Frozen Flame

Chapter 80: Control

[Prior Trigger Warning to sensitive readers. Please proceed with caution.]

Fire Temple/Arena

There was noise. Lots of noise. A heavy abundance of noise. Screams, clicks of boots and weapons, shouts of orders, a child screaming. Fawtor's lip curled. Misbehaving little dirt-clumps. Filthy, disgusting, revolting piles of garbage. Children that could not obey had no place in this world. Only if they were mildly fascinating were they allowed a little leniency – and only enough to keep them remaining fun. Unfortunately, there were rare few of those in the world – of which most, if not all, had already fallen into his hands.

Leaning his head further into his hand, Fawtor slid his eyes over the people beside him. His wife, still seated with her hands clasped together in front of her. Good. And further over, his daughter. She was silent, staring ahead with wide eyes, a slight tremble like her mother, and she too was unmoving. Well behaved, like all children should be. Of course. It was his child afterall.

He sighed. In all his years, only one of his children had ever managed to escape him. And, to make matters worse, he ended up ruling an entire state. Time and time again he had attempted to hunt Khixal down, sent soldiers and guards and some of the best people in Fire. He'd even sent Frelrick. A smirk. Everyone was always so worried about the partiality between Endis and Frelrick, but it was him they should have looked out for. Not that they could even begin attempting to oppose him. But, in any sense, he'd soon learnt a very important fact – something he would start doing towards his son soon: if you needed to get something done, in the end, no-one else was anywhere near as competent as you. So, if it was a challenge for most and easy for you, you would always end up having to do it yourself.

Once, he'd requested a hundred documents to be read over and signed by one of his servants. He already knew the contents, but he had somewhere to be, so he'd entrusted it to his most reliable servant at the time. When he'd gotten back, only seven of them had been completely scoured and signed with a specifically taught forgery of his signature, and several of the others had drops of blood and ink on them. He didn't ask what had happened, why would he? He just executed them on the spot. Then he'd signed the rest of them in under five minutes and sent more servants to transport them away. They couldn't do their task, so he'd had to do it for them.

A few days later, he brought in a woman who caught his fancy. He locked her inside a room and told his servants to tame her for a clean and simple evening, then went off to the North to find out more about a family who'd managed themselves a powerful inherited ability. When he came back, he found his servants dead and the woman bruised and bloodied. He'd told his servants not to harm her – he was sure of it. And yet, they'd hurt a new pet and then gotten themselves killed. He tamed the woman, then killed her, then brought the powerful family he'd discovered into his home and made them his new servants. He demerited the families of the old servants, subduing their status to undergoers. His evening had been ruined and, once again, he'd had to do it himself.

Every time, the same thing – like the constant chime of the clock – he was always forced to do everything himself.

One day, that wouldn't be the case. But, until that day came, he would make sure to keep his things in line.

He placed a hand on his wife's lap, feeling his own ability double in strength. Glancing to the side, he scanned the people, searching. Focusing on one of them, he pushed his ability towards them and then retracted theirs, increasing the strength with his wife's ability and forming it before him. He sighed.