Family Business 42 (Patreon)

Family Business
Chapter 42

-VB-

Garen felt like a failure.

He hadn’t even noticed Marris in pain, and thought that his younger brother was just a little tired after the battle.

It hadn’t been the case, and now Marr, who could have solved the very problem he now suffered, screamed his throat hoarse in a wing of the Jorasmang Manor.

Garen… couldn’t go there.

He couldn’t bare to look at Lux and Marris in the face.

He knew that they would never blame him, but it didn’t change the fact that he failed to protect his own brother when he was right there!

“Why are you not at the manor with your siblings?”

Garen’s head snapped up.

“Your Majesty-”

The elderly king frowned. Despite the now uniform gray hair dominating him, King Jarvan III retained his formidable presence, and he seemed to dominate the hallway outside his bedroom. Sure, the king had just stepped out of his bedroom at dawn and wore a more casual outfit of intricately swerving and hard gold highlights on his otherwise white tunic and pants, but the air about him was hard and sharp. And directed at him.

“I asked you a question, Garen.”

“I…” his throat ran dry as he tried to give an excuse. He had to protect the king. He had to protect the crown prince. He had to… He had to…

He felt a hand rest on his armor.

“I have over two dozen of the good duke’s Black Guard guarding me. It is not against my own safety if I allowed you to go to see how your brother is doing.”

The king had been there when Marris collapsed, coughing up blood from his lips and bleeding from his eyes, ears, and nose.

“You know that I am safe with these men and women. They have proven their worth time and time again, have they not?”

“They have.”

Of course, they have. Garen fought by their side at the Steps to Glory. Though none could match him individually, a mere squadron of them could give him a run for his money.

“But I s-”

“It feels like you failed them, does it not?”

Garen’s throat clenched up.

“That’s what I felt when I was in the battlefields years ago. I stood among the corpses of my men, and even though we won the battle and the war, it still felt like I had failed them,” the king sighed as he started walking, and Garen followed.

As their boots and shoes clicked and thudded against the marble floor and the dawn light illuminated only one side of their forms, Garen watched the king’s back as he talked.

“It was the Battle of Gilmor Hills. I’m sure you have heard of it? The training instructors are very fond of the battle unlike me.”

Of course, Garen heard of the battle. The Battle of Gilmor Hills along the southern coasts took place in one of the few areas that Demacian border actually met Noxian border. Gilmor Hills was the surrounding lands outside of a strategically important port town along that coast, and Noxians held it. However, the town was too important for Demacia to just let it remain in Noxian hands during the War of the Coast.

And so, King Jarvan II ordered his son, then Crown Prince Jarvan III, to capture the town and sent him along with five thousand men. The crown prince took Gilmor Hills from the Noxians and inflicted a severe casualty against the counterattacking army, losing only two thousand men to inflict eight thousand deaths against Noxus.

“Yes,” Garen replied quietly.

“My men trusted me, but I chose a deliberately risky tactic for the sake of a greater reward. Yes, I got that reward, but I also had two thousand dead men beside me. It… probably would not have hit me as hard as it could have if it weren’t for the fact that one of my trusted squires had died defending me when I overreached.”

Garen blinked. “You, my liege? You, Jarvan III the Stalwart Shield?” The king was famous for his defensive strategies, after all, which was the opposite of the king’s son, Garen’s friend and current crown prince, Jarvan III.

“Yes,” the king sounded melancholic. “I overreached. I wasn’t thinking, just slashing and stabbing, but by the time I noticed that something was wrong, I was isolated and fighting with only twelve of my personal guards.”

Garen tried to imagine it, and he could. He’d been in that situation multiple times, but mostly because that was part of his tactics; he made himself a target so that the soldiers fighting under him would not be focused upon as heavily.

“One Noxian spearman got lucky. He found an opening and struck.”

The king stopped walking and turned around, putting his back to the sun and casting a shade over his tired face.

“And Johan. My dear cousin Johan. He… pushed me out of the way. Took the spear to his chest. My friend and cousin, my thirteen year old squire… died for my error. My failure.”

Garen flinched at the sheer anguish the king’s voice held.

“It’s been thirty years now. If Johan was still alive, then he would have had kids of his own. Even a grandkid,” the king continued. “My little cousin who I played with in the gardens. Who was so happy to be my squire.”

The king looked up and Garen held back a flinch at the dull and lifeless eyes that met him.

“Dead. Because of me.”

Garen had a feeling that it was very possible he was one of the few people who ever saw the king like this.

“Stupid as I was, I dragged him back at the cost of four more of my personal guards, and when I got him to the healers, I demanded why he did that. Can you guess what he told me, Garen?”

“Duty…?”

“No,” the king chuckled. “Because I was his older brother. He could not bare to see me die. So he died in my arms instead.” The king paused before letting out a long pent-up breath. “I was a failure. Perhaps it remains my greatest failure.” And then the king looked up at him. “But at the very least, I was there to hold his hand as he passed. How would you feel if you were told tomorrow that the duke died tonight?”