King's Crown [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczOhRglIQIh7qNZAnvpLiTkEHUaNLAMUkKgrlMkxroFY0ve4m0TzTZe-Wq1PM-gR1X-e2vz7jgypLgoT6oVPofHPJU2oxLhprlEI-iIsX0DV8vtXrQOmVpBDCHU_FAlFbx2cfyy4kejy08YhR9hxd8QA=w639-h958-s-no-gm?authuser=0]
“Oh, hey, I was just getting one last thing for Uriel before going over to try and make amends,” Dazien told her after she knocked on his door.
He turned away from her to let her follow him in, and she made sure to shut the door behind them. Trying to bide time to figure out the best way to ask her main question, she idly asked instead, “What last thing?”
“Well, I don’t really want to reveal our idea about the Kindred Spirits in case that either doesn’t work or it turns out we’re not that—”
“I’m pretty sure you are based on what I’ve seen,” she tried to argue, and he gave her a flat look.
“Forgive me for not taking your word on that, considering it took a fourteen-year-old pointing out that we weren’t just roommates to you,” he said, then turned back to grab a notebook from atop his bed and sat on the edge of it, gesturing for her to sit beside him, “Anyways, I was working on this and wanted to finish getting the idea on paper before showing it to him.”
Phoenix sat next to him and took what apparently was a sketchbook that had a charcoal drawing displayed on it. Roughly drawn out was what looked like House Wayland’s crest of a sword wrapped in a rose, but it was drawn inside of a king’s crown, and behind it was the swirling maelstrom that served as the Destroyer’s sigil.
“It looks awesome, but what’s this meant to be?”
“My crest,” he replied with a soft smile, “I’ve been debating about it for years and have often talked about it with Uriel. Before meeting you and Paul, I was pretty set on the idea of a sword going through a crown like this. Adding the flowers is obviously to signify House Wayland since Paul adopted me and believed in me enough to offer the support of his House—”
“Our House,” she corrected with a grin, and his smile grew brighter.
“Right, so I added that to the design I had, but now, with Uriel wanting to embrace his own status of the Chosen of the Destroyer, I thought adding the god’s sigil as the backdrop would be a good way to show him that I fully support him and want him to stay with me forever. He is a pillar of my kingdom. Even if he does decide to leave me someday —if I make a mistake that he simply can’t forgive— he has already imprinted himself upon my legacy along with my heart.”
Phoenix glanced down at the drawing again and admitted, “I know I’m terrible about romance stuff, but that does sound like a good way to show you’re devoted to him…”
Then she added with a slight smirk, “I think he’ll forgive you even if you didn’t have this, though.”
Dazien chuckled, “I hope so. After so long together, it’s almost impossible to picture my life without him. I think I’d do anything to try and make him happy again.”
She paused and frowned, looking down at her lap again before handing the notebook back, then asked, “Even kill a man and join the Avenger’s clergy?”
Dazien mirrored her frown, “What?”
“Pati told me that you accepted a quest from him,” she explained, trying not to let her anger get the better of her as she pointed out, “Aside from the annoyance and hurt of finding out from her instead of you after spending so much time together since it happened, why does it seem like you were trying to hide it from me?”
He gave a heavy sigh and set the notebook on the nightstand beside the bed as he said, “I just wanted to give everyone some time to recuperate. I would have told everyone else eventually.”
“Who all knows?”
“Well, Rayna was there, and I told Uriel during our Heart Check,” he replied, then seemed to remember something as he added, “Oh, a Heart Check is our—”
“Uriel explained it to me,” she interjected, then asked with a raised brow, “Do we need to start having those, too, just to make sure you’re not forgetting to tell me about murdering people?”
His face turned into confused surprise at her words, and then his gaze narrowed, “I did what was necessary. Ramir deserved death and—”
“And you didn’t need to be the one to give it to him,” she said firmly before he could give excuses that she wasn’t entirely sure the magic of his voice wouldn’t manipulate her into agreeing with. “I’m sure you could have told someone else. Why would Avenger ask you specifically to do something like that when you’re not one of his clergy?”
