The Journey, Book 2; Chapter 12 - Previous Chapter
Chapter 13; Chaos
Thomaz’s frustration had reached a breaking point. The tyrant king, bored and drunk beyond reason, could no longer sit idle on his throne. Fury clawed at his mind like a rabid beast. Without a word to his guards, he stormed through the palace gates, mounted his obsidian-plated chariot, and cracked the reins with a roar.
The horses lunged forward, thundering hooves pounding against the cobblestone streets of the citadel. Civilians screamed and scattered, mothers snatching children into their arms as the king’s reckless charge tore through the marketplace. Merchants abandoned their stalls, fruit and fabric scattering in the wake of the chariot’s wheels. Thomaz didn’t slow for anyone, not for the stray cats leaping across the road, not for the barking dogs fleeing into alleys. His eyes were wild, his jaw clenched in a snarl as he cut through the city like a storm of steel and rage.
In the lower citadel, where the streets were narrower and the crowds thicker, Thomaz pulled hard on the reins. The horses skidded to a halt, their nostrils flaring as they pawed at the ground, steam rising from their heaving flanks. The king’s knuckles were white on the reins, his chest heaving with the exhilaration of chaos.
Then he saw him.
A lone man stood in the middle of the street, blocking his path. He was unarmored, plain, a shadow against the flickering torchlight, but his presence was unshakable. He didn’t move as Thomaz glared down at him, his lips curling back in a cruel grin.
“Move, worm,” Thomaz barked, his voice thick with wine and malice.
The man didn’t move. He reached to his side, drew a blade with deliberate slowness, and let its tip rest against the ground. His eyes, cold and unreadable, never left the king’s.
“You maggot of a man,” Thomaz spat, leaping down from the chariot and drawing his own blade with a vicious scrape of steel. “You dare to try me? You dare to insult me? I’ll gut you where you stand!”
Still, the man said nothing. His face remained blank, his stance unwavering.
With a roar, Thomaz charged. His blade swung wide, fueled by drunken fury, but the man met it with calm precision, blocking and parrying in perfect silence. The clash of steel echoed through the narrow street, sparks scattering into the night as civilians watched from the shadows, too terrified to breathe.
The steel clash echoed through the narrow street like a bell tolling for the doomed. Thomaz’s drunken grin stretched wider as he hacked at the stranger, each blow fueled by wine and raw aggression. Yet, no matter how wild or heavy the king’s strikes became, the man met them with quiet, measured precision. He deflected each strike with the efficiency of someone who had fought a hundred battles before this one.
The air was thick with the scent of horse sweat, spilled ale from shattered mugs, and the sharp tang of metal. Civilians crouched behind overturned carts and broken market stalls, peeking over with wide, fearful eyes as the tyrant king raged and roared.
“Speak, damn you!” Thomaz bellowed, slashing horizontally with enough force to cleave a man in half.
The stranger ducked under the swing, his blade snapping upward to catch Thomaz’s weapon and twist it aside. Sparks spat between them as their swords scraped together. The man countered with a swift knee to Thomaz’s gut, knocking the wind from him, but the king shoved him back with his free hand, staggering only a step.
The stranger’s silence was infuriating. Every breathless moment he refused to speak, every unreadable expression he wore, it burned Thomaz’s pride like acid.
With a snarl, Thomaz lunged, his sword sweeping in a deadly arc. The man met the strike but misjudged the angle; the force of the blow slammed him backward, his boots sliding across the cobblestones. Thomaz followed with a brutal kick to his opponent’s chest, sending the man crashing through the wooden door of a nearby house.
Gasps erupted from the watching crowd as the door splintered inward. A startled scream rose from inside, a woman clutching a small child, retreating into the far corner as Thomaz stormed in after his prey.
The stranger was already on his feet, sword in hand, face grim. Without hesitation, he stepped forward and met the king’s charge. The clash of steel inside the tiny home was deafening. They slammed against walls, overturned tables, and sent pottery crashing to the floor.
