The Legends of Anigma: Ethiel Archer | ONC 2023

PART XXIV

“I...” Ethiel couldn’t think of a proper answer in the heat of the situation. He telepathically let the others know of it.

Everyone was as surprised as him.

“Tell him that he will find the truth hard to believe.” Lord Veer suggested.

Ethiel said the same.

“Hmm, so you will not answer,” The King chuckled. “It matter so little anyway. You are not a threat in the least, if I am not mistaken. Rather you seem concerned – perhaps, for me?”

Ethiel hesitantly nodded.

“So it was because of you that those assassins failed? The ones sent by my most dear friend – or so he used to be."

"How did you know?"

"Is he a clairvoyant?" Lord Veer’s voice became ponderous.

"Are you a clairvoyant?"

The king shot a surprised look and then burst into laughter. "How did you figure? Frankly speaking, to call myself a clairvoyant would seem rather far-fetched. I can see the future, but only the critical danger it has in store. Nothing else. Hence, I am not a full-fledged clairvoyant."

"You can see all possible dangers?"

"Yes. My wife, my own son, and an odd group of greedy subjects. They pose a threat to me."

"He knows?! Then who the hell killed this guy?!" Red Wings was now curious and maybe even frustrated. "Is it me? I definitely feel like pushing him for making us do all that search!!"

"I never thought..." The sadness the king had been harbouring, it finally overwhelmed him or he let it all out. His eyes got watery. "Those fools have no idea."

“Ethiel,” Lord Veer called him. “The one we’re searching, it is none other than the King himself.”

“What?!” Ethiel’s eyes jumped with surprise.

“Well, they need not hatch such ugly schemes henceforth.”

“You have to stop him! Seize his sword!” Lord Veer firmly instructed.

Ethiel swiftly moved and snatched the sword along with the belt from the King.

“You figured.”

“I can’t let you do this.” Ethiel declared.

“Hand it over, please. I cannot… this is too much for me.”

“Ethiel, speak exactly as I tell you to.”

“Alright, Lord Veer.”

“Give it to me!”

“First listen to me,” Ethiel held up his hand and gestured the King to be keep calm. He took a deep breath. “To serve a Kingdom throughout your life, toiling day and night, thinking of how you can fulfill your responsibilities, guaranteeing the safety and happiness of the subjects who placed their faith in you, forging alliances with diplomatic compromises and letting go of selfish desires – even the innocent ones – to be able to help a greater cause, that is what you have done, your majesty. To suffer the ill fate of being wanted dead by those you held dear to your heart and trusted, by those for who you did so much, that is indeed excruciatingly painful. But this Kingdom, these people, at least those who revere you, who bless you for the blessings they have – they need you.”

“The pain… you cannot understand.”

“It is you who does not understand the pain death will bring. If you were to die like this, your majesty a hole will form in this Kingdom and its people, a hole nothing can fill. Tears shall flood the souls of the Kingdom’s people. That warrior from earlier, the children who think the world of you, the women and men who see as a brother they never wished for but got blessed with by some miracle of fate, your army that has courage for you are the one who leads them; think of all those people.”