Titan King: Ascension of the Giant Chapter 1718: The Sovereign's Hymn

Stoneheart City. The Silent Goblet.

For many an adventurer and traveler, the Silent Goblet was a curious place—not just somewhere to rest, but the hub where they traded word, the spot to come by intelligence of every kind. A succubus dancer, perhaps, or a dwarf drunk out of his wits, or maybe that aloof cat-eared girl at the counter—so long as you were willing to spend, you'd surely tease no small amount of useful word out of someone.

"Ah. The more worlds a man's been to, the more tangled his story gets. What looks ordinary to everyone else may hide a stretch of hardship, may bury some bitter tale." Tristan raised his cup—not that he meant to drink first as a toast, but the familiar taste set his throat itching past bearing, and he couldn't wait to throw the cup back in one go.

"Ah—that's the stuff." Tristan let out a shout, loosed a long belch, then put out his tongue and licked the last of the wine clinging at the corners of his mouth clean away, for all the world like a parched traveler just come out of the desert.

"Pretty girls and sweet songs, dancers and fine food—at the time I took it all for ordinary." Tristan set the cup down and slumped back in the chair, eyes half-shut, his look so easy he might have been home, and in the space of a few breaths he was giving off a faint snore.

Pellam and Godfrey, seeing it, made no sound. The two raised their cups to each other and quietly savored the Silent Goblet's new vintage of the year.

"In a noisy, clamorous place like this, I find I feel at peace. Doesn't it make you wonder?" Before long Tristan woke from his tipsy doze and picked the thread of the friends' talk back up.

"Plenty of people are like you—they've made this their safe harbor. I didn't quite get it before either, but ever since the day I dragged my worn-out body out of the dream and got out alive, I've taken to lazing here over a drink myself. I love the music here, love the dancers, love every last trinket in the place." Pellam raised his cup in invitation. The eldest of the three, he'd once been a courier for the Stoneheart Horde, his name ringing through every people of the Horde. Pellam had witnessed Orion's rise, and somewhere along the way he'd turned himself into a sage of some renown.

"The tavern's got a wondrous effect—get just tipsy and it blurs the worry and care in your heart, works a forgetting of troubles. I'm fond of coming to sit here too." Godfrey clinked his cup against Pellam's and Tristan's; he savored these gilded hours of sitting with friends and talking of whatever came. Tristan most of all—as one of the chief figures in the Stoneheart Horde's cross-world merchant league, he was away from the Horde most of the time, a supremely busy man, hard to gather with. On another count, Tristan, as a member of the cross-world league, was something of a big name in the circle, for Godfrey and Pellam—one of the hubs for widening their connections and their set. That was the reason the three of them had come together and turned friends.

"Who doesn't love it? You two have no idea—for this cup of wine, to taste it once more, I actually did a thing that cost me a whole rank. Hmph. Hard to credit, isn't it?" Tristan raised his cup again, his eyes full of self-mockery, needling himself over his own want of backbone.

The courier Pellam and Godfrey both nodded. They knew well that Tristan was no longer the Tristan of old; the man wasn't ordinary anymore.

"I hear the tavern's turned out a batch of top-grade flower-wine, from that lord of the Garland folk—so why'd that barkeep tell me he knew nothing about it?" Tristan, sensing that his self-mockery might be dragging at his two friends' spirits, hurried to change the subject.

Godfrey shook his head; he too had not long been back from the wilds, and on word swirling through the tavern he was already out of date.

"There is a batch of top-grade flower-wine. But only the very highest of the great folk are fit to buy and enjoy it." Pellam lifted a hand, forefinger raised, and pointed it toward the higher floors overhead.

"What a disappointing piece of news." Tristan shook his head, his gaze sweeping the hall's motley drinkers—rangers in cloaks talking low, a Grand Magus with a spellbook forever trailing at his back, a lizardfolk curled in a dark corner drinking and throwing finger-guessing games. All of it before him—lute-song, flute-talk, beast-roar, the shuffle of cards—made for a thing mysterious and serene.