“You… will not… stand against me!” Thomaz roared between swings, his strikes growing faster, heavier, more erratic.
The man caught one blow and pivoted, shoving the king’s blade upward while smashing his elbow into Thomaz’s jaw. The tyrant staggered, spitting blood onto the wooden floor, but his rage only intensified. He swung low, forcing the man to step back, then kicked the table between them, sending it skidding forward like a battering ram.
The stranger vaulted the table effortlessly, his sword descending in a clean strike aimed for Thomaz’s neck. The king barely caught it, sparks flying as the blades locked. Thomaz’s muscles burned, his arms straining as they pressed against each other, faces mere inches apart. The stranger’s eyes, calm, cold, and determined, met Thomaz’s bloodshot glare.
Something about that silence, that complete lack of fear or submission, twisted Thomaz’s stomach with fury. How dare this man, this nobody, stand as his equal?
With a roar, Thomaz broke the lock, slamming his forehead into the man’s nose. Blood gushed instantly, but the stranger barely flinched. He responded with a swift kick to Thomaz’s ribs, and the king stumbled back, clutching his side.
Outside, the crowd held its collective breath as the fight spilled back into the street. Both combatants were battered, their faces streaked with sweat and blood, but neither slowed. They exchanged a flurry of blows, block, parry, slash, thrust, each movement faster than the last. Thomaz’s breath came ragged, but his raw strength and stubbornness kept him pressing forward.
The man landed a punch to Thomaz’s jaw that sent the king spinning, but Thomaz used the momentum, twisting back with a vicious slash that nearly took the man’s arm. The stranger blocked just in time, the force reverberating through his body.
Their blades locked again. Thomaz leaned close, his teeth bared. “You’ll die screaming, maggot. I’ll see to it.”
The man’s silence was answer enough.
With a sudden, brutal move, Thomaz lashed out with his boot, smashing it into the man’s knee. The stranger’s leg buckled with a sickening crack. A grunt of pain escaped him—his first sound since the fight began, and Thomaz seized the opening.
In a blur of motion, the king wrenched his sword free and slammed the hilt into the man’s jaw, sending him sprawling to his knees. Thomaz’s breathing was ragged, his face twisted with hate and triumph.
“You think you can defy me?” he spat, stepping closer. He hooked his blade under the man’s chin, forcing his head back. The steel bit into the skin, drawing a thin line of blood. “You don’t even know who I am, do you? I am your king. And kings don’t forgive worms.”
The man stared up at him, expression blank even now. That quiet defiance, the lack of fear, was the final insult. Thomaz’s disgust boiled over.
With a snarl, he shoved the sword upward. The blade tore through flesh and sinew, severing the man’s neck with a wet, sickening sound. Blood sprayed across Thomaz’s face and chest as the man’s body crumpled lifelessly to the cobblestones.
For a moment, silence reigned. The crowd watched in frozen horror as the king stood over the corpse, chest heaving, his face spattered with crimson.
Thomaz wiped his blade on the dead man’s tunic and turned to the onlookers. “Let this be a lesson,” he growled, voice echoing through the narrow street. “No one stands in my way.”
Without another word, he climbed back into his chariot, snapped the reins, and vanished into the night, leaving behind only blood, fear, and the whispered name of the man who dared to defy him.
Thomaz storms back into the palace, chariot wheels streaked with blood and mud, guards scrambling to clear the colonnade as he nearly runs them down. He dismounts half-falling, half-leaping, still reeking of wine, iron, and street dust. His sword is not yet clean. Behind him, the citadel smolders with wreckage, trampled stalls, injured civilians, and the cooling corpse of the man who dared to stand in his path.
Waiting beneath the torchlit archway: Rubian. Calm. Composed. Watching.
Thomaz staggers close, jabs a finger at his right hand, and snarls, “Someone just tried to assassinate me, where the fuck were you?”
Rubian flinches on cue, masking calculation behind a wash of practiced alarm. “My king—are you hurt?”
