A/N: Written for the 5,10,20,50,70,100 fandoms challenge, fandom 58: Deltora Quest S1, and for The A-Maze-Ing Race Challenge on the AMF, random character: King Endon.

Failed as a King

He had failed as a King.

He had failed before he had even taken the throne, believing so blindly in the illusion cast before his eyes and the window of his room. He'd failed furthermore when he'd led his work – his position – drive him from the only friend he had ever known – and perhaps the worst of it all was when he distrusted that friend, and lost him.

It was a mercy Jared came back, a mercy he did not deserve when all he had to show were the mangled Belt of Deltora and seven gaping holes for its gems. At least his marriage had been a success – one more the doing of his strong wife than of himself, and it was she and Jared that saved their unborn child.

He did his best to atone, taking up the Blacksmith's humble mantle that Jared had so easily passed and raising his son to be one of the people. But it was a hard job, working around the so many rules that had been drilled into his head by that servant of the Shadow Lord. But again it was Sharn who made it work, Sharn to turn him back on the path when he strayed. Sharn who made the burden light enough to bear.

There were other failings during that time however, failings that accumulated in the ears of dark silence, and even afterwards. Failures that had little to do with his title as a King, and more to do with being a husband – and a son. Little things, like his hands tearing too easily those first few months, to the more earth-shattering things like the tree falling and breaking his leg and forcing his son on a dangerous journey in his stead.

And he had become the hostage that almost jeopardised the fulfillment of that quest. But if he hadn't, he might not have seen the moment his son became King – a true King, destined to be far greater than the dark legacy that hung above his head. A King that had the screaming support of his people, who knew them, and more importantly, saw their world as it truly was.

The mist of the castle was long gone now, but that final truth he witnessed in his dying chair was more beautiful than that illusion he'd woken too in far off childhood days. And even though Sharn deserved more credit than he, it was his greatest success of having raised his son into such an accomplished man.