A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Beyond the pain was the indignity. To be forced to his knees where someone had a chance of finding him. That was miserable. But that fear lent him strength. Somehow, that image of Oliver Patrick had become important to him. Something he'd worked hard on.

The rumours that they spoke of him now reflected strength far beyond what he himself felt capable of.

At least, this way, he reasoned, it would be less likely that Verdant or Jorah would find out about what assailed him. It would be easier if they didn't know. Less complicated. There was too much about Oliver's internal structure that he couldn't openly share with other people. He couldn't bare all of himself to anyone – none but Dominus, who'd dared to accept the curse that resided within him.

Back in his room, he would have had nowhere to vomit, except on the floor, and then he would have had no chance of cleaning it up without being discovered.

He continued to be sick well after the food had all left him. Ragged retches of watery acid, and gelatinous material. Now the last bit of strength – the food in his stomach – that he had a chance of drawing from had left him, in a pile behind a tree. Like a dog, he ashamedly kicked snow over his own mess, and looked down on his shirt.

He didn't feel like he'd been sick on himself, and he checked, just for good measure. Vomit was a hard smell to get rid of.

He continued on his way towards the lake, feeling even weaker – as if that were somehow possible – and more destitute than earlier. Each step was taken with the strong possibility of collapse. So delirious was he now that he was sure the lake was right in front of him with each step that it took, but it was still only an endless sea of snow.

He used the sparse planting of the trees to his benefit, leaning against them for several long moments at a time, as he made his way closer and closer towards the lake. If he'd stopped to think about how he'd get back to his room, he wouldn't have had any answer. He didn't have a solution for any of it. His own route was to do whatever he could to deal with the overwhelming pain.

He spotted a tree that he reckoned. A thick fur tree, one that must have been hundreds of years old from its width. He'd sat by its roots on more than one occasion. It afforded a most excellent view of the lake, and the way the roots and trunk met formed a curve that was so well suited to being used as a seat, it almost seemed as though it was designed that way.

He stumbled around the tree's width, and saw the lake come into view. Frozen, pristine, and beautiful. He looked up to the sky on instinct. No stars. A cloudy night. A shame, but even the clouds had their own sort of beauty.

There was so much of it. It was all beautiful, in his delirious mind state. A whole new world, a world that it would have been a shame to lose.

He barely managed to reach the lakeside. One last mission before he allowed himself a long rest. Water. Dirty water to many, but Oliver knew this lake to be reasonably clean, and he'd drank far worse. Besides, he was already dying. How much worse could it get?

He used the lake water to wash his mouth clean of the vomit, and then fill himself full of water again. It felt good, and he gorged.

Immediately, though, his sickness returned as his stomach felt something else that it could arguably vomit. With a strong will, he suppressed the urge to be sick again, knowing it would do him no good, and instead, he forced his way toward that seat at the bottom of that lovely tree, under the roof of its expansive canopy.

With a grateful sigh, he settled down into it. Dreadfully cold, but that could wait for now. It was better to feel the cold than the pain. He relaxed his eyes, allowing himself a short rest.

The darkness of his vision swam with golden figures, lively when it should have been black. An odd people, alluring, yet terrifying. They seemed warm. They seemed an escape from the cold, and the pain. Find exclusive content at empire

Oliver drifted towards sleep, and towards them, gently, ever so gently.

"Ah, what a shame," he mumbled to himself weakly, as he saw the future that could have been all gradually faded away. Toward a mundane death, by himself, his back to a tree. It wasn't so bad, he supposed… It could have been worse. He could have died in a slaver's pit. He could have died with the chains around his ankles.

He could have caught a disease in winter, and died in Solgrim, still digging those same holes.

Or he could have died in battle. That was at least how he'd imagined his death, if it was to come. That was where death sat in his mind, and the possibility of it. Death came when there was a sword in hand. But it would seem that death waited for no men. Death cared not for glory.

Death claimed them all equally, at the slightest mistake, at the slightest bit of overconfidence, it was all overturned with a suddenness that still continued to shock humans and those closest to them.

His breathing grew slower and slower, as he settled into it. The briefest rest, he told himself. He'd struggled. He'd come here. He'd done what he could. Beyond his limits, all the way.

For his mother, for his father, for his sister… all the way, for years on end.

A time to begin, and a time to end. The weak just as soon as the strong, the cold making its way into the joints of all men. Golden figures, forbidden knowledge, the very same things that had got him tangled up in this mess in the first place… He'd reached for too much power too quickly, without much to guide him.