“Spare me,” Thomaz snaps, shoulder-slamming past him, hard enough to knock Rubian into a pillar. The king’s steps drag, rage coiling toward another outburst. He wants carnage. He wants obedience. He wants someone to bleed for letting tonight happen.
Rubian straightens. Decision flashes behind his eyes. Now, while Thomaz is drunk, open, furious, and blood-hot, is the only window he may ever have to redirect that rage.
He follows. “Your Majesty… I found something.”
Thomaz keeps walking. “If this isn’t a name to hang, keep it.”
“It is a name,” Rubian says, and the hallway stills. “Not one. Several. Vivi’s bloodline.”
That gets Thomaz to turn.
Rubian lays it out in careful, lethal increments: Vivi’s line tracks through Tivor, an older brother long buried in sealed genealogies. Their sire: Braiden, recorded in forbidden script as the first Dragon Rider. No mention anywhere of Nekonata or Tarasque despite royal inquisitors swearing links, meaning those reports were forged or bait. Deeper still: Matthaios (great-great-grandfather) marked in rushed ink: Corruptor. And the detail Rubian nearly missed, scribbled beneath Vivi’s entry in a finer hand, Vivi has a daughter. Elvina. Unknown to the crown. Unregistered. Living, or at least once living, somewhere outside Thomaz’s reach.
Thomaz’s expression falters. For a brief moment, shock flickers in his eyes, his drunken haze pierced by the weight of what Rubian has revealed. Vivi, his hated rival, is the son of Braiden, the first ever Dragon Rider. The truth slams into Thomaz like a blade between the ribs, dredging up the memory of Zeindaryss, the ancient, legendary dragon who once ruled the skies.
And then it hits harder.
He. Had. Killed. It.
Through Rubian’s own hands, under Thomaz’s ruthless command, Zeindaryss had been slain, its death howl tearing across the mountains as if the world itself had mourned.
The shock burns away, replaced by pure, unfiltered rage, a storm that shakes Thomaz to his core. His blood boils at the realization of what his nemesis truly is, a living heir of the oldest power the world has ever known, and perhaps the only one who could avenge Zeindaryss’s death.
Chapter 13; Chaos
Thomaz’s frustration had reached a breaking point. The tyrant king, bored and drunk beyond reason, could no longer sit idle on his throne. Fury clawed at his mind like a rabid beast. Without a word to his guards, he stormed through the palace gates, mounted his obsidian-plated chariot, and cracked the reins with a roar.
The horses lunged forward, thundering hooves pounding against the cobblestone streets of the citadel. Civilians screamed and scattered, mothers snatching children into their arms as the king’s reckless charge tore through the marketplace. Merchants abandoned their stalls, fruit and fabric scattering in the wake of the chariot’s wheels. Thomaz didn’t slow for anyone, not for the stray cats leaping across the road, not for the barking dogs fleeing into alleys. His eyes were wild, his jaw clenched in a snarl as he cut through the city like a storm of steel and rage.
In the lower citadel, where the streets were narrower and the crowds thicker, Thomaz pulled hard on the reins. The horses skidded to a halt, their nostrils flaring as they pawed at the ground, steam rising from their heaving flanks. The king’s knuckles were white on the reins, his chest heaving with the exhilaration of chaos.
Then he saw him.
A lone man stood in the middle of the street, blocking his path. He was unarmored, plain, a shadow against the flickering torchlight, but his presence was unshakable. He didn’t move as Thomaz glared down at him, his lips curling back in a cruel grin.
“Move, worm,” Thomaz barked, his voice thick with wine and malice.
The man didn’t move. He reached to his side, drew a blade with deliberate slowness, and let its tip rest against the ground. His eyes, cold and unreadable, never left the king’s.
“You maggot of a man,” Thomaz spat, leaping down from the chariot and drawing his own blade with a vicious scrape of steel. “You dare to try me? You dare to insult me? I’ll gut you where you stand!”
Still, the man said nothing. His face remained blank, his stance unwavering.
