A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"…And what question might that be?" Tolsey asked, fighting to remain calm. His hand reached for his sword, but his body quivered. Why did he know, without ever having crossed swords with Beam, that it would end so poorly for him?

Why was he so well aware that this Beam that stood in front of him, tainted by anger, that it was an even stronger version of Beam than he had seen dominate the battlefield day after day?

He fought to remain calm. He was an officer, after all. It was not merely his skill with a sword that he had been given that position for. It was not merely his noble birth either – or he liked to think so. It was for moments like these, when the men needed leadership.

"Your master gave you orders to listen to your superiors, did he not?" Tolsey said, his voice firmer than it had been.

Beam half turned his head to look at him. His eyes were wild. The golden flecks that danced inside them reeked of something hellish, something domineering. How had he never noticed those flecks before, Tolsey wondered?

At his words, Beam's shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. "…I will wait for the Captain," he said, though his voice had lost none of its edge, and the intensity about him hardly abated.

None of the soldiers dared to near him now, and with their gazes pointing in a certain direction – the direction of the man Tolsey knew to be the killer – it would only be a matter of moments before that man died if Beam had a mind to do so.

Footsteps tore through the snow, as the Captain approached. In moments like these, moments when the tension was highest, the man never seemed to be far away, as though he could sense trouble approaching long before it arrived.

Tolsey had only been able to keep the peace for a meagre few minutes, but Lombard still spared him an approving nod. He'd already been briefed by a frantic sergeant over what happened. Beam did not even turn to look at him.

Just as the Captain knew to arrive, it seemed as though others did too.

Beam turned his head to glance in the direction of Greeves, as he half-stumbled through the crowd, his body a mess of exhaustion. Loriel was clinging to his arm beside him, half fighting to hold him back, and half using him to keep herself upright.

There were already tears in her eyes before she even saw the body. They already knew what had happened, Beam realized.

Loriel collapsed to the ground beside him, her purple dress falling atop red snow.

"Charlotte…" She moaned, her voice choked and horse. She grasped for the cold dead hand that had once belonged to the woman that she had called Charlotte, and she begged for her friend to get up.

But those eyes had ceased to take in long ago, and still, more blood flowed from the wound. She was dead, well and truly. No matter how much Loriel cried, the corpse did not move.

There was open hostility being directed towards Greeves and Loriel from the soldiers, but mixed in with it was unease, as if even they thought that killing the girl had been too far.

As Loriel wept beside him, Beam stood rooted to the spot, looking off into the distance, his hand clenched into a fist. He clenched his jaw so tightly he felt like his teeth might shatter.

He wondered why he felt such responsibility. It was that oath, wasn't it, the one that he had sworn to his master, to protect the villagers? But then, he had not felt so enraged when he saw the woman struck. Why now then, with a body before him, did everything feel so much different?

"Ah…" He suddenly realized – it wasn't the oath at all. It was the powerlessness. It was fear. It was that which ate at him. He feared the time before progress, he feared when he had been so weak, so terribly weak, that he could not even defend himself.

Now, he had been convinced that he had power, that he'd made steps in the right direction, that things had begun to change. But how true was that? Did he really know anything? Did he really have any sort of power? Were his struggles not pathetic? He still had not found Stephanie, after all.

And now, in the very camp that he slept in, a woman had been murdered. A woman that he had sworn to protect. He'd lost before the battle even started.

The aura of anger danced around him, and all who watched thought him to be on the very edge of losing his cool. Yet inside, it was fear that reigned. He didn't want to go back. He didn't want this progress to be a lie. He didn't want to have to redo that suffering all over again.

There was a time he was capable of enduring any amount of pain, for any amount of time. Why did he suddenly feel so out of balance, over but a single failure? That pain in his heart from the previous evening returned for a moment, and he clutched his chest, feeling something that wasn't him, fighting to rid him of his balance.

"Boy," Greeves hissed, next to him, jabbing in his side. Beam turned to look at him in surprise. Greeves looked just as dead as the woman on the floor. The stress of recent days had taken its toll on him.

It was only at Greeves' urging that Beam realized the Captain was calling for him.

"Tolsey said you stayed your hand on his orders," Lombard said patiently, "you have my gratitude."

It was only then that Beam remembered his anger. It came back threefold, like a burning sea, that sought to wash away the chilling coolness that had been left by the fear. He surrendered to that sensation. With the anger in him, he felt strong again, and vicious – and some part of him even delighted in it.