Dazien’s frown deepened, “I was available since I had planned to capture him at first before he could escape the city, and Avenger offered to make me a Paladin for completing the quest.”
She found herself standing at the insane idea, “You’re going to be a Paladin?! No!”
“That’s not what I—”
“I get that you feel some kind of obligation to Paul or something for him adopting you, but that doesn’t mean you need to join Avenger!”
“I didn’t say—”
“You said you were going to be a king! Are you giving up on your dreams to chase after Paul’s shadow!” She was yelling at him now and pacing as she tried to come up with all the reasons he absolutely could not become a Paladin of the Avenger.
He stood, glaring at her as he said, “Will you stop interrupting me?!”
“No, because then your Shiny words will just convince me I’m wrong even when I know I’m not wrong about this!”
Dazien looked at her like she had slapped him, and she winced as she realized how that sounded. Before she could apologize and correct herself, though, his face twisted in anger, and he retorted, “What in the Abyss, Phoenix? You know my Talent isn’t overpowering like that, and you can’t just ignore everything I say because you don’t want to change your mind! That’s not how you have a conversation!”
“But you can’t become a Paladin! You can’t just join Avenger and take Paul’s place!”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you trying to say I’m not good enough to be like him? I had the resolve to do that quest just as much as he did.”
“You’re not him, Dazien! You’re not Paul, and you never will be!” she yelled, suddenly afraid that he would try to prove her wrong.
He shook his head as he turned away and said, “I’m not trying to replace him. I just—”
“I don’t need you to be like him! Nobody wants you to become like Paul. I know that I’m stuck waiting for him to wake up and I’m trying my best to—”
“You’re not the only one waiting for him, Phoenix!” he finally yelled back, interrupting her, and she paused when she realized it wasn’t anger but hurt on his face, “Not the only person who went to him for guidance! You’re not the only one mourning his presence and trying their best to become just a fraction of the type of person he was.”
“He wanted us to be better!” she retorted. She knew that him following Paul like this was just wrong, and she tried to find the right words to convince him, “Orebela said he never wanted us to be like him. He did those things to protect us from them! So that we wouldn’t have to become monsters just to defeat monsters! You shouldn’t have accepted that quest!”
“You’re one to talk!” he said, shooting her another glare before moving a few paces. He ran a hand through his hair, which was still an inky black since she hadn’t returned it back to his natural purple yet.
“What does that mean?” she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.
Dazien didn’t respond right away, taking a few deep breaths before turning to look at her and saying in a calmer voice, “Look, I understand that you are the Chosen One.” He stepped closer to her and gently grabbed her shoulders to make sure she was looking at him, “But Paul chose me, too. I may not have gods lining up to mark my soul and bless me with their favor, but I still try to move toward the future he wanted for all of us. Which, you’re right, didn’t include me becoming a Paladin like him.”
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She paused at that, calming down with the agreement he finally gave her, and he continued speaking, “I did what I thought was best —what I believed was right. I may regret not telling any of you beforehand, but I don’t regret accepting that quest and killing him.”
Phoenix wanted to argue that he shouldn’t have done that and accepted being an avenger even temporarily, but his next words halted that, “I’m not going to be a Paladin of the Avenger, but I’m also not going to be a king who won’t act or make harsh choices to protect his people or their future. Paul may not have wanted us to be exactly like him, but I’m not going to ignore the lessons he taught me. If I have to stain my hands to keep my people and family safe, then that is what I will do.”
She tried to look away, not wanting to accept the idea that he would do terrible things like that, and he gently moved her chin back to meet his eyes as he said, “I know that’s something you would do as well, my sister.”