With a roar, Thomaz charged. His blade swung wide, fueled by drunken fury, but the man met it with calm precision, blocking and parrying in perfect silence. The clash of steel echoed through the narrow street, sparks scattering into the night as civilians watched from the shadows, too terrified to breathe.
The steel clash echoed through the narrow street like a bell tolling for the doomed. Thomaz’s drunken grin stretched wider as he hacked at the stranger, each blow fueled by wine and raw aggression. Yet, no matter how wild or heavy the king’s strikes became, the man met them with quiet, measured precision. He deflected each strike with the efficiency of someone who had fought a hundred battles before this one.
The air was thick with the scent of horse sweat, spilled ale from shattered mugs, and the sharp tang of metal. Civilians crouched behind overturned carts and broken market stalls, peeking over with wide, fearful eyes as the tyrant king raged and roared.
“Speak, damn you!” Thomaz bellowed, slashing horizontally with enough force to cleave a man in half.
The stranger ducked under the swing, his blade snapping upward to catch Thomaz’s weapon and twist it aside. Sparks spat between them as their swords scraped together. The man countered with a swift knee to Thomaz’s gut, knocking the wind from him, but the king shoved him back with his free hand, staggering only a step.
The stranger’s silence was infuriating. Every breathless moment he refused to speak, every unreadable expression he wore, it burned Thomaz’s pride like acid.
With a snarl, Thomaz lunged, his sword sweeping in a deadly arc. The man met the strike but misjudged the angle; the force of the blow slammed him backward, his boots sliding across the cobblestones. Thomaz followed with a brutal kick to his opponent’s chest, sending the man crashing through the wooden door of a nearby house.
Gasps erupted from the watching crowd as the door splintered inward. A startled scream rose from inside, a woman clutching a small child, retreating into the far corner as Thomaz stormed in after his prey.
The stranger was already on his feet, sword in hand, face grim. Without hesitation, he stepped forward and met the king’s charge. The clash of steel inside the tiny home was deafening. They slammed against walls, overturned tables, and sent pottery crashing to the floor.
“You… will not… stand against me!” Thomaz roared between swings, his strikes growing faster, heavier, more erratic.
The man caught one blow and pivoted, shoving the king’s blade upward while smashing his elbow into Thomaz’s jaw. The tyrant staggered, spitting blood onto the wooden floor, but his rage only intensified. He swung low, forcing the man to step back, then kicked the table between them, sending it skidding forward like a battering ram.
The stranger vaulted the table effortlessly, his sword descending in a clean strike aimed for Thomaz’s neck. The king barely caught it, sparks flying as the blades locked. Thomaz’s muscles burned, his arms straining as they pressed against each other, faces mere inches apart. The stranger’s eyes, calm, cold, and determined, met Thomaz’s bloodshot glare.
Something about that silence, that complete lack of fear or submission, twisted Thomaz’s stomach with fury. How dare this man, this nobody, stand as his equal?
With a roar, Thomaz broke the lock, slamming his forehead into the man’s nose. Blood gushed instantly, but the stranger barely flinched. He responded with a swift kick to Thomaz’s ribs, and the king stumbled back, clutching his side.
Outside, the crowd held its collective breath as the fight spilled back into the street. Both combatants were battered, their faces streaked with sweat and blood, but neither slowed. They exchanged a flurry of blows, block, parry, slash, thrust, each movement faster than the last. Thomaz’s breath came ragged, but his raw strength and stubbornness kept him pressing forward.
The man landed a punch to Thomaz’s jaw that sent the king spinning, but Thomaz used the momentum, twisting back with a vicious slash that nearly took the man’s arm. The stranger blocked just in time, the force reverberating through his body.
Their blades locked again. Thomaz leaned close, his teeth bared. “You’ll die screaming, maggot. I’ll see to it.”
The man’s silence was answer enough.
With a sudden, brutal move, Thomaz lashed out with his boot, smashing it into the man’s knee. The stranger’s leg buckled with a sickening crack. A grunt of pain escaped him—his first sound since the fight began, and Thomaz seized the opening.