Just as Tristan was about to sink into that subtle mood, a far-off, ringing horn-call sounded at his ear. In the inner city, the bronze horn set in the castle to serve as rite-music had been blown, and the horn-note scattered the morning mist, tore the dark, the sound-wave like some ancient behemoth waking every soul of the Stoneheart Horde.

The horn-call held a quarter of an hour, grandeur with a keen of grief in it, depths holding a fervor inside. It was a dirge for the old dynasty and a hope set on the new age both.

"The Sovereign's Hymn—the Horde's heir has appeared." Inside the tavern, someone murmured it in the dark, and the line startled the rattled drinkers once more, the mood snagging on it.

Stoneheart City. The Castle.

Flowers thick as brocade, butterflies wheeling, elemental sprites flitting through the blossoms and leaves and gone, leaving only a faint rustle behind. In that rustle, Lilith worked a comb in one hand and cradled hair in the other, winding Elara's waist-length strands around her fingertips, tending them lock by lock.

"I still remember the day your daddy led you back to the Horde by the hand and walked into the Chieftain's tent. You were white as a porcelain doll, prettier than us succubi. If I didn't know what kind of man your daddy is, I'd have taken you for blood he left behind after some wild dalliance out in the world. Oh, he was too good to you."

Lilith's voice was tender as if it had been steeped in honey, washed in moonlight, the wooden comb sliding through dark hair with a faint whisper, until Elara couldn't help looking through the magic mirror at her mother—serene, kindly, the doting in her eyes glinting in the morning light, a smile playing in and out at Lilith's brows.

"Hee. That day, I saw curiosity in your eyes, Mama, and jealousy, and a faint sourness too." Elara gave a giggle and tipped back into Lilith's arms, making a coaxing, cat-like sound, begging to be stroked, begging to be held.

"Mm—the curiosity was wanting to know where Orion had spirited so big and pretty a little girl away from. The jealousy, because in those days your mama wanted a little one so badly she'd half gone mad with it." A light flick of Lilith's wrist, and a wisp of soft light gathered among Elara's strands into the shape of a butterfly, a knot to bind up Elara's smooth, glossy hair. "As for the sourness—heh—your daddy never once treated me as gently as he treats you. Your daddy's a daughter's fool through and through."

Lilith took a hair ribbon from the dish at her side, held it up before Elara, and gave it a little wave, asking whether it suited her. Elara nodded and burrowed deeper into Lilith's arms.

"Do you hate me, Mama? I stole the throne from my little brother." Only once Lilith had the ribbon tied did Elara lift her head and look up at her mother—an angle from which she could see neither Lilith's eyes nor her expression.

"Out of nowhere, for no reason—where would so much hate come from?" Lilith gave a soft laugh and reached out to pinch Elara's cheek, the way she had when the girl was small. "You're all my own little ones—back of the hand, palm of the hand, it's all my flesh. To love one and hate another, your mama couldn't do it. The moment I became Orion's wife and a wife of the Horde, your mama understood a thing: forbearance is the best way for the one on top to carry herself. Do it that way and you win people by virtue—no one can, and no one dares, find fault with us."

Lilith gathered Elara into her arms and stroked her back, her words full of the helplessness and the sighs banked over these years.

"Will my brothers come to loathe me?" It wasn't that Elara lacked confidence; the matter of throne-succession simply ran too deep, touching blood-feeling, touching the interests of every people within the Horde. She didn't want it blown up too big, too tangled.

"Caelus is peerless, off in seclusion in the Valkorath Realm driving at a breakthrough to demigod—worldly power is nothing but a drag on him. Kronos has gone far off to the Abyssal World, sworn to gather the four branches' inheritance whole for the Horde; living or dead unknown, his road impossible to read—but for what your daddy lets slip, no one would even know where he is. Kaelen governs Blackstone City on his dream-butterfly body, hard to pull free, and his foundation runs shallow besides; he's not the best heir to the Horde's throne. As for that little brother of yours, he's not grown enough yet, his shoulders not broad enough to take up the whole Horde's load."

