Path of the King - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Hey guys! Welcome to the third chapter of my latest story. Should I have started a new story when I can't keep up with my current ones? Maybe not. Did I do so anyway? Absolutely. 

This story is a commission from one of you guys, LordCampione, and I just liked the idea too much not to go for it. I've been mulling over writing something in the Fate or Campione! worlds for like, multiple years at this point, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

As you can probably guess from the previous paragraph, this is a Fate (Nasuverse)/Campione! crossover. I know not everyone is familiar with both (or either) settings so I'm going to try to make the story as accessible as possible. If you have questions you can't answer with a google search, ask me here or on discord! It might very well be a completely original element.

I don't accept too many commissions (I write slowly, inconsistently, and have too little time to do it as it is :sob:), but this one caught my eye. Hopefully y'all will enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed working on it.

This is where I'd normally tell you the planned update schedule, but I've decided I'm going to try not doing that for a bit and just keeping it private. Stuff keeps coming up every time I do do that, and at this rate I'm going to get hit by a car or something the next time I say 'chapter coming tomorrow' or whatever else.

THIS IS CHAPTER 3. If you haven't read chapters 1 and 2 yet, go read those first! Chapter 4 coming in the next few minutes.

As late as I had ended up making it to bed, I still woke up long before the sun rose. My bed was a massive thing, half again as large as a standard king, and sinfully comfortable with piles of plush pillows, silk sheets, and a thick blanket that left me feeling like I was wrapped in a warm cloud. 

It still felt cold and empty. 

I didn’t like sleeping alone. Before I’d left, Isi had been my constant companion, by my side day and night without fail. Even years before we’d become intimate, I had always slept better with her beside me, feeling her warmth against my skin and the gentle thump of her heartbeat in my ears. 

Her little room, the one she’d run off to hide in when I’d told her to get out of my sight, had been barely an afterthought. A storage room the servants rarely bothered to clean with a dusty, forgotten cot shoved up against the wall. The only times I could remember us sleeping apart was when I’d gotten sick, and even then Isi typically snuck in to join me as soon as the worst had passed.

And in Oslo, well. I was handsome, rich, and ‘exotic’. Perhaps it was shallow of me, but I’d never had trouble finding college girls tripping over themselves to spend the night. I always made it clear that I wasn’t looking for something long-term, but that didn’t seem to bother them one whit. Maybe they thought they could change me. Maybe they were just looking for excitement. Or maybe they were trying to get pregnant so they could extort me later. It was all the same to me. 

The nights that I couldn’t, or simply didn’t bother, there was a lot less bed to be empty too. That, or I was simply too worn out to care one way or another. Keeping up with a full college curriculum––even one I’d already known most of––and my own projects at the same time kept me very, very busy. 

There were a lot of reasons I didn’t like coming home. My ‘parents’ were the main one, but this certainly didn’t help either. My sister thought I was being stupid for not just grabbing some other servant, and had even threatened to order some of hers to my bed last year, but it just wasn’t the same. 

It was more than an hour later when Isi came to find me. She slipped silently into the room where I was finishing up a series of spear katas and knelt down by the door, watching my feet as I danced across the stone floor. 

Once, this room had been intended as my workshop. Every magus, no matter how talented or lackluster, needed a workshop, somewhere private where they could fully devote themselves to honing their magecraft and mysteries. My parents each had their own, as did my sister, and even the servant magi were given closet-sized private spaces to call their own. 

When it had become clear that I did not qualify, the space had been briefly forgotten until I’d started to show an interest in martial arts and other physical pursuits. Instead of simply sending me down to the huge complex where servant guards were trained like I’d expected, it had been remodeled into a training room, a private space I could use to ‘better myself’. After all, no Hephaestius would be caught dead using the same training space as the servants, not even a crippled one. 

I paid her no mind as I finished the routine, the weighted practice spear in my hands hissing as it cut through the still air. Then, with a final twirl, I set it down in the rack with my other equipment and turned towards my wayward attendant. 

“Yes?” I asked coldly. I wondered how long she’d stood outside the room trying to muster the courage to come inside. At least ten minutes, probably. Perhaps longer.

She bowed, pressing her palms and forehead against the ground before lifting her head to look back at my feet. “This Isidora apologizes for disturbing Master Keon’s practice. Master Keon said that he wished to be informed when the young mistress Anet arrived.”

I stared at her for a long moment, then looked away before I said something I would regret. 

Instead, I looked down at myself. I hadn’t bothered getting fully dressed, not seeing a reason to needlessly soil the clothing that had been laid out for me this morning. Ever since I’d started doing my own laundry in college, I’d stopped bothering with the fancy practice clothing I used to wear. I just sweated way too much to ever consider wearing the same thing twice in a row and working out at least twice a day meant I burned through them at a truly prodigious rate. 

