Sitting on the Small Throne, in the Small Hall, Myrl watched as the procession of the Lower Royals of the Kingdom slowly assembled. Most entered the hall, and stumbled about in attempts to both find suitable seating, and to acknowledge friends and colleagues who may have arrived before them.

And then they inevitably noticed Myrl.

Already sitting the throne.

Waiting on them all to assemble.

It was more tedious than he had expected it would be when Lord Ashe proposed the idea to him. The last three sessions of Royal Court had included an extended Royal Procession as the newly recovering king tried to maintain a dignified Walk into the Hall as the Heralds invoked his grand titles, and he slowly made his way into the room on crutches, and a single leg.

It was…ponderous.

And each time he had done this, he had almost fallen, almost slipped several times, and at least once Myrl had stopped the procession less than half way down the aisle to catch his breath.

In previous weeks the inexperienced king had discussed with Lord Ashe a variety of alternate plans for arranging his entry into official proceedings.

Myrl had asked Ashe why he couldn’t simply already be sitting on the throne, and at the appropriate time, the Heralds would begin the court by intoning his titles and accolades. His dour mentor had countered that Myrl could have just used, as he had been offered, a sedan chair carried by a pair of hefty guards.

Myrl had then asked why he couldn’t ride his horse into Court.

Ashe had countered with “Sire, why not ride in on one of the cavalry lisks, that would get the landed gentry’s attention. Or we could put you in a chariot behind a pair of hrutari! You would certainly have both their attention and their respect.”

The young king then asked in an exaggerated tone of youthful innocence directed at his teacher, longtime guardian, and friend, “Have we no dragons?”

“Please, don’t be silly, my King,” the tall gray skinned man said in a pained voice. “That would break at least five treaties.”

“And the Minor Hall’s walls, I’d bet.” This last aside from Myrl had actually been rewarded with a rare smile from Ashe. Very rare, as the man was not known for his jocularity. Though, seeing the small grin on Ashe’s face, Myrl had gone very quiet and still.

Ashe’s deep voice began saying the word “sire,” but it became stretched out and tortuously elongated, before fading to nothing.

The very air constricted about Myrl in painful chains, he felt frozen in place, his hands resting on the arms of his chair with the weight of an entire ship laden with fear and regret. His racing mind now held prisoner in a body turned to stone, as the world around him spun down to the sad motionlessness of a forgotten spinning top left abandoned and unable to do the one thing it was known for once the child playing with it had lost interest. That was how Myrl suddenly felt, like an abandoned toy. Alone.

Images of carnage that he had recently seen flashed relentlessly across his thoughts, subjecting him to an unholy array of still life paintings, all done in shades of nightmare reds. Seared into his memory, these scenes of that dark siege chased him through many of his dreams, but now, today, they plagued his waking mind.

In his peripheral vision, he could see Ashe’s smile now slowly dying, sliding from his face to be replaced by concern, and the taller man, slow as a glacier, leaning in to say something to Myrl. But his ears wouldn’t hear those words, nor any sound in the vicinity, and his mentor was now moving more slowly than Myrl could readily conceive as he moved toward his distressed pupil.

Summoning his training, Myrl concentrated on his breathing, forcing his torso to expand and then contract. The exhale felt like the air had been ripped from his lungs as the king sought to inhale again, the weight of his own rib cage fighting him as he dragged another slow, ragged breath past his teeth to fill his chest.

Red flashes of light played about the edges of his visions as he struggled to breathe, and Myrl could feel the emptiness of the Void he had visited encroaching all about him where he sat. The still, strangling air that surrounded the young man pulsed now, and began to throb painfully against his senses as the Void tried to pull at his mind and his body. It was as though a door to a cellar had been thrown open, and he stood on the precipice, prepared to tumble into that yawning blackness. He could feel the heat of his exertions as his attempts to breathe began pushing his abused body beyond its current limits. Sweat beaded skin across his entire form, but it was all moving so slowly, Myrl thought the water pooling up from his own pours might drown him.

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Myrl pushed at the muscles of his chest and stomach again with his Will, and felt them begin to move once more.

And with a loud, painful pop, the world spun back up to its normal speed.

Myrl let out a hissing gasp as air freely moved into his abused lungs once more.

“...ire, what is the matter?” Lord Ashe sounded concerned.

Glancing about, Myrl saw that none of the guards, nor any of the nobles nor functionaries that were near had noticed the king’s discomfort.

With a long practiced hand sign, Myrl signaled to Ashe, “Later.”

With that, Ashe was once again Lord Ashe, the king’s primary advisor and tutor, standing straight as a pine tree beside his king, attentive, but otherwise blank faced in his usual aloof and apathetic competence. He signed back at Myrl with his left hand, “Understood.”

