Blood Shaper

It wasn’t much longer until what was left of the invading army marched away from Avalon. The now-independent factions moved away in drips and drabs, some of them banding together for protection as they left, but most watched everyone else warily and moved separately, timing it so that no one left in close succession to each other. The force that had agreed to continue following the Crusader General left last, still a modestly unified force. Stonegnawer led them all home, he himself carrying the terms that Kay had given to the rest of the Itarian Crusade’s leadership. They’d trimmed Kay’s original demands in some places and twisted them to look better in certain lights in others, but overall, it remained close enough to the original. Stonegnawer still wasn’t convinced that the demands would be followed, but other options were at least the bare minimum of what Kay would accept.

While the army left, not everyone from the army went with them. Stonegnawer had dragged off his orcish subordinate Vexler, muttering about reeducation at least one time when he’d had to literally drag him away, and his other direct subordinate, High Crusader Hearthbreaker, remained behind. Officially, she and the other soldiers of the Crusade were hostages to ensure that the Crusade kept to at least one of the demands Kay had for them. While Kay understood the practicality of the practice, he didn’t plan on doing anything to them. He would certainly restrict their movements and deny the manpower to the Crusade if they balked, but he wasn’t going to hurt them. Stonegnawer seemed to understand that without anything being said and seemed at peace with it all.

Commander Ravenhome, or just Edric as Kay had gotten to know the man a little better, had also left, taking Alice with him. While other members of the Order had been left behind as well, Edric had insisted his daughter come home with him to see her mother and siblings. While the feeling of the instinctive tether between him and Alice thinning as she got further and further away wasn’t a pleasant one, it didn’t hurt either, and overall, Kay was not only fine with her going but actively encouraged it. Her getting to go home and see her family served multiple purposes for Kay. As a young man who’d lost his family and then his close friends, who were his brothers in all but blood, he knew how much it would mean to both Alice and her family to see each other again, and he couldn’t bring himself to encourage any other course of action.

The practical King he was becoming with a people to protect and the interests of a nation to push forward also got something out of it. The smaller and less influential impact of Alice going home was that she was a strong supporter of Kay’s terms to the Shatterplate Order and would campaign for the Order to move to Avalon without him having to do anything. Her being the daughter of the Order’s Commander and founder and a popular member of the Order herself made her opinion impactful enough to hopefully sway other members.

The other, significantly more influential impact would be Alice’s existence as a vampire becoming more well-known. While the various species of people on Torotia had many things that set them apart from humans, whether that meant local Torotian humans or humans from Earth, there were many things Kay found were the same across species, things he chalked up to the shared trait of sapience. One of the larger shared traits was the instinctive fear of the unknown. What could be explained or identified became immediately less terrifying than an unknown threat. Having Alice go home would slowly increase the amount of experience the world had with Vampires outside of Avalon. They were a completely new species, one derived from vampyr, at least to the perception of anyone from Torotia; trying to explain that technically vampires had come first and the first vampire to arrive in Torotia had become corrupted into the first vampyr would be too much to get through. By letting people actively see that vampires were just people with different traits, just like so many other people of this world, it make vampires into a known quantity and lessen how much people were automatically scared of them.

Zeia had remained behind as part of the Order’s contingent of “hostages,” as well as a man named Leon, who was one of Edric’s direct subordinates. Alice had given instructions to Zeia and the other members of her hunting team to “start setting the groundwork for the Order to move here,” while Edric had just told Leon to watch over the other members and see what he could learn about Avalon. During the farewell Kay had witnessed between those leaving and those left behind, Kay had witnessed Leon apologizing to Alice for something at least seven to ten times, while Zeia had sent every moment Leon was in her field of view sending him the most vicious glares. Kay was both interested in seeing what would happen while they lived in his city and mildly worried.

Those weren’t the only people who had remained behind. Murunel’s cousin and his wife had stayed as well, although Kay hadn’t seen any of the three of them since he’d woken up. Apparently, they’d flown off into the untamed areas of Avalon’s territory after getting permission from Amanda while Kay was still in a coma and hadn’t returned. Murunel had made sure her relatives promised to behave, and they’d returned one time to check in before Kay had gotten back to consciousness. They seemed to be fine, although he was curious to know what was going on with them.

The last group to remain behind were prisoners, specifically, the Legion from the Shattered Clans. Their leader had categorically refused any and all terms of surrender and had repeatedly demanded that Kay kill them all to the last. Not that the battle continued even though Avalon’s military would surely crush them if they fought unsupported, but that Kay personally executed all of them one by one, starting with the lowest-ranking soldier and ending with the general who was making those demands. It was one of the strangest and most frustrating conversations he had ever had, and by the end of it, Kay was sure that he was going to have to have them all killed, even if he wasn’t going to do it all himself or in the manner the general had demanded. However, Ahthia asked him to hold off on killing them.

