They had Rina’s whole day scheduled for her: At nine, piano lessons; At ten-thirty, drawing; luncheon at noon followed by language, Orleasian today; a short break for tea at three, and then at four, poise and manners.
She’d often drag her feet in the mornings, trying to get out of it, but that never worked. However, today she actually did need to get out of it, so she did what they would never expect. She woke up at six, two hours before sunrise.
Without the lattice work of undergarments her maid usually constructed around her, the dress she threw on, purple taffeta and yellow Serenian lace, bunched up comically. That and her hair looked like a mop.
She hardly recognized the halls, dark and empty as they were. A few corridors into her trip, a blurry-eyed guard gave her a curious glance, though thankfully, stayed silent.
Rina paused for a moment as she passed her father’s door, her attention drawn to the paintings on the opposite wall. She was in one of them: a child at her parents’ feet. Next to it, hung a picture of her new stepmother, Crown Princess Adelaide. The woman was just standing next to some flowers, not doing anything. That seemed about right.
She turned away, continuing around the third floor, past two more corridors, and stopped in front of her uncle’s door. Marco’s door.
In her life, she’d never had a conversation with him that consisted of more than twenty words. The last, and only, time she’d tried playing one of her games on him, by introducing her maid as ‘Inquisitor Von Quist,’ he simply sighed and walked away. He was only interested in serious matters, genuine qualities, and well, Rina wasn’t sure she had any of those.
The guard outside his door silently watched her out of the corner of his eye.
She could still turn around, still go back to her room, back to her music lessons, back like nothing had happened.
But it had, and she knocked.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The sound of a man stumbling out of bed came from inside, the door cracked open, and Marco’s face appeared. He blinked as though trying to awaken from a dream. Once his eyes steadied on her, his face pulled itself into its usual expression of not quite annoyance, not quite boredom, but then after a deep breath, it softened.
“Is everything all right?” he asked. “Nothing else has happened, has it?”
Time to do this. She shook her head. “No and no.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
She didn’t know how else to put it, “Are we the bad guys?”
Marco chuckled at first, then arched a brow. He opened his door just wide enough, and motioned her to enter.
“Then who would the good guys be?” he asked, looking suspicious, like he was expecting to be the butt of one of her jokes.
“I don’t know. It’s just that witch. She said she was trying to save lives, and we, we’re going to kill her for it.”
The suspicion dropped from Marco’s eyes. “First of all, she made a weapon that can incinerate hundreds—thousands of people in seconds. I’d hardly call that ‘good.’ Second, she’s not going to die for trying to stop that. She kidnapped you, and supposedly, Olivia.”
“Liv said she didn’t want to go with her stepfather.”
“Yes, well, I believe that, but it doesn’t matter. Kidnapping a royal family member is rather frowned upon.”
“But we forced her into it.”
“By ‘we’, you mean your father?”
She nodded. “Can’t you do something?”
He sighed and sat down on the edge of his bed. “I don’t have any authority in the matter. The Church has her. Depending on whether or not they want a ‘trial,’ she may be dead already.”
“I thought they wanted her to make a weapon. What if she gives them that?”
“Then,” Marco glared at her, “a lot of people will die. And we’re all better off if ‘they’ never give her the chance to make that bargain.”
“By ‘they’ you mean my father and the king.”
“And the Church, and the wizards, and anyone else who thinks they stand to gain from war.”
“Do they? Do we?” she asked.
He chewed his thumbnail, thinking. “A man who kills his neighbor’s cow will no longer be able to buy cheese… But try telling him that when he’s got steak on the mind… Do you like that? I just made it up.” He shrugged.
“Tell me what to do. I want to help.”
“Seriously Rina, it’s refreshing to hear you talk like this, but it’s not that easy. If I knew what to do, I would have done it already. If you really want to help, you’re going to have to tell me how.”
“Oh.”
“Now you see the problem?” he asked.
“All right, we need to get in to see Scaggs.”
“I tried that. Josephine gave me the run around. She wants Scaggs dead. She won’t let us interfere.”
“Well… What if I also wanted that—evil witch—dead?... We have to think of the kingdom. We can't have someone like that running around, preying on the good people of Noria.” Rina’s voice had gone from playful to deadly serious. “She must be made example of.”
Marco rubbed his chin and smiled.
https://discord.gg/fQtFt2sYdf
– A religion and morality themed progression litRPG
– A pithy Victorian romance/mystery
We have a few very short and very long upcoming chapters. How do you feel about that?
