Arthur felt a strong wave of déjà vu so strongly he was nearly taken aback by it. He had once walked into this very room with the enemy speaking to the king against him. Back then, he’d lost control of the situation and everything had nearly come to ruin.
Now, he was stronger, in mind, experience, and in his heart deck. He was practically a different person, and he was not going to approach this from a place of weakness.
The king gave him just the opening that he needed as he looked up from the ranting Whitaker to the door, just as Arthur and Rose entered. "Is what he said correct, Arthur?"
Arthur did not pause in his stride. Head up and reaching for his Acting skill to give him confidence in every line of his body, he strode up to the group of hive leaders. A couple of them subtly stepped aside for him.
Arthur bowed deeply to the king, and to his side, Rose gave a stiff curtsy.
"My apologies for my tardiness," Arthur said instead of answering the question. "Have you heard of what happened at the Rowantree Estate?"
The king looked down at him, and Arthur could not read an expression on his falsely young face. His reply, though, was vaguely sarcastic. "From what I have been told, much has been happening in my kingdom as of late."
Arthur nodded once, as if this was to be expected. "I discovered a nest of scourglings in the Rowantree Estate."
"Your ancestral family’s estate,” Whitaker broke in, sounding almost gleeful. “You then used your own hive’s resources to try to cover up—"
"To flush out scourglings and exterminate them from the land,” Arthur said, not even bothering to look at the man as if he were far below him. He added, with sarcasm equal to what the king had shown, “I assume that is the job of hives?" He then glanced at the king. “In the ensuing fight, I believe we were able to take out one of the controlling influences that was hiding more of the scourgling nests throughout the kingdom."
The king did not react. "When was this?"
"An hour ago, your Majesty. I assume that was when your seers had been alerted of the... danger?"
The king said nothing, though his eyes narrowed in thought.
"Well, that is very interesting,” Whitaker said. “And you did not call in the rest of the hives?"
"It was a small nest.” Arthur glanced at Whitaker and found him standing much closer than he’d expected. The man’s skin was flushed, his hand balled into fists. Arthur wondered if he meant to punch him in the face.
Let him try. Arthur wouldn't mind testing out Master of Spells on him.
He aimed a quick smirk at Whitaker and then addressed the king again. "Whitaker's objection does make sense, considering that two of my junior leaders tried to stop me from clearing out the scourglings under his direction."
"That is a lie.” Whitaker snarled, and Arthur turned to him, eyebrow up. Whitaker glared. “His family is in collusion with the scourglings—"
King Elizer held up one hand. "Enough."
The world froze so completely that it took Arthur a few seconds to figure out exactly what was going on. The air felt… different, so still that it was almost instantly stuffy. He glanced at Whitaker, mostly out of self-preservation, wondering if he needed to use his Phase In, Phase Out to avoid a punch to the side of the head, but the man was staring straight at him with no give or wobble to his eyes. Another rider, Ismael, was reaching toward Whitaker's shoulder as if to pull him back.
They were all utterly still. No one was even blinking.
Arthur jerked his gaze to the king to see the man smiling at him. Though his expression still held that amused twinkle in his eyes, Arthur now saw a good deal of tiredness there, too. The man was exhausted, probably more so than Arthur himself.
"I have been dealing with small minds with big egos for literal centuries," the king said on a sigh. "You cannot believe how weary I have grown of the arguing. Now, Arthur Rowantree, tell me what exactly happened. For your sake and mine—for I am aware of how much I owe you for my current mental clarity, and yet I cannot let any treachery pass—tell me the truth."
So Arthur did. He had nothing to hide, and most importantly, his story did include Master of Spells.
"So you are one card away from ascending to Mythic," the king said, "and your dragon? He has valuable natural magic. I assume you do not want to leave him behind?"
"Of course not. He has two cards left," Arthur said.
The king's gaze went suddenly distant, as if he were listening to something else, or more likely, he was fading out. But Marion had promised his mental clarity would last longer than this….
Abruptly, the king shook his head. "There is nothing that I can personally change that would alter your trials to come.”
He said it calmly, and Arthur realized with relief that he had only been communing with his cards. From the sound of it, a time card. Nothing had resonated with his own Time card, but of course it would not, being Mythic.
Even if he had dared, he did not get the opportunity to ask, as the king fixed him with a look.
"And it does not escape me that this is the second time the Rowantree family has turned traitor."
It took everything Arthur had not to bristle at that.
In fact, the king seemed to be waiting for his reaction, because when Arthur didn’t react, he nodded once. But then he said, with a quirk of a smile, "Please do not tell me you intend to reestablish your father as the noble lord of that estate."
Arthur kept his voice neutral. "My cousin is more than willing. He owes me his life, and since my uncle severely mutilated his heart deck while serving the Mind Singer, he has no love left for him. He will inherit Rowantree."
