Path of the King - Preview (Patreon)

Hey everybody! I'm back from my honeymoon and I picked up the writing immediately. It will still take a while , but I estimate that by the end of August I'll have everything back under control and I'll have caught up with the updates. I plan to release 6 chapters since I'm going to have a couple of free weeks.

In the meantime, here's a small preview for your enjoyment.

____

 

Whenever she wasn’t dispatched on a mission, Caren Ortensia spent her days in silent prayer and quiet contemplation. With the innate empathic ability, Caren was just short of a full-fledged telepath on the scale of people that freaked others out. As such, she was a bit of an outcast even among the dwellers of the Burial Agency.

Having one’s emotions exposed was a weakness, and no one liked to be weak in the Moonlit World and for the most part, the Burial Agency was a collection of peculiar individuals brought together by convenience, rather than a common faith.

The were other hardcore believers like Caren among its ranks, of course, but ultimately the Agency cared only for ability and willingness to cooperate, regardless of motivations, to the point that they employed even some of the same creatures that they existed to eradicate.

In short, it was a madhouse kept in check only through the sheer power if its higher ranking members.

Yet, Caren managed to freak out every single one of them. 

For one thing, her faith was unshakeable. No threat of bodily harm would so much as deter her from a course of action once she decided that such  was the will of God, and with her disposition to get under other people’s skin, both willingly and unwillingly, meant that people much more above her in power and hierarchy went out of their way to avoid her.

However, the necessity remained for Caren to be briefed whenever a mission came up for her, so someone had to be sent of that specific purpose.

Such was this instance.

The door of the chapel were Caren was kneeling in silent prayers was opened. A man with short, spiky hair, wearing the trademark coat of the Agency’s agents walked in. His eyes were hidden by the white reflection upon the glasses he wore, but they couldn’t hide the perpetual scowl on his face.

He had an aura that would have other people get out of his way as soon as they saw him approach. Towering behind her kneeling form he pulled out a hand from the pocket of his coat and reached out to her.

“Sister Ortensia,” he said in a delicate and soft-spoken voice that belied his appearance. “Sorry to disrupt your prayers, but the direction sent me to fetch you.”

“Mr. Dawn,” she greeted, standing up and turning to face him. “You do not disturb me at all. I have been waiting for you for a while now.”

“Knew they would send me, didn’t you?” he asked with an easy smile. “Did you receive a vision?”

“Hardly,” Caren laughed softly. “There are few others they would send in your stead and they are all carrying out their own assignments at present.” 

“I see. When you put it that way it hardly requires an oracle to explain your foresight.”

They shared a chuckle at the expense of their colleagues. Although most went out of their way to avoid Caren there were also a few exceptions. People who didn’t mind her or even went along with her. One such person was the man in front of her.

“So, have they come to a decision?”

“Yes… they agreed to allow you to proceed without the use of a Catalyst, as per your request.”

“Oh? They saw finally saw sense, then?”

“I believe they just squabbled among themselves about who would have to convince you otherwise, until they realized there was no one willing and thus they decided that letting you have your way was the most expedient method.”

“Honestly, they seem to think I would bite them or something,” she snorted.

“Honestly, I think they would much prefer that. At least, they would know how to deal with it.”

“How brutish.”

“Indeed,” Mr. Dawn agreed. “Nevertheless, they have prepared everything required for the summoning ritual.”

“Lead the way then,” she told him.

As they walked through the hallways of the Burial Agency, Caren spared glance for the blurred mark upon her left hand. The sign of a Command Seal that would fully manifest upon summoning a Servant. The proof that she had been chosen by the Holy Grail to participate in the competition for its possession.

It wouldn’t be the first time the Church would have one of its members taking part in the War. In fact, just ten years previously the current supervisor and son of the previous supervisor had been selected as a participant as well. 

Despite their cooperation with Tohsaka Tokiomi, Fuyuki Second Owner at the time of the previous conflict, they had not managed to win and the Grail fell into the hand of Emiya Kiritsugu, who everyone believed to be dead until his adoptive son surfaced.

There was some irony to that. For Emiya Shirou to appear shortly before an early Holy Grail War was about to start.

Caren saw it as a sign from God himself. Then again, everything that happened was the will of the Lord in her eyes, and she accepted everything that happened to her without the slightest doubt or hesitation.

She only had one request when it became apparent that she was to be a Master in this Holy Grail War. She refused to use any Catalyst. The Church could get their hands on some without problems. They had plenty of Holy Relics in their possession through which they could summon a Saint of their choosing, but Caren had no intention of doing anything of the sort.

She would, as always, let God provide for her.

Naturally, this didn’t really fly with the upper echelon of the Burial Agency, but they knew better than to argue with her. So they argued among themselves and then relented when they figured they had no way to coerce her.

Which is how Caren found herself standing in a wide room, which had a summoning circle inscribed upon its marble floor with a silverly solution. Three or four people, Mages in the employ of the Agency, were standing to the side, talking in hushed tones.

“What am I going to do about the lack of Mana?” Caren asked. “I have no Magic Circuits.”

“You needn’t worry about that. The higher ups have agreed to lend you a suitable relic that will take care of that particular problem. You need only to focus on the ritual.”

Caren nodded. The vaults of the Holy Church were brimming with several artifacts endowed with unique capabilities not unlike her Shroud of Magdalene.

She stepped towards the circle, stopping right at the edge of it.

She brought her hands together in front of her chest the same as she did when she prayed, because that was exactly what she was going to do.

Prospective Masters did not summon their Servants themselves. The Holy Grail itself pulled the Heroic Spirit from the Throne. The summoning circle provided merely the coordinates for the Servant to materialize and kept the excess energy contained, while the Master served only to provide the Servant with an anchor in the world of the living and in most cases a source of energy.

Unless one knew a the set of instructions to make the Grail summon a Servant into a specific Class, the chant too was entirely unimportant. Magi would stick with tradition out of pride, but Caren had no such thing.

She didn’t recite spells, only prayers.

“Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name;”

The summoning circle flared up with light while energy coalesced in its center.

“Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”

The energy kept building up and the light became so strong that the onlookers had to squint their eyes to see. Caren had no such issue. Her eyes were closed. She did not need to see to believe.

“Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Lightning cracked within the circle, perfectly contained within its boundary. The pressure increased until it reached a frail standstill. Like a bubble ready to burst.

“Amen!”

There was an ear-piercing blast as the bubble exploded, air rushing out of it causing dust to fill the area of the summoning circle.

A few steps behind her Mr. Dawn adjusted his glasses and straightened his clothes, while Caren stared intently in front of her.

Slowly the dust cleared out and she could make out a figure standing in the middle of the circle. 

“... So, you are my Master,” the figure said as it stepped forward. 

Caren unconsciously took a step back.

The hooded, black-clad figure towered over her. It was distinctly male, but that was all that she could say about its look. His from was clearly defined, she could see that, but she could not describe, even in her own mind, what it looked like more than she do with could a cloud of smoke.

However, that wasn’t the reason why she had taken a step back. Her empathic ability, it seemed, worked just as well with Servants as it did on humans, and what she felt  from him made her retreat out of instinct.

What had answered her prayer? An agent on the Lord, this certainly was not.

“Who…?”

From under his hood, his eyes stared into hers. It was the only thing of his face that she could clearly define. They were orbs of an empty, dull gray.

His answer was short, and seemed to come from the same abyss he had crawled out from.

“Avenger.”