Chapter 10) A King's Regrets
I was stealthily making my way to my bedroom, all had seemed fine, until I saw my father glaring at me from the doorway. He made a single motion with his hand, gesturing for me to step forward. He ushered me into the room, where I braced myself for the scolding of my life. I turned around, ready for a rant, when I noticed my father nervously close the door behind him, as if he were expecting something to happen. He turned towards me and in a silent whisper he said:
"Keep your voice low, for I expect someone to walk by."
As he said it, I heard footsteps outside my door, as if they were rushing for something. My father didn't speak a single word until he heard them walk away, out of earshot. He let out a long sigh, and collapsed into the chair by my dresser.
"Alright, you may ask questions now my dearest daughter."
All I could do was look at him with a quizzical look, gears turning in my head with a slow acceleration as I began to understand the events that were occurring.
"Father, are people searching for me right now, or were those people outside searching for you?"
He let the question sit in the air for a bit, before deciding to answer with a touch of a grin on his face.
"You become more clever with every passing day my precious. Sadly however, you are only half right this time. They came by because they were most likely following you. Those men were probably people who have figured out your secret somehow. The secret of just what you are, and what you were meant to do."
He looked at me with a look of absolute sadness, sweeping me into the bottomless pools that were his eyes. I stood there stupefied by what he had just said. 'What I am? That would mean I am not a human, when clearly I am! Then there's "What you were meant to do," I mean honestly, that just seems absurd. I am meant to govern the kingdom when I come of age, but he makes it sound like it is something more dangerous than what I've already been led to believe.'
"Father, if my purpose wasn't to govern the kingdom, than what was it?"
He looked up with a sort of strain, as if the world rested on his shoulders, and again I fell deep into his eyes, as if the universe itself could be swallowed into them.
"Lucilia, forgive me, for I have sinned with no hope atoning for it. When you were born, you were gravely ill, so your mother and I tried everything, in desperation to save your life. Nothing was working, so we agreed to appeal towards the great goddess Faliore. We brought you to chin level in the water of the lake, and that's when she appeared before us. She asked that in return for your health and blessing, your mother would have to die in the coming future. To this day, I don't know how she'd die , but what I do know is that you are what will keep us all safe. What I am getting at, is that within you lies a devastatingly large pool of what the ancient people called virtute animi or potentia.
The best possible word that can be translated is mana, the substance or rather, essence used to create or recreate spells and magic. From what I can tell from the archives, you are the only person born into this world with such a large amount of potentia. Obviously, this would cause a widespread pandemic if the word were to get out that you possess such power. A few years ago, the goddess approached me in my slumber. She showed me a world washed in fire, and the end of my own life. She told me all these things would happen, only if you turn to the shadows. She told me of a boy that will be arriving in the coming future, within a fortnight from now. With his presence in this world, he will change the way of life here for centuries to come, with you at his side. He is the person that will teach you the better side of life, even at the cost of his own. The two of you were born to face Him, who was born before life and death, the everlasting, the forgotten one, Perathyme."
He let that sink deep into my mind, letting me fully grasp the complete ludicrousy that this was. There was no way that I could possibly be something like the child of destiny. Then again, this all sounded exactly like the dream I had last night.
"If all of what you're saying is true, then why tell me now of all times. Why didn't you tell me sooner? I could have practiced this magic in secret, away from the public eye. I could have been more useful with a bit of training, but now you are just dumping all of this on me, hoping for some miracle boy to come and help me, when for all we know he doesn't exist, or he's already dead."
He looked at me with pleading eyes, searching for any forgiveness within me, but I had none for him, because he just admitted to giving up mother to the goddess, just for my own life. I know he did it for my own sake, but for some reason, it angered me every time I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and move on. It wasn't really because my mother had a limit to her own life though, my anger came from him knowing about all of this and not telling me even though I am the center point of all this. I felt as though he didn't even trust me.
"Lucy, I know that all of what you have just said is true, but it is already too late. My fear of your power only grew with every passing day. I have searched through the entire kingdom in search of anyone with a hint as to how to control and manipulate mana, but no one was ideal, and the only person who might have been a potential tutor, is the wandering Sage, however i never could catch up to them in time. Now that I think about it however, have you had any dreams such as the one that Faliore gave me?"
Well, he sure is catching on quickly.
"Yes father, I have had a dream such as the one you mentioned. I had it last night and it was awful. Within the dream I saw the fires washing over the city, and the death of mother and Jessica within the throne room. These were the only similarities that happened between our dreams however, because I was not the one who killed them or started the fire. It had seemed as though we had been in a battle with another kingdom, and they had brought two great beasts that breathed flames. The boy was with me in the dream, but no words were spoken."
He seemed puzzled by the set of different information I just gave him, and as I filled him in on the rest of the dream, I began to see his eyes glow with a strange light. Realization dawned on him, and so he brought his eyes to meet mine with a look of absolute kindness.
"So it seems I have feared you for no reason, and for that I am sorry. Your dream however, doesn't even begin to calm my nerves, for now I have to be suspicious of all the nations around us. Vormine is our closest ally, so I will ask them to keep a close eye on those mongrels from Brole. I will also tell them to keep their guard up, for their own benefit. Lucy, you have gotten rid of many fears, but to no avail, for you have brought more to fill their space. My only question now is what will you do from here on out?"