"Very well then,” said the king. He raised his hand, very likely to unfreeze the world and return them to the meeting.
Arthur spoke quickly. “One last thing, sire. I have banished Desmond and Sybil from my hive for treachery. You should be aware."
"It may not be wise to allow your enemies to congregate in one place," King Elizar said. Then he shrugged. "But as there is every chance you will be ascending to Mythic, there is not much they could do." He suddenly fixed Arthur with a look. “My Lung Bei tells me you must ascend, and I find myself agreeing. Since we are here and our conversation is private I will tell you this: The fate of our kingdom rides on it.”
He’d known this, at least distantly, but hearing it from the king himself hit very different. Arthur blanched. “The… Kingdom, Majesty?”
“Well, perhaps that is a slight exaggeration,” Elizar said with a tick of a smile. “Humans are tenacious creatures, and there will be pockets of survivors—including myself and my direct line, of course—but… I would rather avoid that fate, don’t you agree?”
Arthur swallowed hard and nodded.
Elizar waved his hand again. Arthur wondered if the entire world was frozen, or if it was just the people within this room. Perhaps the whole palace?
And abruptly, Arthur found himself once again facing Whitaker at the exact moment the king had frozen time.
Ismael put his hand on Whitaker's shoulder. "You’ve made your point, I think."
Whitaker looked like he very much wanted to make more of a point. Then he seemed to remember where he was and backed down. The man was an idiot. Everybody agreed on that. But it seemed he was not enough of one to start a fist fight in front of the king.
"Enough," Elizar said, sounding more tired than before. "I care not for petty squabbles. You have not been called before me so I may witness your childish disputes."
"His family were playing host to the scourglings," Whitaker said, though his voice was much more sullen than before, as if he couldn’t resist one last jab in Arthur’s direction.
Ignoring him, the king turned to nod to a woman dressed in palace livery. She strode forward, and with a tossing motion, a glittering map of the kingdom appeared in front of them. Hundreds of red points appeared on the map. They glowed like coals.
"I have been informed that our Legendary-level seers have alerted us to scourgling proto-nests underneath every major town, city, and most of the minor ones,” the king began. “From they have been able to discover, they are not ready to hatch yet quite yet, but it appears that the growth rate is the same for all of them." He paused a beat, letting it sink in. “Without any interference, they will all but certainly hatch at the same time. All of them. Everywhere.”
Dead silence fell within the group.
"So," Elizar said, clapping his hands together, "what do you intend to do about this?"
Everybody started to speak at once.
****
Arthur intentionally trailed behind the other Legendary leaders as they exited the main palace and made their way to the massive courtyard where their dragons were waiting for them. So many Legendary-level beasts clustered together required a lot of space.
A part of Arthur suspected that the size of the courtyard had been expanded using card powers. Normally, he'd be interested.
Now...
Now, he had to retreat into his Personal Space to rage several times just during the long walk out. Between that and the four-hour meeting that had devolved into shouting matches—Arthur had previously smirked at Whitaker for being dumb enough to start a fistfight in front of the king, but that was before he had nearly done the same himself—he was beyond drained.
He wasn't the only one. No one looked each other in the eye as they walked out. Many, including grown men who were battle-hardened from a lifetime of scourgling eruptions, had dried tear tracks down their faces.
The silence was deafening.
No, it's damning, Arthur corrected himself. And we deserve it.
Brixaby met him at the mouth of the courtyard. He skittered under the wing of a massive brown dragon to reach him and didn’t bother with pleasantries, instead scooping Arthur up in his claws.
"What is it?" he snarled. "What took so long? Why are you all... like this?" He gestured at the grim, almost shell-shocked leaders.
Arthur shook his head. "Not now." He couldn't talk like this with witnesses around. He'd just start raging again, and this time... he was worried he couldn't stop.
With a growl, Brixaby opened the dark portal and practically flung himself and Arthur in. The king's men had offered portals for everyone who could not find their way home, but they were far beyond needing that.
"What is it?" Brixaby demanded again, the second the portal snapped shut and they were beside the black river. He sat Arthur down, too worried and anxious to do it gently.
Arthur didn't care. He stood there, legs stinging from striking the ground so hard, heart aching more.
"The seers believe," he began, his voice rough. As well it should be. He'd been arguing for hours, not that it had done any good, "that a significant raid on some of the nests under the cities will cause the others to rapidly grow to an eruption point. And... the kingdom does not have enough higher-level dragons to counteract all the nests at the same time." He spoke slowly. It was the only way he could remain calm. "The king and the rest of the leaders have decided to focus on the cities within the inner wheel. The rest... the farmland, the majority of the small and medium-sized populations... will be left on their own." He looked up at his dragon. "They’re going to sacrifice two-thirds of the kingdom."