Maybe if I’d been going to a public gym, I would have just bought a dozen extra sets or something, but since I had a gym and dojo set up in my Oslo home, I didn’t need to worry about maintaining appearances. I still kept some exercise clothing around for a rainy day, but the only people who ever saw those rooms were me and the occasional girl I’d brought home. I didn’t care what I was wearing as long as it didn’t get in my way and they tended to appreciate the free show. Thus, I was wearing nothing but underwear and a thin white linen robe to ward off the morning chill, both of which were soaked through and plastered against my skin. 

Anet wouldn’t mind. She didn’t care much for propriety between friends and had seen me in considerably less on a number of occasions. She even joined me for practice from time to time, and the sight of her in high-waisted exercise shorts and a white sports bra was one that left me speechless no matter how many times I saw it. 

The servants, however, would talk. Isi, Meryt, Gamal, and a handful of others knew how to keep their mouths shut, but the other servants were all hopeless gossips. Or actively spying on me. If I went to greet her like this, one of them would doubtlessly see me and the entire household would know by noon. That meant that things would get back to my parents and through them to Anet’s parents, and that would cause both of us no end of trouble. 

I sighed heavily. I’d hoped to get another half hour of training in this morning, but it was not to be. Some of my more ambitious projects were finally bearing fruit and I needed to be a lot better at wielding a spear than I currently was as soon as possible. I wasn’t bad, per se, but ‘not bad’ wasn’t nearly good enough. I needed to be perfect. 

“Tell Anet I need to wash up. I shouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes,” I ordered. “And have the blue dining room set up for breakfast.”

“This Isidora hears and obeys, Master Keon.” She lowered her head again until her forehead was touching the cool stone, waited a moment, then rose and fled as swiftly as her feet could carry her. 

Not long after, I was completely unsurprised when I heard the outer door to my rooms fly open and then slam shut while I was still in the shower. I’d left the bathroom door cracked open specifically so I’d hear it when Anet decided to barge in unannounced. 

It had barely been three minutes since Isi had left, which wasn’t nearly enough time to get from the entry hall to my room, much less there and back. Anet had probably started heading up before I’d even told Isi to go report back to her. I’d honestly expected as much, though I’d thought I had a few more minutes. Perhaps it really had taken Isi longer to gather her courage than I’d guessed. 

It was definitely Anet. She was the only person I knew who would enter my room like that. The regular servants had their own entrance, Isi either used that door or snuck inside as quiet as a mouse, Dalia never bothered closing the door behind her, and mother actually knocked on the very rare occasion she would come to see me. She’d still enter if I didn’t respond or told her to go away, but she did knock. And father…I wasn’t entirely sure he knew where in the house my room even was. 

She didn’t bother announcing herself and I didn’t waste my breath on telling her where I was. She could no doubt hear the shower running just like I’d heard her come in. Instead I set the overpriced bar of golden soap I was using to lather myself up aside and began to rinse off the suds. 

My closest friend in this life slipped into the bathroom and softly closed the door behind her. I watched out of the corner of my eye as she plucked a single strand of her shoulder-length blonde hair and carefully pressed it into the gap between the door and the doorway. She mumbled a short chant and the strand began to glow softly with a clear red light the same shade as her lips. 

It twisted like a snake and slipped out from between her fingers, then rapidly began to lengthen until it was fully wrapped around the outside of the door. When the two ends met, the glow turned blinding for a brief instant, and when it cleared the strand was gone. 

“You’ve gotten better at that,” I noted, “Faster.” Then I made a face as a bit of soapy water got into my mouth. Bleh, I shouldn’t have said anything. 

“Thanks!” Anet turned to face me, a bright, happy smile on her face. Our eyes met and some of the gloom that had been hanging over me since I’d gotten back to Egypt lifted in an instant. It was impossible to be truly unhappy when Anet was around. 

My heart skipped a beat. Anet was so beautiful when she smiled, and she was almost always smiling. She was a tall, shapely young woman, with a heart shaped face, expressive gray-green eyes, silky golden blonde hair, and flawless pale skin that any of my college ‘girlfriends’ would have happily killed an entire class of kindergarteners for. 

She was almost impossibly attractive. Like, airbrushed magazine cover-model attractive. My sister was gorgeous and the servants my family employed were all held to rigorous physical and grooming standards, but Anet blew them all out of the water without even trying. The only woman I knew who got even close was her mother, Nadia Vorontsov, who was the dictionary definition of an S-class MILF, and even then it wasn’t much of a contest.

Of course, that wasn’t much of a surprise for anyone familiar with the Vorontsov family magecraft. Her family wasn’t quite as old as my own, but she still came from a respectable lineage of magi that could trace their roots and magic crest back nearly a milenia in Egypt and a further few centuries in eastern europe before they’d immigrated. 

The Vorontsov had taken a rather novel approach in their quest for Akasha. The specifics were of course a closely guarded secret just like my own family’s magecraft, one Anet would never share with anyone but her chosen heir, but the broad strokes were evident enough. They believed that through achieving perfection of the self a magus could open the way to the Swirl of the Root.

Thus, the family focused on all sorts of magecraft designed to hone, improve, and modify the body of the caster. I had no idea if their theory held water, nor how close they were to their ultimate goal, but it was unquestionable that their magecraft was very effective. Not only was every member of the family an eleven out of ten, but their physical abilities were the real thing. 

