A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

What was the difference between him and the man in front of him? Rage drove Tiberius towards the answer. A tumultuous stream of raging thought, crashing through his mind, dismantling structures that he had long since held to be true.

Man? He chortled. It was no man that looked at him there, with that crown perched on his head. That gaze, that posture, those were not the things of a man. There was hardly enough age to him, and yet the stir… Could it be dismissed so easily with the title of boy? Was it not the very reason for their grand reception of him – that frightening honesty with which he carried himself? With his emotions written so plainly on his face. With the anger present there, and the bemusement.

If Tiberius stared any longer, he might have imagined that boy's hair would turn white. For there was a purity to him as he was. A purity that Tiberius wished to corrupt. Purer than how he had entered the battlefield, with thousands of different thoughts and schemes moving inside him. Those things, Tiberius could deal with. But this… this creature now, he stood as natural as an ancient tree in an old forest. The crown upon his head, and his carrying towards it. There was no hint that he had contrived such a thing. It had come with a snap of a moment, and hardly a thought. And, in the end, it had come by Tiberius' own hand.

He had thrown a crown at him, intending to mock him, and break him, and Oliver Patrick had turned it around on him entirely. As naturally as winter bleeding into spring, he had made the jab his, and had become that much more powerful for it.

A mistake, Tiberius realized. He'd made one. It came with a shock of the heart, a reeling in the saddle. All things, in the end, they worked in his favour. But not this. This, Oliver Patrick had made entirely his own.

The shouts of those new soldiers of the new King's army were deafening. Tiberius found himself wanting to run from them. They grated on his ears, and even though the large majority were to the front of him, he felt as if he was surrounded on all sides at close quarters. He raised his hands up towards his ears, and only just barely managed to resist clamping them down when he realized what he was doing.

A beating heart. He steadied himself. Wondering at the fear. Wondering at the last time he had felt such a thing. Long ago, he supposed. Hiding under a table, for fear of the stick carried by the woman that ought to have loved him most. He snarled, casting that memory away. He needed not deal with such things. He was born with his talent, and his skills. The Gods had given it to him. He needed not endure the suffering of normal men. He had only needed to go forward, and snatch more. Without question, against the mightiest foes, he had done that.

Had he not slain the combined might of Queen Asabel's elite? Had he not overturned Blackwell, Karstly, Skullic, and Broadstone? Men with both potential, and many already achieved accolades. Proven men of the battlefield, with a Queen at the back of them, awarding them with an almost contemptuous amount of morale. That was he – Tiberius. That was his strength. To show weakness here, just because one youth had done something surprising, was that not wrong? He had killed a royal before, and if Oliver Patrick declared himself to be such a thing, then he would kill a royal again.

Only… it did not feel quite like Queen Asabel was dead.

It did not feel as if Blackwell's death, or her death, had been done with in isolation, with that finality that ought to have been offered.

Their scars were still felt, in the lacking number of proper men that Tiberius wished for. He had the High King's soldiers instead, when he would have preferred those well-armoured men that he'd seen so influenced by Pandora.

The cruel cut on his mouth from Karstly, evidence of a weakness in him. Enough to give the likes of Oliver Patrick hope. Was it true to draw upon that victory and say, if he had done it once, he could do it again? Or was it more true, that one battle did bleed into the next?

Tiberius knew not. It was too late to change. He was what he was. He had his way of fighting – and he would use it until the very end. He felt the Fragment of Pandora raging within him. Angry beyond comprehension. He drew on that, smiling, thinking himself to be in the right. If Pandora was as full of rage as he, then they were one, and in the right place.

There was a single goal for him now. To see the crown knocked from Oliver Patrick's head.

A scheme began to form. He sniffed out the order that was beginning to be built, that burning fire that ignited those that followed Claudia's tenants, and he withdrew on the back of his horse, looking to find his way to turn that fire into the murky waters of chaos.

Oliver watched him go, unable to do anything.

He twisted his lips ever so slightly in dismay. A mild annoyance. He liked that man not. It would be better when he was slain, and the corruption was rid of.

But there was a certainty now – a certainty that he would be. For, even if Tiberius had managed to slip away, Oliver had gained something else in the process.

He had felt the power of a hundred men before. The way they had been quick to join him, and his wants, and his delight in supporting them, for all they offered him. It had extended the range of his effect, beyond just that of the simple swordsmanship that he so enjoyed. He'd had that intoxicating comradery to go along with it. He'd felt their morale swell, as they joined him, with the same intentions.