Taming the Tempest (Quinton Sorrill)

[DeepWebAssassin]

Chaos rules the land.

Never before had it been so clear how fledgling his power was. How insignificant one man could be. Helpless, like a tiny fly buffeted about by the force of a hurricane. He'd entered into the eye of death and passed out unscathed, though not by merit of his own actions. He was carried by the strength of his allies, and perhaps even more appallingly, a measure of sheer luck.

The thought rattled him to the very core. The cup in his unsteady hand trembled and sent ripples across the clear liquid's surface. He took another drink, the poison of the strong concoction dulling his mind a little more with each mouthful he forced down. The words on the page were a blur now, but it didn't matter. Nobody would ever read what he'd written.

He allowed the page to slip through his fingers, falling down to the waiting fire below. He watched the parchment blacken and curl, reducing to little more than dust. The words contained on it would remain a secret to everyone but him. A story untold and a path that would remain untraveled. Perhaps that was for the best, but only time would tell. He hoped he'd done the right thing.

He slept heavily that night. Not out of a sense of peace, but because his mind was hopelessly clouded by alcohol. Too befuddled even to tremble at the terrors of the past day. Too lost to worry about what this "victory" meant, or what would come next. Would there be a reckoning for what they'd done? Was their foe lying broken and beaten, or were they preparing to strike them all down in one fell swoop? Did they slow the spread of this chaos, or stoke the fiery passion that drove this war onward?

No answers would come, at least not today. They'd earned a moment of respite, and each of them were celebrating in their own way. For Quinton, this celebration was the solitude to enjoy a single moment of silence in his mind. A brief calming of the troubled waters in a desperate attempt to regain some semblance of control. Much was uncertain, but there was one thing that had been branded so clearly upon his mind that it was still lingering in his thoughts the next morning.

He couldn't face this alone.