Despite standing half a head taller than her and outmassing her by what had to be at least a hundred pounds, I had no doubts that Anet could toss me around like a ragdoll. Swords, spears, and bullets would all break against her supple-looking skin, she could run faster than a car, and her slender arms could do a pretty good approximation of a hydraulic press. 

Their physical abilities alone had earned them a high spot in the Council of Sands, but the Vorontsov were also proficient in all manner of other magecraft. Most of their mysteries focused on modifying and utilizing their bodies, but that wasn’t nearly as limiting as a lot of people might think. For instance, I’d been very surprised the first time I’d seen Anet cast the privacy spell she’d just erected to foil anyone trying to eavesdrop through the door. 

She was dressed simply today, without any of the jewelry or other adornments she put on for special events. Her hair hung loosely around her head and her clothing was made from regular fabric instead of a poorly disguised mistake code. It didn’t really matter. She would have looked fantastic in a potato sack. 

Her cotton wrap dress was dyed an eye-catching shade of red and its v-shaped neckline exposed a tantalizing glimpse of creamy skin. Despite hanging down past her knees and lacking the unreasonable slits my sister tended to gravitate towards, she somehow still managed to be more seductive and alluring than Dalia could hope to manage. 

She looked me up and down like an artist judging another’s painting, her eyes following the lines of my muscles. If I’d been any less proud of the body I’d sculpted in this life, I probably would have felt self conscious. As it was, I couldn’t help but shift to give her a clearer view, water beading on my skin as I stepped out from under the artificial waterfall beating down on my neck.

Her smile widened. “I can see you haven’t been slacking either. Did Daddy’s tips help?”

I raised one eyebrow and posed. “You tell me.” 

Anet laughed, her voice bouncing off the smooth sandstone walls and filling the air. “It’s good to see you again.” Then she pouted, “You should have told me you were coming home. That’s something I want to hear about from you, not from a boring report.”

“Sorry. It was a bit last minute.”

Anet planted a hand on her hip and cocked her head to the side. “Dodging your parents again.” 

It wasn’t really a question, but I still nodded.

She sighed heavily but didn’t press the issue. Instead she asked, “How long will you be staying for?”

That was another question she already knew the answer to. I’d already bought my ticket, after all. “Just a couple of days.”

Her look of disappointment made my heart wrench. “So little? Come on, Keon! A couple days, a couple of weeks, what’s the difference? Is wherever you’re going really that important?”

She had a point. What difference would it make if I stayed for a little bit longer. A couple of weeks wouldn’t—

No. 

I tore my eyes away from her face and briefly tilted my head back to submerge it in the warm, clear water pouring down on me. Blinking rapidly to clear the water from my eyes, I turned back towards her but focused my gaze on the door behind her and not her face. 

“Anet,” I said warningly.

She closed her eyes. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It won’t happen again.”

I rolled my eyes. Yes it damn well would. That’s what she always said, and she really did mean it every time. But it would still happen again.

She was quiet for several long seconds and I took the time to finish rinsing off. Eventually, she sighed again. “Sorry,” she repeated. “It’s just…I miss you. Dalia is great, but it’s not the same without you around.”

Her voice wavered slightly. “You’ll be back soon, right? College is supposed to be just four years, and you’re almost done. I know going was important for you, but you’ll come home when you’re done, right? Right? Everything will go back to how it used to be.”

I didn’t say anything, nor did I look back towards her. That had certainly been what I’d told her when I left the first time around and it was still sort of the plan. 

I did intend to come home when I was done. Assuming I could. It just wasn’t college that I had to finish with first. And if I did come back, things certainly wouldn’t be going back to how they had been before I left.

I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her face like that. To tell her I very well might not be coming home again at all. 

“I’m…supposed to graduate in the spring.” I said eventually. It was true at least, even if it was never going to happen. 

Anet wasn’t stupid. “Keon…” she whispered.

I still didn’t look at her. Couldn’t look at her. Instead, I changed the subject. “I brought you something. It’s in the blue bag on the living room table.” Anet loved presents and they were a surefire way of raising her mood no matter how down she was feeling. 

Like clockwork, I saw her perk up slightly out of the corner of my eye. “Oooo presents!” she exclaimed. 

When we were younger, I’d kept a small stock of random snacks, trinkets, and new clothes to cheer her up with when things weren’t going too well. These days, I always made sure to bring her a gift or three whenever I came home. I knew she appreciated it, even if it didn’t nearly make up for my long absences.

The smile she’d been wearing when she’d arrived was gone. I’d managed to momentarily distract her, but it wouldn’t last long.

Was it really worth it? Was the risk of never seeing that smile again really worth it?

Not bothering to wait for me to finish getting clean and drying off, Anet dispelled the spell she’d cast on the door and slipped out of the room, leaving the door cracked open behind her. 

I squeezed my eyes shut, but the pained look I’d briefly glimpsed on Anet’s flawless features danced mockingly behind my eyelids. 

The gloom I’d been carrying returned in full force.