In a blur of motion, the king wrenched his sword free and slammed the hilt into the man’s jaw, sending him sprawling to his knees. Thomaz’s breathing was ragged, his face twisted with hate and triumph.
“You think you can defy me?” he spat, stepping closer. He hooked his blade under the man’s chin, forcing his head back. The steel bit into the skin, drawing a thin line of blood. “You don’t even know who I am, do you? I am your king. And kings don’t forgive worms.”
The man stared up at him, expression blank even now. That quiet defiance, the lack of fear, was the final insult. Thomaz’s disgust boiled over.
With a snarl, he shoved the sword upward. The blade tore through flesh and sinew, severing the man’s neck with a wet, sickening sound. Blood sprayed across Thomaz’s face and chest as the man’s body crumpled lifelessly to the cobblestones.
For a moment, silence reigned. The crowd watched in frozen horror as the king stood over the corpse, chest heaving, his face spattered with crimson.
Thomaz wiped his blade on the dead man’s tunic and turned to the onlookers. “Let this be a lesson,” he growled, voice echoing through the narrow street. “No one stands in my way.”
Without another word, he climbed back into his chariot, snapped the reins, and vanished into the night, leaving behind only blood, fear, and the whispered name of the man who dared to defy him.
Thomaz storms back into the palace, chariot wheels streaked with blood and mud, guards scrambling to clear the colonnade as he nearly runs them down. He dismounts half-falling, half-leaping, still reeking of wine, iron, and street dust. His sword is not yet clean. Behind him, the citadel smolders with wreckage, trampled stalls, injured civilians, and the cooling corpse of the man who dared to stand in his path.
Waiting beneath the torchlit archway: Rubian. Calm. Composed. Watching.
Thomaz staggers close, jabs a finger at his right hand, and snarls, “Someone just tried to assassinate me, where the fuck were you?”
Rubian flinches on cue, masking calculation behind a wash of practiced alarm. “My king—are you hurt?”
“Spare me,” Thomaz snaps, shoulder-slamming past him, hard enough to knock Rubian into a pillar. The king’s steps drag, rage coiling toward another outburst. He wants carnage. He wants obedience. He wants someone to bleed for letting tonight happen.
Rubian straightens. Decision flashes behind his eyes. Now, while Thomaz is drunk, open, furious, and blood-hot, is the only window he may ever have to redirect that rage.
He follows. “Your Majesty… I found something.”
Thomaz keeps walking. “If this isn’t a name to hang, keep it.”
“It is a name,” Rubian says, and the hallway stills. “Not one. Several. Vivi’s bloodline.”
That gets Thomaz to turn.
Rubian lays it out in careful, lethal increments: Vivi’s line tracks through Tivor, an older brother long buried in sealed genealogies. Their sire: Braiden, recorded in forbidden script as the first Dragon Rider. No mention anywhere of Nekonata or Tarasque despite royal inquisitors swearing links, meaning those reports were forged or bait. Deeper still: Matthaios (great-great-grandfather) marked in rushed ink: Corruptor. And the detail Rubian nearly missed, scribbled beneath Vivi’s entry in a finer hand, Vivi has a daughter. Elvina. Unknown to the crown. Unregistered. Living, or at least once living, somewhere outside Thomaz’s reach.
Thomaz’s expression falters. For a brief moment, shock flickers in his eyes, his drunken haze pierced by the weight of what Rubian has revealed. Vivi, his hated rival, is the son of Braiden, the first ever Dragon Rider. The truth slams into Thomaz like a blade between the ribs, dredging up the memory of Zeindaryss, the ancient, legendary dragon who once ruled the skies.
And then it hits harder.
He. Had. Killed. It.
Through Rubian’s own hands, under Thomaz’s ruthless command, Zeindaryss had been slain, its death howl tearing across the mountains as if the world itself had mourned.
The shock burns away, replaced by pure, unfiltered rage, a storm that shakes Thomaz to his core. His blood boils at the realization of what his nemesis truly is, a living heir of the oldest power the world has ever known, and perhaps the only one who could avenge Zeindaryss’s death.