"Why did you have them killed?" I started circling around him as he put a towel on himself.
"Me? I didn't kill them." He said in a matter of factly way. "I just ordered the judiciary system to do as it's supposed to and charge the guilty for their crimes."
"For what?"
"Treason of course."
"What treason?"
For the first time since the conversation started, he shut up.
"Of course, did you think we wouldn't know? That the last Apostle was a fake running a cult? And the cult had political powers too!!"
"You don't know that she was a fake." It was impossible to distinguish her from me because she still had Leia's blessing.
"She couldn't use the Prana of Time like you can. That's plenty proof for the judiciary." His demeanor was calm.
"Bull shit. That's-" I didn't know the word for it. I was literate but not well versed. Not once did I feel inadequate for my uneducated state.
"Conspiracy. That's what it was. Imagine what happened when the court found out about how she set up shelter to house and raise radicals manipulating the families of the soldiers!"
"That's not what it's about!" I kicked the tub making the water spilled over.
"Of course it's not." He looked serious for a second. "You see yesterday I held a vote on a policy. I said that we should raise the taille slightly to accommodate the present war."
"And?"
"A member of the court denied my proposition. Can you believe that?! That has never happened before. He was saying stupid shit like how we should redirect the money instead to mercenaries as they had seen significantly better growth or something."
"What's wrong with that?"
"THE MERCENARIES DON'T WORK FOR ME!"
I grabbed his collar bone, lift him up and punched his mouth knocking his teeth into his stomach. He laughed.
"You know how much the war has gone on because of your stupid antics. This could have ended with the previous previous Apostle if you funded the mercenaries properly or even conducted the military drills in a righteous manner. No- Even if the war didn't end we would have saved thousands of people."
"Why should the war end early though?!" I couldn't take it anymore. I broke the collar bone in my hand and he fell down and scurried to a corner of the bath like a roach. "You- you think you can get away from this? Get away from me?!" He pointed his finger. "I am the Emperor of this land. I have power vested in me from divinity!"
Power poisons the soul. It is a drug worse than any opioid. It gives people like him the confidence to think the world is a playground designed for them to make a mess of.
"What was all of this shit for? Sure you threw your stupid fucking tantrum and killed a bunch of innocent people. But you knew you weren't going to keep this power anyway. You knew that I would kill you the second I found out." I dragged the sword behind me.
"Of course I did. My sacrifice for the throne doesn't matter." He frowned now aware of the fate awaiting him. "I killed our only competitor. Without the shrine and its antics no man in the court will challenge the divine throne's will."
"You don't mean-"
"My son will be stronger than I ever was after his coronation. You can't take this power away from me."
"You piece of shit."
"What are you going to do? Kill him? He had nothing to do with me massacring your town. Will you kill an innocent person." He started maniacally laughing and sqeaking like a rat for two fucking minutes.
He was right. I didn't have what it took to kill the prince.
"You know what?" I stuck the sword into his groin and impaled him the entire way through.
"GAAHHH!!" His face turned pale and his eyes became bloodshot.
"We can deal with the whole shit about the crown prince later, but first I'll make you suffer." I lifted him up like a skewer and rested the sword on my shoulder. Carrying him through the hallway everything felt muffled. This was divine retribution. I heard the blood drip down the sword and the sound of him groaning and sobbing.
Outside all I heard was the sound of people shouting it was a riot. But they stopped as soon as they saw me. As I started walking through the crowd I felt people's hand rubbing my armour. While some cried, others laughed, in either case tears flowed. Some were frightened by the suffering emperor while the others celebrated it.
The enactor of the diving will my ass. His people cared little for him if the Apostle was involved.
It was too early for him to die and I was not the right person to kill him.
"Keep him alive for a week, but don't let him rest. His victims will put him out of his misery." I put the sword down and left for the night with no consequences at all.
*
*
*
As per my request the king was kept alive until the families of the massacred arrived to stomp his head in. But before that I had Lithia take care of the bodies. We set up a proper burial mount for all of them after looking through registries for names. This turned into one of the worst tragedies of our generation. The previous prince lost some of his power but people were wary of change. The trust in the throne had definitely weakened but there was no body to take advantage of that. The ministers got more power but the King could still switch the ministers out.
In the end, nothing had changed.
"That wasn't the start to the journey we wanted." Lithia said as we sat back down in Oisha. Two weeks had passed.
"Any start is fine at this point." My voice sounded slightly dead. "I just want to move on."
It had finally set in that even if my situation was drastically different I still lacked the ability to change anything. I felt so powerless in that moment that it brought me back to reality. It was a sobering thought.