Phoenix scrunched her nose at the idea. Would she? She didn’t think she could bring herself to do something as terrible as eating someone just to exact karmic vengeance, but she understood what he meant by making harsh choices to keep them safe.
She had killed people before. Raiders and Soul Reapers might have been trying to kill her at the same time, but her hands were still stained with their blood, weren’t they? She had brought Knight Thevaris to the Sanguine Banquet, and while she might not have been the one to deal the killing blow, she had brought the fire to them all, knowing exactly what would happen. Knowing that an executioner would do exactly what they were meant to.
If the choice came down to killing someone and protecting her family… she would stain her hands, too.
That didn’t mean she needed to become the same kind of monster that they were, though. She could grant the mercy of a quick death instead of inflicting the same pain they did, and she wanted to make that clear to her brother.
“Just don’t become an avenger like Paul was,” she whispered, giving him a tight hug. “I don’t want you forced to torture and kill people all the time instead of adventuring with us. Even if we have to get blood on our hands, we can be better than the ones who deserve it.”
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Dazien returned his sister’s hug as he finally calmed down from their misunderstanding, “I agree, which is exactly why I don’t plan on joining Avenger. Like you said before, I’m meant to be a king, and replacing Paul was never my desire. You don’t need me acting like your father, that would be a terrible idea.”
She chuckled and he was glad that she seemed to be calming down as well. It had hurt when she used his Talent against him like that, but he realized that she was simply worried about losing him to the Avenger. She was afraid and was grasping at reasons to convince him and feared that he wouldn’t listen or would try to convince her to let him.
He just needed to reassure her that she could trust him.
To be the dependable brother that she had slowly been coming to rely on.
“I’m sorry you had to find out like that,” he said, slowly pulling back, “I should have taken the time to talk to you in private and help you understand my own reasons for it all. I promise you that I still plan to stay with you, go on your quest, and create my kingdom without running off to become a pawn of the gods out of some misplaced duty to our dad.”
“So, what happened exactly?” she asked, looking up at him with those curious emerald eyes.
“Let’s sit, and I can walk you through my series of bad ideas that led to me filling out a hill of paperwork,” he said, gesturing towards the sofa near where Rex had been lounging and watching them silently the entire time.
The Royal Raksha simply rolled those golden eyes at him and yawned, causing Dazien to wonder if all this drama was simply boring his noble Familiar. He chuckled to himself as he sat next to Phoenix and then began recounting the details of his continually changing plans.
“Wait, he was going to blow up the building?” she asked after he had described how Rayna had “disarmed” the desperate man.
“Oh, right,” he said, a tremor of annoyance and exasperation crossing his mind, but he hesitated, worried that she might suddenly blame herself for the predicament he had been in. However, his own curiosity had him asking, “You didn’t happen to make a Scroll of [Supernova] and give it to the AOA, did you?”
As he feared, a look of dawning horror crossed her face as she said, “I-I was trying to help! I thought they could use it in case another swarm of monsters attacked beyond the walls! I wasn’t— I-I didn’t think—”
“Hey, calm down,” he tried to reassure, “I get that you were hoping to help, but why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just didn’t think it was that big of a deal!” she replied, letting her face fall into her hands, “I only succeeded in making two of them, so I gave one to the AOA and the other to Rayna to try out later if we got another mission out in the wilds. It’s not like I was handing over an arsenal or had enough to give one to everyone.”
Dazien stilled at the information as something didn’t quite add up, and he tried to clarify, “What do you mean only succeeded with two? Exactly how many did you attempt to make?”
She turned her entire body slightly away from him as she seemed to shrink in embarrassment and started muttering, “Well, I was trying to make as many as I could that day, but I wasn’t very good at it, and the stupid paper and ink were so touchy about the littlest thing going slightly wrong…”
With growing dread, he prodded, “How many failed attempts were there? I know scrolls, in general, are fairly expensive; otherwise, everyone would be using them more often. I can only imagine how much the ones you succeeded with might sell for.”
