Isle of Wysteria: The Reluctant Queen by Aaron Lee Yeager

Author:Aaron Lee Yeager [Yeager, Aaron Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2014-01-13T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

The capitals of Stretis were in complete chaos. The waterfalls of Celecard had ceased running after a strike from the Stormcallers union. The absence of the water made the air feel dry and parched. No perfumed streams of air flowed through the towered buildings. All was stagnant and sweltering. In the surrounding cities civilians hid in their homes, forced inside by emergency curfew decrees. With all the law enforcement officers recalled to the palace, looting had become rampant, and lawlessness ruled the day. Shattered windows and pillaged storefronts replaced what had only a few days before been thriving market districts. Everywhere the sounds of breaking, shattering, and screaming filled the air, and already the days of peace and prosperity was beginning to feel distant and hazy, like a clouded memory.

Crowds of screaming bankers and merchants choked every entrance to the royal palace, barely held back at gunpoint by overwhelmed palace guards. Rotten vegetables and broken bits of masonry launched up anonymously from the fearsome crowd.

Inside the palace the new Queen, Erin Strelan, kicked over a stack of papers and shoved the adjutant away from her throne that sat at the head of a gilded table. “I said, I want the gold found and returned. Are you too stupid to understand that?”

“We've got ships looking everywhere,” explained the diminutive Lord Aghael, Minister of Defense. “As near as we can, tell the pirates scattered in every direction. We could send every ship in the fleet and never find all of them.”

“So why aren’t we sending every ship?” Erin barked as she spun around, her crown slipping askew.

“Because we are still trying to regroup for the offensive on Wysteria. If we send them all off it will take months to reform.”

“We don’t have months, Lord Ewjell, Minister of the Interior, pointed out through his thick mustache. “The Stone Council wants the war over yesterday.”

“I know that!” Erin bellowed, a strand of loose hair falling across her face.

Erin turned to face the heavy doors at the far end of the disheveled hall. She knew The Stone Council would be calling for her soon. She was essentially a condemned prisoner in her own palace.

“Perhaps we could bring in some of the Navy soldiers,” Lord Aghael suggested. “We could use the additional manpower to restore order in the capital.”

“The more soldiers we bring in, the more we risk the news of the robbery spreading off-island,” touted Lord Apolinano, Minister of Security.

“No one says the word robbery, you hear me?” Erin yelled. “That word is forbidden.”

“We barely have it locked down as it is,” forewarned Lord Dahool, Minister of Transportation. “How much longer we can keep all of these civilian ships trapped in our docks?”

“Our people are Stormcallers,” Erin yelled. “No one leaves this island without wind, and no one allows wind to exist without my say so!”

“Be reasonable, My Queen,” Lord Apolinato enjoined, scratching his jowls. “This is too big to keep secret.”

“No!” Erin yelled, holding up her royal scepter. “I will not spend my reign taking the blame for the incompetence of others.

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