Webnovel's slowest burning novel.

There is a sense for greatness.

Some people carry it around like a bad smell. They make us stop on the street, and look their way, whether we wish to or not. Their appearance might be ordinary, but there’s something about them, something beyond the norm. Something that makes you almost wish to bend the knee to them.
Our kings have likely had that something, those that came from nothing but ashes and ruin, in times of trouble and famine, where the hearts of the masses are restless, and they need a cause to bind to. What makes them choose one man over another?

It is my contention that there is a true gravity to such individuals. That progress, or competence, or greatness itself carries a weight. That a man might grow greater in the dark, and whether he wishes it or not, by the sheer gravity of his existence, tigers will make their way towards his door, catching his scent in the wind.

The tigers hide themselves in the forests, in villages unknown, amongst the peasantry, but sooner or later, it does seem, that they are always cast into the light. It requires an immense effort of will to keep them hidden. A man of such a gravity will see themselves risen, without will, to ranks beyond that of the norm – in times of peace, they might rise high indeed. But in times of chaos? When the world is in upheaval, when every piece in up in the air? Then a tiger from the most lowly of starts, with a competency – a density – beyond belief, as if they were a different creature entirely – they might go all the way. They might be the creature that – though a peasant themselves – the peasantry themselves kneel to. They might go further, and make the soldiery kneel, and then even the nobles after them. And a special class, beyond all others, might go even further still, and snatch a crown the head of a king, on a flurry of brilliant victories, on a story so overwhelming it almost might have seemed preordained.

It is those men that we ought to fear, and it those men that we will eternally be at the mercy of. It is those men that we do the honour of addressing as our kings, and our emperors.

"I say that… this likely is not good for my heart," Lord Idris said. "I do not know how my son abides serving a creature so reckless."


"Nor is it good for mine," Lord Blackwell said.


"Then you both shall have to learn to deal with me," Queen Asabel said. "For this is who I am. I am not one to sit pretty, whilst you busy yourself in my absence. I have grown tired of it. When I speak to the townspeople, I am sure of where it is that I need to be. I have a belief, no, a certainty, that this is not a war that can be won from the shadows. And how could it, my Lords? How could we fight this war from the shadows, when we fight in the name of our justice?"


Lord Blackwell hated the fact that he was growing convinced, and he hated even more the fact that his blood was beginning to stir with a violent passion.


"At the very least," Lord Idris conceded, "I do believe our men shall fight well, seeing that their Queen is with them, to inspire them and give them confidence."


Chapter 1816 - The Stirring of Great Winds - Part 1