The rest of that day had proceeded as planned, and Myrl had attended to matters of the Kingdom’s needs along with his formal Court.

Later in the day, when there had been time, Myrl and Ashe had that discussion. What Ashe had actually concluded, Myrl wasn’t quite certain. But the gray man was concerned and demanded his one time ward tell him if this ever occurred again. Myrl had promised that he would, and had kept vigilant.

Especially in those first few days that followed.

Two weeks later, and nothing.

Nothing, nothing, and still nothing.

Though occasionally, Myrl fancied he could perceive, just at the edges of his sight, an encroaching red light. But he was never certain if that were anything more than his fatigue and possible creeping paranoia.

And now Myrl once again sat in his formal Court, though this time he had gained the throne before anyone other than his retinue of guards, two heralds, and Ashe were in the Small Hall, waiting for enough of the local and visiting nobles to file in, find their seats, and then he would signal the start of this latest session.

Later still, as the official business finally wound down, and having just heard the youngest son of the Duke and Duchess of Toodveldt, lord Deachas, address the Court on behalf of his family that they would be holding this years Spring Festival in two months’ time, and that the Duchy would be “Overjoyed to host the King and his Retinue as Our Honored Guests…”

Myrl smiled at the young man, though he knew Deachas was older than himself by at least five years, “Please convey Our thanks to your parents, and to the People of the Duchy of Toodveldt. We will consider your kind offer.”

He couldn’t commit to such a journey so readily, with his physical health still in such a state of disarray. But he gestured for the Court’s appreciation for the offer. To either side of Myrl, in harmonious unison, the two heralds lead the audience in a rousing cheer for the young lord, his parents, and their people, to let him know how much he wanted to attend.

As the heralds then intoned the traditional closing of Court, Myrl saw Lord Ashe by one of the side doors engaged in a serious conversation with a man from the masons guild, and the High Priest, Arne Raoh. Both of those other two men looked very concerned, and Arne, his high forehead glistening with sweat, looked almost enraged as the three men spoke.

Ashe gestured at the two men, saying something that seemed to calm Arne, if not the mason. But both men stilled somewhat as Lord Ashe continued to speak to them.

Myrl had been about to attempt a spell to bring their words clearly to his ears, when the assembly erupted in cheers for the King’s, and the Kingdom’s, continued good health and prosperity.

Myrl smiled at the cheering crowd, nodding his appreciation of them, and their kind thoughts. He then broadly gestured for them to all stand, and for those in attendance to feel free to, at their leisure and in their own time, leave the audience chamber.

After a milling hour, the crowd had, for the most part, left.

There were always a few people, mostly nobles, who wanted the King’s Ear for “just a moment, Sire!” Though it often became an hours-long affair of Myrl having to work hard to get the flower-voiced nobles to actually come to a point.

More often than not, that point was “Look at me! I have the King’s Ear! Suck it, Peasants!” Myrl hated those conversations, and at Ashe and Arne’s suggestions, had started setting “quests” to those most tedious offenders. Count Couluan had recently taken it upon himself to open and operate an orphanage on his land that was feeding, clothing, and teaching the children living there various trades that would set the children up for decent lives once they were old enough to be sent off as apprentices.

This occurred after the Count himself spent an hour monopolizing the king’s time to talk about his latest set of tailored suits. Master Elbana regularly sent a detachment of young soldiers to inspect the orphanage, and convey the Kingdom’s deepest thanks to the Selfless Count Couluan.

Oddly enough, Couluan had actually gained quite a bit of good regard from his neighbors these last few months because of his efforts, and his star was climbing in the Royal social circles.

Myrl had done this with the worst offenders, and now he had a regular set of reports sent to him from around the kingdom of royals taking an interest in the training, health, and education of their people. Several hospitals and public schools had since opened, and when some minor lord or another was shown that doing such projects in their lands would gain them tax breaks, the rush of nobles across the kingdom looking to found schools, hospitals and orphanages astounded Myrl.

Showing others that doing good was the key to doing well often fell on deaf ears, but showing them that doing good was actively in their interests almost always yielded results.

Myrl allowed his mind to wander over this for a while as he sat on his throne. A mild smile at his minor successes playing across his face.

“Sire,” Ashe said from beside him. “We have a problem with the clean up and rebuilding efforts on the lower levels.”

Beetling his brows in confusion, Myrl asked, “Oh? Has something gone wrong?”

The stocky High Priest, Arne, stepped forward. “Yes, sire.” He said in a soft voice, trying to not be heard beyond their small circle. “It’s apparently about your knife, sire. We seem to have found it.”