She gave a huff of annoyance, “I burned through my entire stack of magic paper; that was the hardest thing for me to find but only cost me a single one of my Ruby Mana Bits. It was annoying to have to keep fixing my hair every time it failed. I was hoping I could find more when we went traveling to a bigger city with higher Caste items, but maybe it’s not worth it if— what’s wrong?” she suddenly asked him, “Why are you looking like that? Are you okay?”
That was when he realized he was hyperventilating.
He didn’t even need to breathe anymore, but his body was reacting on its own to the idea of her burning a Ruby Mana Bit in the form of crafting paper.
Simply realizing what was happening didn’t help him stop it, and he worried he might actually be sick as the currency conversion unhelpfully ran through his mind.
One hundred to one.
That was the base ratio; reality made it much higher at times, but she had effectively destroyed a hundred million Mana Bits.
While he had been fretting over spending almost a single Emerald Bit to buy two Spirit Gems, she had been throwing a hundred times that on the pyre of experimentation.
“Daze? Please talk to me! Do I need to get someone? What’s happening?”
He barely registered Phoenix shaking him, and he yanked himself from her grasp, worried that he might lash out, and instead fell to the ground, landing on his hands and knees as he tried to reorient himself and stop thinking about the sheer amount of waste.
How many gems could they have gotten with that? How much magical equipment to better protect them all? How many outfits? How many loaves of bread? Centuries of meals just set aflame.
His vision began to refocus as he felt a familiar calming aura encircling him, and a large, warm hand rested on his back. His hearing returned another moment later as he registered Phoenix speaking, “We were just talking about the scrolls I made earlier and kept failing at, and he started looking at me like I kicked a puppy!”
“He’s having a panic attack by the feel of it,” Saiya responded from somewhere.
Then he heard the deeper voice that helped center him as Uriel said from beside him, “King, I’m here for you. What do you need?”
Dazien glanced up at his partner, the memories of what he needed to do mixing with his abject shock at what his sister had done, and said in a rush, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything I ever did wrong. Please don’t hate me or leave me. Please don’t punish me by burning Bits.”
Uriel laughed —actually laughed— at him before shaking his head and saying, “I don’t think that was her goal, but I would never dream of doing something that heinous to you. I remember what you always tell me: Bits are for food, fighting, and gifts, right?”
He nodded, regaining more self-control, and slowly stood again as his partner helped him up. It reminded him of the other part of his apology, and he reached into the pouch at his waist as he tried to push away the trauma Phoenix had just inflicted to focus on Uriel.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to look that pathetic as I did this. It was meant to be a grand apology with much fanfare,” he said with a crooked smile, lifting up the small box towards him, “This was the gift I got for you as an addition to my words. I know I messed up. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of your trauma like that, but—”
“But you’ll do it again if you feel like you have to,” Uriel interjected, placing a hand over the box. He was afraid that his partner might decline to accept his apology until Uriel added, “But I think I can trust you enough to know when that particular line needs to be crossed. I’ve trusted you with everything else so far, and I know you didn’t mean it as an attack on me.”
Uriel paused, taking hold of his hand as he continued, “Instead of trusting in you, I let my anger and fear get the better of me.” Ember eyes met his gaze, and his partner added, “Instead of yelling at you for what you said down there, I should have said, ‘I love you, too,’ my king.”
Dazien hugged him tightly, not wanting to let go in case this turned out to be a dream brought on by passing out in his earlier panic.
“Daze! I’m still only Crystal!” Uriel managed to say, and he released him only to be caught up in another hug that brought them together again.
“Finally! No more fake-breaking-up!” Phoenix scolded them.
He gave a chuckle and asked, “It’s not allowed?”
“Exactly!”
“Then you’re not allowed to spend that ridiculous amount of money without consulting someone first!” he retorted. If she was gonna give him rules, then he’d return the favor, and hopefully, they wouldn’t end up killing each other in the process.