Lilith held Elara, her eyes brimming. As mother to all the children, she could least of all bear to see them wander far from home; worry and fear had long since become the usual thing with her.

"You're the eldest daughter of our Stoneheart Horde, and you've inherited your daddy's Stoneheart titan bloodline whole. In this lean, in-between time, if you don't take up the great beam, who will? Are we to leave the charge to those two little brothers of yours not yet even born—Roel and Auron?"

At the mention of Roel and Auron, Lilith broke into a laugh through it all, and then wore an undisguised envy.

"Heehee—those two little things are still in the belly." Elara laughed along, but soon reined the smile in.

"So—by the great cause, by credit, by responsibility, even by order of succession, my taking the throne is reasonable, beyond reproach, past any blame?"

"Right. Reasonable, beyond reproach, past any blame." Lilith set Elara straight, looked into her eyes, and answered righteous and ringing. She knew well that Elara needed her affirmation, needed her support. And Lilith, as a mother, had to support her daughter. She was her mother; she was her daughter.

"Thank you, Mama." Elara dove into Lilith's arms—no peal of laughter, no tearful gratitude, only a warmth that sat easy with them both.

"Three days from now you'll be our Stoneheart Horde's Titan King. The castle will become your residence, and your aunts and I won't be suited to live here any longer—we'll have to move to the new Wagari." This was Lilith's decision, and the thinking of the Horde's whole circle of important figures too. (Wagari was the name of the giants' domain, and the castle's old name as well.)

"There's no need for that, Mama. The way this place was before, it'll stay from now on." Elara shook her head. She'd never once meant to drive her mother and aunts out, to make them shift quarters. As she imagined it, she'd only inherited Orion's will and royal authority; she didn't want to bring too much change to the castle.

"Silly child. Even your daddy's throne has an heir—never mind a castle that never changes. You ought to bring a new climate to this place. And besides, the Horde's high circle of power should get some fresh blood too. They've held power far too long." It was a piece of guidance, and saying it, Lilith folded herself into the count as well. Not her alone, but the snake-woman Lysinthia, the vixen Sylvana, the blood-elf Lycanor, Soraya, the former human kingdom's Grand Princess Ava, the Butterfly Mother Sophia, Violet of the Garland folk—Orion's women, in favor or out of it, had over these years all gathered around them, to one degree or another, various powers and organizations, carving up the Horde's interests, holding key posts across its great departments of power. With Elara's accession, the Horde's interests and standing had to go through a reshuffle. At a juncture this critical, the Horde had to claw back a portion of power, put a portion of the people on notice. It was a rare chance for the Horde to set its house in order, and neither Orion nor Lilith meant to let it slip. To put it another way, Orion meant to hand the heirs who came after a Stoneheart Horde with all its strength wrung into one. To keep raising the Titanion Realm higher, the Stoneheart Horde had to cut down the infighting between factions and face outward as one.

"When you're Titan King, will you tolerate underlings who won't listen and think too highly of themselves? Will you allow yourself to be without capable lieutenants at your side? Or do you mean to sink into being a puppet sovereign of the nobles and officials?" Lilith ruffled Elara's hair. Having run the Horde all these years, she knew best what chronic ills lay inside it. "From the day your daddy rose, our Stoneheart Horde has stood in a long state of war abroad, folding in all manner of peoples without pause the whole while—some from this world, some from other worlds. A heart is a thing behind a wall of flesh; can you be sure everyone will follow the Horde's steps forever? Will put faith in your daddy? Will spend their lives to guard the Horde's glory?"

Lilith smoothed back the few stray strands at Elara's brow, the tenderness on her face slowly fading, her pupils drawing in, her gaze turning keen by degrees.

"You've campaigned through other worlds, seen the suffering of the age. You've seen how, in the face of death and hunger, a human heart isn't worth a copper." Lilith looked Elara full in the face—this was the proud daughter of heaven of their Stoneheart Horde, brilliant past compare, the hopes of everyone weighing on her shoulders. Orion handing her the throne now, beyond satisfying Elara and making her dream come true, was also a wish to use her hand to refine the faith energy the whole Horde had gathered.