The Heron Kings Rampant by Eric Lewis

Author:Eric Lewis
Format: epub

PART THREE

Chapter Sixteen

Wagons East

The Duchess turned away from the awful sight, fighting not to be sick. That just wouldn’t do, no matter the circumstances. Oh, Wellice, my dear, useful Wellice, she thought, what have they done to you?

She stood in the middle of the laboratory while acid gnawed at her expensive shoes, the mess at her feet that had once been Wellice unrecognizable. After three days, the spirit of nitre had left the flesh so corroded she wouldn’t have known who it’d been without being told. The goon whose name she didn’t bother to recall labored to explain this latest failure through the patchwork of bandages that covered his riven face. “They shurprished ush,” he muttered plaintively, “I shwear it weren’t my fault—”

Thefilda spun around and slapped the man across the face, reopening wounds made by a hundred shards of glass and setting red to spread across the bandages. “I am not interested in excuses,” she hissed. “The pair of you against one aging potion pusher and a girl, and this is the result?” First the loss of their safehouses, which only by sheer luck she’d not been at when they were raided, the failed strike against the palace, then the attack on that ridiculous sewer lair repelled, her court assassin exposed, and now this. The string of disasters was adding up, and the number of loyal followers dwindled. She stomped past the stairs and into the reception area. A dark, wide stain marred the rug where a body had clearly fallen, but was now nowhere to be found. “Where have you gone, my birdies?” she wondered.

“One thing I shaw different, when I came back thish morning,” the man continued, desperate to recover some small part of his lady’s regard, “were a tile in the bedchamber turned up, and a hole beneath. Few coins left there, probly more before. Quick cash meansh they left town in a hurry.”

“Mmm, that’s no surprise. We chased each other out of the city. But where?” Of course, she knew where. There was only one possible destination, and it already gave her a headache. “Do we have any couriers left? I must get word to Tarsanian.”

The goon nodded. “I’ll go myshelf, My Lady. Today, if you like.”

“Not so fast. I need some documents drawn up first.” She went over to the comfortable couch on the dais and poured herself a glass of brandy from the decanter set. Whatever else one might say about that pathetic alchemist, he knew how to welcome guests. Before her on the table were several pieces of news, harvested from this morning’s public billboards. One noted Master Castamar’s little fete at the royal court, him having laughably been declared some sort of hero. Another concerning a fire in Trophelia Heights. But most interestingly, a spate of arrests.

“Lord Felgred,” Theafilda muttered. “Lady Qualanella, Count Tryndle, Mister Brunsing…” The list continued. All high-class types, wealthy or noble or both, all members of the aristocratic faction in the Assembly. All accused of conspiracy to bring down the Crown.

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