Twenty thousand men returned home to Ernest with the newly crowned King Patrick. More soldiers than Oliver would have expected to return with, had he known what would have awaited them when they departed. A mighty victory it was, impossible even to dwell on entirely.
Every morning, he awoke, feeling strange. As if he were a different person, inhabiting the same body. There was a vague feeling in him that he was holding something back. With each day, that feeling became less vague, and more certain.
A King. The men looked at him as one, and they held reverence for him as one, but even that felt something strange and fleeting to Oliver. Just as the deaths of his allies did. He tried not to think on it too much. He looked with his eyes, and felt with his heart, and enjoyed what it was that was around him.
