Judgral Calendar 776, Mease Castle
"I've lived for this alone: to choke the life from you with my bare hands!"
The Crown Prince of Leonster stood tall as his cry rung across the peninsula's desolate fields. Even with the capital's notorious wyvern brigade towering above him, their respective riders after his entrails, he refused to cower. It was far too late, and Leif had come too far, a liberated north Thracia to show for his efforts.
But in the face of his own indomitable spirit lay the new Thracian King, a man as blessed with strength and the holy blood of Dain as he was with tactical intelligence. A man who strove for an identical ideal to the prince, and wanted nothing more than to see his own people prosper. A man who, despite the setbacks of his own nobility's incompetence, was a single head away from securing his land's future.
And he would do all that was in his power to lop it off of its wiry body.
Travant was no coward. He'd heard enough about court whispering regarding his dishonourable dispatching of the King and Queen to be of Leonster, Quan and Ethlyn. He was more than aware of his own allies mocking him, belittling him as no more than a lapdog of the empire, suggesting that Raydrik and Veld were pulling the strings. Travant had played it more than safe these last two decades, more than his foolhardy court could ever comprehend.
Travant was also no fool. He had secured the bloodlines of the two holy lances Gungnir and Gae Bolg, had allowed the little prince to scuttle about up north and eliminate Raydrik and Veld to weaken the Grannvale Empire's influence up there, and curried the favour of Emperor Arvis over the course of fifteen sycophantic, painful years. Everything had fallen into place, as he had willed it to.
It was of little concern if those below him did not understand. In due time, they would thank, praise and perhaps come to revere him for his work. And even if they did not, it was enough to see his people live free from the clutches of poverty, to wade in the wealth that the bastards of Conote, Manster and Leonster had so fervently guarded.
"Heh... As foolish as your father... And unlike him, you can't even wield Gáe Bolg!"
Yet Travant himself stood without his precious Gungnir, the right of his bloodline, and a holy weapon that would all but guarantee the precocious prince's head upon a spike. The absolute in showing his authority, and he had given it to his son Arione. He had bid him farewell and told him to do what he saw necessary afterwards, effectively making him king in Travant's place. Practically told the boy to call a truce too, after his ranting and raving to Hannibal about it. H actions didn't quite line up with his words and all he'd done over the last fifteen odd years. It mattered not, with a great wyvern and a standard issue Kapathogian silver lance being more than enough for the upstart. Even then, it was not the kind of mistake Travant usually made, and it unnerved him.
Tired him out.
Maybe the King was tired. He understood Leif's motivations, and also understood that the Empire was well worth opposing. But after all this bloodshed, conflict, and painstaking planning? The crusader's blood that ran through his veins would sooner boil itself before it went back on all of that, to surrender his lands to the children of his enemies. The offspring of those he had offed himself.
A child like Altena.
Altena, his dearest daughter, who he had painstakingly and lovingly raised as one of his own, who was the daughter of Quan and Ethlyn, and thus held the Gae Bolg. Altena, who had thrown a tantrum and stormed out of the castle, who had become so rustled by the revelation of her lineage that she now stood against him and with her brother. Altena, a mistake that came solely from his being a sentimental idiot.
It didn't matter now. All he had to do was kill the prince, who stared him down with the same steely determination Quan did in Yied all those years ago.
He'd had enough. As he'd told Arione, this was as far as Travant would go. Thracia was in his hands after this one loose end was tied up. He could find Altena, they could waltz off into the sunset for all he cared. Travant's mind had better things to do than to bounce about his past or muse about his mistakes. Why was it doing that, anyway?
Travant took in the air of his homeland once more. Let the violent winds of Thracia sweep through the mountains and over him, and inhaled their sharp earthy tones. He grit his teeth, clenched his fists about his lance, and glared back at Leif, like a hyena upon its meal. His lips loosed one final cackle, and he howled back at the prince.
"You don't stand a chance! Now, hold still! It's time you learned the last agonies your father felt at my hands!"