The Path of Ruin

He climbed the stairs to the sixth floor slowly. Each step echoed with a loud sound, it was a strange feeling... but he didn't stop.

When he reached the sixth floor, he looked down at the hall.

There had really been a massacre here. Whatever had happened, he was glad he hadn't been here when it happened.

He swallowed, turned around. The sixth floor was now in front of him.

In front of him stood a corridor, rather grand, but rather short compared to the rest of the palace. There were five rooms in total, two on the right and two on the left. And at the end of the corridor stood the last one, a chamber with a huge door.

On the floor was the corpse of a creature he had never yet encountered in the palace. It seemed to be almost three meters tall, with a truly huge body. Unlike the black fur of the other creatures, this one's fur was... white. The same color as those flowers, in fact.

Obviously... it was hard to say anything because it was dead. But it wasn't the only corpse. Around the creature's dead body were the bodies of five knights. And Kael had seen these knights the first day he entered the palace.

These were the knights the king had specifically chosen to protect himself. If he remembered correctly, there were supposed to be seven of them, and in front of him... there were five of them. So... he was looking at the corpses of perhaps the most powerful people in the kingdom. And in the center of them stood the creature with the white fur.

Kael looked at the corpses of the creature and the knights for a while. Then... he simply sighed.

'The dead are dead, it's none of my business.'

He took his eyes off them. He focused in front of him again.

He guessed that the rooms next door belonged to members of the royal family, like the prince and the princess, but he didn't bother to check. This close to death, it was not the room of a prince or princess that he wanted to see.

He wanted to see the king himself. He wanted to see with his own eyes the king he wanted more than anything to kill his brother, even if it was impossible. He was going to look at the 'great' king he had heard so much about.

Who knows, maybe he would resemble his brother... If so, he would want to spit in his direction before he died. At least it would give him a false sense of satisfaction before he died.

He limped towards the huge doors. When he put his hands on them, he felt their coldness, but also... how heavy they were.

He took a deep breath, braced himself. He then held his breath... and then pushed one of the doors with all his might.

The door opened slowly, almost noisily. He revealed the room behind him gradually.

The first thing he noticed was... the light. Unlike the dark corridors of the palace, it was bright, shining directly through the gap and hitting his face. It had a sweet warmth to it, too. But Kael didn't stop, he pushed the door until it formed an opening through which he could pass... and finally stopped.

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The room beyond the door was... truly enormous. He couldn't see all of it because he hadn't gone inside yet, but what he could see were paintings on the wall, paintings that he was sure he couldn't even imagine how expensive they were. The walls themselves, let alone the paintings, looked as if they had been painstakingly painted.

Though... none of that mattered much. Because inside this room were the traces of a battle he would never want to witness. The walls were burnt, there was a strong smell of burning coming from inside. There were wide cracks in the floor, even a fallen pillar. And these were only a fraction of the damage done to the room...

He swallowed. Frankly... it didn't matter how damaged the room was. After all, he was about to enter the room of a king, a king!

He took a deep breath, then let it out in the same way. He did his best to calm himself. Finally... through the opening in the door, he entered.

*******

Before entering the room, Kael had created several scenarios in his head about what he might encounter.

The corpse of the king and finding the mysterious man who had entered the palace in front of it was one of them. Then... another scenario in which they were both alive and fighting each other to the death. He imagined so many different things that he didn't need to describe.

And what he found in front of him was... very different from each of them.

First of all, the king's room was really spacious. Now, especially when he walked in, it was even more obvious. Glass-fronted cabinets that looked like they held fortunes, jeweled weapons hanging on the walls, three fine armchairs surrounding a low table, a large desk with a map of the kingdom, an average-sized bed that looked like it was made for resting but was probably the most comfortable bed he had ever seen, an office desk... so much more. The room was filled with all sorts of things.

But it was none of these things that caught Kael's attention. Rather... it was the state of the man who was obviously the king, and the person in front of him.

The king was on the floor, leaning against the back of the office desk. One of his legs was missing. It was a few meters away from him, on the edge of the table where the map of the kingdom lay. He was not wearing any armor. He was wearing just... a simple tunic. But it had two blood stains as if it had been pierced by something.

The king did not look very tall. But there was an air of nobility around him that Kael couldn't quite put his finger on. There were no wrinkles on his face, but he had a face that looked like he was in his late forties. It was a very... strange feeling.

Apart from that, the king had long, rather pale blond hair. It fell down to his shoulders, covered with blood and dust. His complexion was a little pale, too, as if death was at his doorstep. There was a slight bruise under his eyes. And just above them, just above the bruise, deep blue eyes, like the sky... staring straight at him.

