A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

The intensity of their stares made Beam's chest tremble for just a moment. He found himself looking around the room again, as he paused halfway up the stairs.

The room – or what he had thought to be a room – was far vaster than he had first realized. Or maybe it had simply grown too. It was more like the steps of a temple, some mighty temple, something that one might hear in story books.

Against those stone walls, flame braziers burned, and banners hung, colourless manners, without a crest, as though someone had forgotten to include that detail.

When Beam looked back again, he found that the steps had grown. There were now fifty stairs between him and the young man and the young woman, and fifty more before himself and the floor.

He decided to take another step, a grim expression of determination on his face.

It felt as though he was passing through a glass window. There was enough resistance there for it to have been something physical. Beam grit his teeth, and made his way through anyway.

Within a second, there was a sword levelled at his neck, and there was a hammer pointed at his side. He'd thought the two of them to be enemies – but for enemies, they seemed to be remarkably adept at working together, and remarkably united in their decision.

"Is that it?" He asked, as they paused their strikes against him.

Both were taller than he. The man felt like an eight-foot giant next to him now, and the woman too was close to seven feet, with a sweet scent hanging off her, like the scent that used to cling to Loriel.

"Loriel…" Another memory, another fleeting emotion, pain stung at his heart as he remembered it, and with the pain there came a coldness to his eyes. He looked at the boy, and then he looked at the girl. "Move."

The silver-haired woman raised her eyebrows in an expression of surprise. The man's face became a mask of anger, his raven-black hair flaring up behind him, and his golden eyes shining with dismay.

His sword came at a frightening speed, and it punctured Beam's side. Beam looked down on himself. His arms had felt awfully sluggish. He'd wanted to deflect the attack before it came, but it was already deep within him, and blood welled from atop the blade. Dark, terrible blood.

The blood that coated him when he awoke all those years ago. Pain assailed his heart again at the memory.

The blood that had taken his family away, his mother, his father, his sister. The shape of his father's back as he'd stood in front of them, his arms wide, trying to protect them. The look of despair on his face as he fell, failing in his task.

A feeling came with that memory, a feeling of importance, as though Beam was missing something. A feeling that he needed to move towards something, despite the pain that ground him in place, and the pressure.

It was a feeling of forgetting something, as though there was something he should have been doing right at that moment – but it was more than that. It was not the feeling of forgetting to perform an important task for the day, or an important little yearly event. It was the feeling of forgetting destiny. It was the feeling of forgetting who he was.

The sword was tight in his stomach, blood dripped to the carpeted stone stairs. Beam took a step, ignoring the giants beside him.

With the next step, came the woman's hammer, even more ruthless than the man's sword. It didn't wound him, it crushed him, shattering his shoulder, forcing his sword from his grasp.

Another step, and the man's sword came again. It tickled his liver. It was a familiar feeling. That lightness of heart that Beam had felt before, it had disappeared. That feeling of comfort, of calm and relaxation, that everything would be fine. That had disappeared.

With the rediscovery of the something of importance, his heart was as firm as a rock. Not a trace of humour made its way to his eyes. They were fixed firmly on that throne, as though it held the answer to all the questions he'd ever asked and all the problems he'd ever faced.

The stairs grew longer again, and his blood streamed out behind him. A feeling of alarm assailed him again. There was something he needed to protect. But now his sword was gone, and his shoulder ached.

He lashed out his arm in anger, and grabbed the blade of the dark-haired man's sword, cutting himself in the process, succeeding in doing nothing but changing the blade's direction.

It seemed a pointless act, but in doing it, he felt that sudden pang of terror pass, as though he'd managed to keep his ship afloat for a moment, as though he'd managed to keep his crew alive.

He caught surprise in the man's eyes as well this time. Those perfect golden eyes, like a tiger's in the night, burning like flames and candles. Unchained hostility, unchained animalistic aggression. That there was a ruthless man, Beam's heart told him that. Nay – it was not a ruthless man. It was the ruthless man.

He was the embodiment of them all. He was their archetypal form. He was the manifestation of all their power.

And then when he turned his head, he saw it in the woman too.

She who wore her beauty like a weapon, whose violet eyes saw the future as ripples on the surface of the pond of the present. She who wielded a hammer with justice, on strict principles, with strict rules. She that would just as soon execute as she would defend. They were both terrifying laws of nature. They were equally as destructive.

"I see through you," he said to her. "Your righteousness does not fool me."

He said his words in a quiet, accusatory voice. She did not look away. The man pulled on his sword, as a smile twisted his lips. He laughed at that.

"The mortals that you swore to protect, they scorn you, Claudia," the man said.