Peace was quiet.
I had almost forgotten that.
For weeks, there had always been something.
Some issue demanding my attention, some crisis requiring me to deal with it.
It was ironic that, in a world with superheroes running around everywhere, there was still rarely peace.
No matter the supernatural effort put in, the world itself seemed to hate peace and quiet.
And it sure had plenty of things to throw at everyone.
Over just a few years, there had been the return of Camelot, the conquest of the United Kingdom and founding of Albion, an alien invasion, a mutant uprising, a near invasion from Hell itself, and robot death machines raining from the skies.
Not to mention countless other, far smaller issues.
As a king, there weren't many issues I myself would have to deal with, or even had time to deal with.
Certain issues, such as all the things happening over in New York's seedy underbelly, I had only been able to dip my toes into thanks to Mordred.
It was rare that I could leave behind my throne for long enough to go on an expedition to France and hunt down dark witches.
Those problems still existed, even if I couldn't deal with them. That was why there were lesser heroes to deal with lesser issues; why, for every Tony Stark, every Iron Man, there was a Spider-Man.
But just as Peter Parker had been a headache for Tony, so too was I unable to rest easy.
Always another report, always more work.
Now, several days after the Sentinel network had gone silent, I stood upon one of Camelot's balconies and heard nothing more threatening than rain.
It fell softly across the city. It wasn't a storm; it was just rain.
The sort that Albion had known long before I ever claimed dominion over its skies, falling steadily over white stone roofs and newly repaired roads.
It gently gathered along the gutters before spilling into the channels below, disappearing from view, washing away dirt and dust, much as the quiet and peace washed away stress and fear.
This was something few people understood: that despite a war ending, there were no true victors.
Well, this war was slightly different, since it wasn't against other people, but all the same, victory could not wipe away the cost of that victory. The lives claimed by war could not be returned.
Not even by me.
Death... it was... stubbornly persistent.
Not even a God could easily defy death itself.
All wars brought about nothing but suffering, yet sometimes, war couldn't be avoided...
It was simply human nature, and the nature of all things; conflict was inevitable.
Peace... Peace never lasts forever.
I knew this well, yet I had still hoped to be able to keep war away from my people; that war was something they read about, heard about, not something they experienced.
Camelot itself had escaped the worst of it, suffering no real attacks, but just because it escaped the physical destruction suffered elsewhere didn't mean it had escaped the war.
The magic... the... atmosphere that had once permeated the air over the city had dimmed considerably.
I couldn't help but sigh as I thought about it.
Had the Sentinel core intelligence known what it was doing?
Or had it been by accident?
It was impossible to say for sure, and it wasn't like I could ask.
But whatever it might have been, the spirit of Albion had been hurt; the invincibility that I had projected was hurt.
It didn't matter that I had a good reason for everything, for not being there in their hour of need.
What mattered were the dead, the wounded, the homes burned to the ground, and the families torn apart.
I rested both hands against the balcony railing and watched the rain fall for several minutes before the doors behind me opened.
I did not need to turn.
Only one man could enter a room while carrying enough documents to make the sound of paper itself seem threatening.
"Your Majesty."
"Sir Agravain."
Like a well-oiled machine, he marched right up to my desk and started adding files and folders to the already-existing mountain of work awaiting me.
He looked considerably better than he had when I first returned. He had slept, at least occasionally, and someone had apparently convinced him to change out of the same uniform he had worn throughout the final days of the war.
For a man who always prided himself on being proper, it was a true sign of how bad things had been when he hadn't taken care of his own appearance.
So the fact that he finally looked like the good old Agravain was a clear sign that things had improved.
"I have the morning's reports. They await Your Majesty's attention," he reported.
All I could do was sigh in response. Part of me really wished I could be out there, helping with the cleanup.
But that was for the other knights; I, as King, had a very different responsibility.
"There are forty-three matters currently awaiting direct Crown approval, another seventeen that require the Royal Council, and nine foreign governments have requested formal consultations concerning Sentinel recovery and disposal. Three more have requested assistance locating dormant production facilities, while—"
"Agravain."
He stopped.
"I care not for the requests of other governments; what I care about is whether or not they have an answer for me. Can they explain how this was allowed to happen?" I asked.
I understood very well that, no matter what, someone like Trask could never have managed something like this on his own. He was brilliant, yes; hateful and spiteful, yes.
But he lacked the resources for something of this scale.
Just the final Sentinel Core itself had required mountains of restricted resources. I suspected the total amount of Chitauri salvage needed was in the millions of tons.
Only governments had that; in fact, other than America itself, no one else had that much of it lying around.
Just because Trask had died to his own creations didn't mean blame didn't exist, and it didn't mean blame didn't need to be judged.
Someone had to take responsibility for this, and it couldn't end with one dead dwarf.
Agravain remained silent for several seconds.
That was answer enough.
I turned away from the rain and faced him fully. "They don't."
"Not yet, Your Majesty."
"That was not what I asked."
Agravain's expression barely changed, but I knew him well enough to recognize the irritation hidden beneath it.
It was not directed at me.
"No," he finally admitted. "They do not."
Of course they didn't.
"The United States government maintains that Trask's later operations were conducted without authorization from its civilian leadership. Several military departments claim their own involvement ended before the Sentinel network became autonomous, while the agencies presently answering our inquiries appear remarkably eager to explain which other agency possessed jurisdiction over each relevant program."
I stared at him.
Agravain's mouth tightened.
"In simpler terms, Your Majesty, everyone involved appears to have discovered that someone else was responsible."
"How convenient."
"Extremely."
I returned my gaze to the city.
That was almost worse than a confession.
Had some president or general stood before me and simply admitted that they had authorized Trask's work, I would at least have known where responsibility began. Instead, it seemed the Sentinel project had become exactly what so many great atrocities became once enough people were involved: a thousand small decisions made by individuals who each insisted that none of them had personally made the final one.
Someone approved the funding.
Someone released the Chitauri salvage.
Someone authorized the facilities.
Someone ignored the warnings.
Someone decided that building machines whose sole purpose was hunting a class of people was acceptable because those people happened to be mutants.
And now they would all point at Trask's corpse and insist that the dead man had somehow done everything alone.
"Find out," I said.
Agravain nodded once. "Already underway."
That made me glance toward him.
He looked almost offended that I might have expected otherwise.
"You believed I would wait for permission?"
I smiled slightly. "No. I suppose I didn't."