’ do. She spoke instead, before he could proceed. “Sometimes I… I think that he just needs his father; that is all,” she gathered as she looked down at the child in her arms, rocking him slowly, at half the rhythm of his rapid infant heart. “He must know he has a father. He knows that he exists. And yet he hardly ever sees him.”

Olbe watched her tend her child. This vision of nurturing love was one that he had never counted in his own stars. He had never hoped to have a family. He knew that that would be an encumbrance to his lordship, to his high position at the emperor’s side.

An encumbrance. An encumbrance that he did not, could not, want.

“Could I be of any help?” he offered, the timorous words arising to his dry lips of their own accord, “if he needs a man’s touch…”

Those unwept oceans lifted toward his face.

Anorrah looked into this high lord’s oaken eyes, and saw only encumbrance. Surely she did not, could not, see anything else.

“No,” she declined, her whisper smooth and sharp, “he needs his father.”

Olbe blinked again, and she was gone.

He did not leave from where he stood against the column.

The triad had dispersed. Crion and Gorovan headed in one direction, toward their respective wing. Xor began toward the far columned end of the hall.

“Hello, Olbe,” he curtly addressed his high lord, brushing past the pillar. He did not turn his head. He had not needed to look and see to know that Olbe had been there.

“This is a dangerous path you tread, my king,” his lord admonished him.

“There’s a reason I didn’t invite you,” Xor rejoined.

The king continued on his way, never once turning his head to face Lord Morowyn, who stood still at his pillar. Xor did not need to look and see to know the look on Olbe’s face.

He did not need to look behind him. Henceforth, he would look forward. Only forward.

Ever forward.