Celestial Hymn 37

Celestial Hymn
Chapter 37

-VB-

They couldn’t keep their inner demons still for a full year.

Not even half a year.

I went out of my way to warn Stark, but the man was stubborn in a way wolves were not.

Wolves knew when to back the fuck off.

Starks, apparently despite having direwolves as part of their house flag, did not know when to back the fuck off.

Did you know that wolves do not attack a sizable prey like moose and cows that held their ground? A good rear kick from a donkey would shatter a wolf’s skull, and they knew such dangers. They knew when to back the fuck off.

The Starks didn’t, and its pack leader got killed biting something he very much should not have.

I wanted to throw a fit, but it would be below my station. It didn’t stop many others from doing so as they lost power, wealth, and influence in this sudden shift in power.

Technically, I was not one of those who lost power. In fact, I was technically more powerful than I was before because I was now a lord engaged to the princess who was the second in line to inherit the throne. However, the king in question was an insane, inbred, and irritable boy while the queen mother (because there was no regency here) was a paranoid, arrogant, and extremely petty bitch.

Both of them had to go.

I had been too focused on managing my fiefdom and the construction of my spaceship. Too fucking focused, in fact, that I hadn’t even prepared for this possibility.

Robert shouldn’t have died from a mere boar; I had given him quite the number of armors. The cloak that I gave him had already been enchanted to reduce any kind of damage. Reasonably speaking, I couldn’t find anything wrong with his body outside of the damage he suffered, but that damage alone should not have been enough to kill him. Yeah, it had looked bad on the surface, but the damage to his organs and critical blood vessels had been minimal.

Hell, I spent time and effort closing everything up but he still died!

I even went through the fucking effort to cleanse him of any poison. I poured health points down his gullet!

So.

If Robert should have lived but didn’t, then what was going on?

Well, I had a few ideas.

The first was that it was his time to die and the nature of this world prevented me from saving him. I called bullshit on that, and if that truly was what happened, then the world better expect me to blow it up, because I refused to be bound by such ridiculous rules.

The second possible cause was that … someone went and killed him while I wasn’t there. He was indeed still weak, and if someone poisoned him while I wasn’t there, then asphyxiated him…

Well, it wasn’t like it would show up on a corpse.

The third possible cause was someone like Melisandre cursing him or something. With so many gods, pantheons, and their respective rituals, figuring that out would take me more time than it was worth.

…In the end, figuring that mystery out would have to wait.

What mattered was that I needed to salvage this goddamn kingdom so that I would have the time to finish my project.

Joffrey would never let that happen.

He needed to go.

Unprepared as I was, I have been preparing other projects as well. My magicians, for one, still flourished. If I ordered them to kill, then they would ask how quickly or how slowly. If I told them to die, then most would do so with a smile on their face because part of the contract for being my magician was to sign a contract that ensured their families’ futures and prosperity should they fall in the line of duty.

… Okay, so maybe not death on order but the point was that I could get to do what I wanted.

Like direct air current in a certain way at this place and at this appointed time.

Now, have fifty of them do that.

I looked at the archer in front of me.

“Well, go ahead,” I said while gesturing to the target.

The archer, a boy from the countryside here to become a magician, gritted his teeth and loosed.

And missed.

While I patted the boy on his back for failing part of the exam I was here to oversee and telling him that he had other parts of the exam to see through still, the arrow flew around the edge of the practice yard and out to the skies. From there, it flew up and curved.

And flew.

And flew.

And flew.

It flew out of the city.

And just as it reached its peak possible speed, a portal opened up, the magician working for me completely unaware of the fact that he did correctly activate the artifact I’d given him.

(I suspect he was very unhappy with his inability to complete his given task).

The arrow flew through, barely clipping the edge of the portal as it closed almost instantaneously.

And somewhere in the Red Keep, an arrow flew through the opening doors of the Throne Room and zipped across the room with a zip.

And firmly planted itself with a wet thunk into Joffrey’s forehead.

All hail the One Week King.

Long Live King Tommen Baratheon.

Days from now, the grieving queen would also meet her end, tumbling down a set of stairs that was unfortunately very long and leave her head cracked open on the pavement.

Letters sent by me to Lord Renly and Lord Stannis would also arrive, and I - as the only “ally” of the royal children left in the capital - would call for a great council with the might of my magic cadre looming behind me.

The entire process would take at least half a year.

My ship would be finished by then.