The labyrinthine explanation of the Shattered Clans political system, who the Elders were, what the Elders did, who was in charge of what, which clan among the Clans was important, and why Kay should care about any of it flew over his head only a few minutes in. What he did eventually understand after Ahthia simplified her explanation was that there was a good chance they could get what they wanted out of the Clans, including an agreement to leave Avalon alone and stop bitching at them about people migrating out of the Clans, if they kept the soldiers alive and did what Kay wasn’t interested in doing, keeping them prisoner and demanding a ransom. In this specific case, since the ransom would be everything Kay wanted out of the Clans anyway, plus the costs of keeping their soldiers alive and in decent conditions while a messenger was sent and a reply was brought back, he decided to go for it. In addition, the thing with the general demanding he execute all of them screamed “make us into martyrs so more of our people come to kill you!” to Kay, and that seemed like a terrible decision to go with.

That was the last immediate thing Kay had to deal with from what had now been officially codified in Avalon’s history as the Shatterplate War. He’d personally apologized to Edric for the naming, but the other man had waved it off, claiming that they really had instigated everything into happening, and there hadn’t been any massacres or atrocities committed, so having their name attached to a short war wouldn’t hurt their reputation that badly. That left Kay plenty of time to deal with the other big project he’d been saddled with. His own coronation.

The preparations on his part ended up being a lot of doing what he was told. The attitude he ended up with after having his fifth request mercilessly shot down was similar to what he remembered from a former coworker getting ready for his marriage. This event wasn’t about him; it was about other people, and he only had to go through it once. Kay thought that was a horrible mindset to go into for your own wedding, but the coronation really wasn’t about him personally. It was about him as a symbol, and the practical king side of Kay was willing to be a symbol in order to get something out of it.

A guardian and protector to his people, a threat to outsiders to not mess with his people, a strong force to stand against the machinations of other nations, and more, Kay would sit pretty on an uncomfortable throne and make a grandiose speech in order to give the right image and have others make the right connections. Amanda had brought it up more than once that leadership was as much about perception as it was about actually leading. Someone with great ideas but a poor method of communicating them would probably be ignored. If Kay looked like he was weak, other leaders would think he was and act accordingly. So he silently bemoaned the ostentatious crown, the expansion of his throne room, and the detailed plans for a multi-day celebration in his honor while actively participating in making sure it all went off without a hitch.

All the while, he was helping with the preparations, including sitting or standing for fittings, using blood as both a decorative and structural building material, sending out invitations to various leaders or organizations to attend the event, and giving orders on behalf of Amanda, which was a fun reversal of the normal way of things, Kay was also secretly plotting. Deep behind his calm, obedient facade was a devious mind awhirl with possibilities for insidious schemes. Not a one of those who had wronged him would be safe from his dark vengeance!

Isla did most of the work, of course, especially since it was all secret. Kay couldn’t get away from any of the coronation planning to do any of it himself, so Isla sent her various agents. It was apparently a good set of exercises for some of the newer agents that still needed some training and added a bit of extra spice to the ever-shifting world of espionage. Kay was sure Isla used the opportunity to help advance some other plan she had simultaneously, but all he cared about at the moment was acquiring the tools of his vengeance.

In the tight confines of a secure room deep inside his secret lair, also known as a private office in the palace during a break, he finally beheld the first piece in his plan of malicious reckoning!

“This looks fantastic!” Kay cheered as he picked it up and looked it over. “I’m really impressed.”

“You should be; recruiting the people we needed to make this was a pain in my ass, not to mention getting them to team up with our people to make this under everyone’s nose,” Isla complained. She flitted through the air to be closer and hovered just above the item he held in his hand, “I’m not sure how this gets back at Cindy for all the teasing she’s been sending your way over the coronation, though; this is a fantastic gift.”

“Exactly! It’s a fantastic gift she’s going to both love and hate! She won’t be able to not use it since it’s so good, but she’s going to despise every minute of loving it!”

“I still don’t get it.”

“Look, it’s a-“

“Nope.” She held a hand up to cut him off, “I don’t want to try and have children’s stories from Earth explained to me again. I’m just going to believe you and take the win.”

Kay stared into the shiny surface and smiled, imagining the look on Cindy’s face when he presented it to her.

“It’s good that this is taking your mind off of how stressful this whole thing is. I know you’re not looking forward to all the speeches and grandstanding for and from the guests.”

He dropped the gift into it’s case and shot Isla an exasperated glare. “You just ruined it.”

“Did I?” She asked with a cheeky grin, “How sad.”

“Why do all of my best people give me such snark?” He demanded to the air.

She flew up to his face and patted his cheek like an older woman complimenting her grandson, “Because you enjoy it.” Laughing heartily, she flew out of the office and vanished.