Kael couldn't take his eyes off him. But he also glanced at the two corpses not far from him, two of the most striking elements in the room.

One was the man he had seen in the morning. He remembered the robe he was wearing, the bright blond hair he could see out of the corner of his eye. He was face-down with a huge red mark on his back. It was quite clear that he was dead. Dead by the king's hands.

The other corpse was... a creature with white fur, just like the one he had just seen in the hallway. Its torso and waist were separated, split down the middle.

The king seemed to have fought alone against this creature and this man. He had won... but his situation did not look good. And yet, his eyes were absolutely calm. He looked like he had let his guard down, but this king... He looked as if he could cut him in two like the corpse on the floor in an instant.

"Who are you?"

The king's deep voice echoed through the room. He had a strong voice, just as Kael had imagined. The fact that he was able to keep the tone in his voice despite the situation he was in screamed that he was 'king'.

Kael swallowed before answering. The scar on his neck burned like never before. It was the king who gave him the 'order' after all.

He tried hard to make sure he didn't stutter before he opened his mouth. Even though he had made it this far, his body was not so different from the king's. He could collapse at any moment, he was limping and could barely keep his eyes open.

Still... he managed to speak without stammering as he wanted to.

"I am... a slave, Your Majesty."

The look in the king's sky-blue eyes never changed. But... Kael could have sworn that one of his eyebrows was slightly raised.

No one spoke between the two. After a brief moment, though, the king's lips curled slightly upwards.

"A slave, huh...?"

But then he paused, his eyes sharpening slightly as they focused on Kael's image. And then...

"Ah, I remember you... You are the slave my brother sent for the palace garden."

Kael was surprised that the king remembered him, or rather 'recognized' him. He had never met him face to face, after all.

"But... you were supposed to be staying in the greenhouse. Did you come all the way here from the garden?"

"Y- yes, your majesty..."

He saw the surprise on the king's face grow. He didn't know why, but... he couldn't help feeling as if he was amusing him.

"You've outlasted countless creatures, then. Perhaps you even killed a few, amazing... If I had known you had such skills, I would have made you more than a simple botanist."

"I... I was just lucky, Your Majesty."

"Luck is also a talent. Sometimes the greatest of talents, even."

The king paused briefly, then continued.

"Do you have a name?"

"Kael, my name is Kael."

This time, the king smiled for real.

"You have a beautiful name, even though you are a slave. You must like it a lot."

He paused as blood trickled from between his lips. He turned to his left and coughed twice. Blood came out of his mouth both times. Still, he turned back to Kael, not caring much.

"I found it truly amazing that you came all the way here, Kael. But... why are you here? Why didn't you hide in one of the random rooms in the palace?"

A smile appeared on Kael's face. For the first time, for the first time in his life... he smiled without hiding his emotions in front of someone. It was ironic, of course, that this person was the king of the kingdom where he lived.

But... he felt like he could do it.

"Your Majesty... I'm not so different from you. I'll most likely die here... I'm sure I don't have much time."

The king nodded his head in agreement, but said nothing.

And Kael... he didn't know why, but he felt like he could speak freely, without hesitation, even though the person in front of him was a king. Did he not care because he was going to die? Or... was it because of the king's attitude?

He did not know. But... for the first time in his life, it felt good to speak as he wanted without hiding anything, without caring what anyone would think of him. So, he continued.

"I... I was really trying to survive at first. I really tried, I did everything I could to survive. I ran, I fought, I killed, I threw someone who had nothing to do with me into the claws of a creature with my own hands, I kept running and moving forward. Until a few minutes ago, I still believed I could survive."

His eyes narrowed. It was hard to believe he was talking to a king, it was like... a dream. Yet he went on. He would be honest, he would not lie or avoid himself.

"Then... I ended up like this. I realized that it was impossible to survive. And then... I thought... if I'm going to die, why not see the king and his room with my own eyes?"

Kael was silent, and the king only stared at him with a blank expression on his face.

"That's... that's it?"

Kael laughed.

"Yes, Your Majesty. That's it."

The king bowed his head, his pale blond hair falling in front of his face. Then... his whole body trembled slightly. And then...

"Pfft... Hahahahah!"

He started laughing too. He laughed so hard that he coughed up blood once more, but he didn't stop and kept on laughing.

Kael didn't say anything. He thought it was funny too. In fact... after a short, even he started laughing with the king. He threw himself on his back, it seemed impossible to stand... but he didn't stop.

A slave and a king, in the same room, both on their deathbed... they just laughed.