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Frankly speaking, I could not have been more unprepared for what my father had just blindsided me with.
'I mean honestly, how do you expect me to digest all of this info and then drop some an important question right after?!'
After taking a few moments to readjust myself I looked at my father with mildly nervous but otherwise stoic expression.
"Father, while I love how you've decided to let me in on this little secret you've been keeping, you almost successfully avoided answering who the people outside actually are?"
While he showed a small amount of surprise on his face after being countered so easily, he quickly corrected his expression before steeling himself. He looked up at my face only to visibly wince when he saw I very much so was staring daggers at him, knowing full well he was going to try and continue dodging the question. With a great sigh, he looked helpless as he stated:
"Why do the women in my life seemingly leave me no leeway in verbal debates? Must the Gods be so cruel, making a king have such little backbone in the face of his loved ones? (sigh) Lucy, the men outside searching for you are remnants of a cult I had thought I erased years ago when Lady Faliore told me of the coming doom. They are known as Voids Eyes."
'Aaand would you look at that, another ruthless bomb of info.'
"Mind my manners Father, but it seems the only way I can describe how you've gone about things is 'You wouldn't be able to hit water even if you fell out of a boat.' I mean honestly, I've seen my little sister perform less mistakes learning her alphabet from the meister when she was four, than I've heard from your past in the last few minutes!"
The look on King Aaron Lucian Saphire, First Divine Beast-slayer, the cherished Peoples Hope, first of his name, could have been the perfect muse for any artist, as his look was utterly priceless. Shock, guilt, and utter humiliation all could not even come close to describing how supremely hurt he was by his own daughter's acidic tirade of insults.
' Hey I AM your father, you know? I understand I've been messing up but cut me some slack, being a king and stuff is HARD, you know? What's that comment on not hitting water about anyway? How could I not hit water when falling off of a boat?' Sullen and defeated he continued listening to my brutal insults until I finally felt as though the message got through. The poor man looked like he aged a century with my verbal lashings. The Hero King, reduced to such a feeble man. 'I am getting better everyday, if I do say so myself.' With a puffed up chest filled with shameless pride, I turned my nose to the sky.
" (Ahem), well, getting to the point. I'd like to ask why you are lurking about the castle as though you can't easily exterminate the intruders with a flick of the wrist. I mean, you ARE the Hero King after all."
To this he looked up once again with a scowl.
"Unlike dunder-headed mercenaries, I have a brain sitting in my head. I wanted to confirm who they are while I searched the castle high and low for my MISSING daughter, only to end up watching you secretly making your way back to your room from outside the damned castle. What do you have to say for yourself now, huh?"
At that moment I found the most peculiar looking stones on the wall, pondering their appearance while whistling a tune only I knew. I looked over at my father only to see him smugly staring right at me with a withering gaze.
"Sooo, do you think the men have already passed by, or do I have to continue standing in here for the remainder of the evening?"
My father got up with scoff before making his way towards the door.
"I suppose now is the perfect time to show you what your father can do. I hope my skills haven't rusted up. Do you have a preference for this show? Shall I combat them with magic? Or perhaps eviscerate them with my swordplay?"
I shrugged showing my indifference as he casually opened the door, and with a loud booming voice that shook the castle he said:
" The rodents who have infiltrated my domain have this one and only chance to surrender themselves and standby in my audience chamber. Failure to do so will result in your none too pleasant demise. You have until I've opened stepped within that room to follow my order or face the consequences."
With a saunter, he whistled a tune as he approached the audience chamber. Meanwhile, the infiltrators had mixed amount of expressions across their faces. Some with fear, and others fuming with arrogance and rage.
" How dare this mongrel king believe we would surrender so easily?! I will slaughter him on sight once we have located our target."
The others all shared a glance before steeling their nerves and hastening their search for the crown princess.
I was following my father to the audience chamber, digesting all the info that had been dumped onto me, searching for anything to help better understand this whole ordeal, when my father turned to look at me.
"If you continue frowning like that your face will get stuck like that darling. Since this whole thing is quite a lot for you, I might as well start now in giving you, your first mana usage lesson. Care to give me ear for this?"
He knocked me out of my stupor with that statement. 'I mean this couldn't hurt me in the long run, so why not?' I nodded my head enthusiastically.
"Haha, alright then. I'll show you one of the most basic, but also one of the more useful, skills that mana manipulation grants you. It is mana perception, or as some arrogant bastards like to call it, God's Vision."
While walking, I could clearly see a film of energy slowly surround my father's body, in a golden hue. After a few breaths, I saw him whip his eyes open, and all the energy that had condensed around him, surrounding his body, exploded out with torrential force, but seemingly doing no damage to any of the walls around us. His eyes stayed shining with resplendent gold, while I saw him raise his arms to either of him.
"The energy you saw around me was mana in one of it's purest forms, and one of the keys to using mana perception, is having an extremely acute amount of control over nature's natural mana, and the mana we, ourselves, create and have inherently. Having extreme levels of control is absolutely necessary if you wish to fully dominate your foes in combat. Mana is usually invisible to the human eye until you've done your first initial stages of training in control. Everyone has a mana 'signature', or in simpler words, a color that directly represents your own mana, versus anyone else."