Chapter 44: Chapter 44: Messenger’s One Shot

I couldn’t find the tip of my tail in the clean-up. It wasn’t the end of the world, but I felt my balance was off, even after I bound bandages around the stump. I sat down in one of the stools that had been left untouched by the chaos. Justice was helping look around for survivors with Knight Florince and the rest of the guards. 

I would have been helping them, but one Royal Guard nearly cut off my hand when I’d started crawling under the stands to look for any mercenaries or hiding civilians. It took some convincing by Florince that I wasn’t among the attackers and trying to get away. 

Everyone decided it would be safer for me to stay in the stands. I was not being kept with the prisoners, at least. In fact, there were enough prisoners that the Royal Guard needed to send some of them with the City Guard. I told Florince that some of the Kobold slaves should go to High Investigator Raim in the city guard.

Just in case something might happen to them in the royal jail. 

“It doesn’t seem like you prevented much in the way of war.”

More civilians died than I would have liked. If there had been more Royal Guard here, or if the City Guard, a much larger organization, could have also taken part…  

*In the future Justice saw, there was no one to interrogate to prove that the Drakengard were imposters. All of them were killed to the last, Kobold and Drake. Also, High Investigator Raim will be able to corroborate. Not a rousing success, but we had two days to work, and our foes planned for years.*

“Well. Perhaps that will be enough.” 

I’d retrieved Katarachin after Sessethenshen died, in the normal way.  The curse was not immediately debilitating, and I hadn’t had time to ask Justice to [Inspect] or Identify the details of the curse yet. 

Eventually, Justice, who’d stayed at Florince’s side for the remainder of the morning, headed back up to me. I looked at him expectantly and she explained, “We are going to the Royal Palace for questioning.”

This much I expected. “As prisoners?”

“As messengers. ‘For now’, she said.”

The difference between being a prisoner and a messenger was, in fact, a legal one. We’d be escorted, but get to keep our arms and armament. We would be inspected, but not by the Royal Assessor. Then we would be lightly interrogated. 

It was an old tradition, back when Sumar wasn’t an empire, but a set of loosely connected kingdoms. The rules persisted to today, though tended to be more a formality of extended to the provinces that were under empire control, but more or less maintained their existing nobility structure. Except the prime monarch, which was always killed and their descendents wiped out where possible. 

We were escorted out of the garden and through the streets. There was a direct path to the Palace from the gardens, but I gathered we were going through a more secure entrance. Knight Florince was not with us. 

The streets were on lockdown. Guards on every corner, both City and Royal. No time and place for usual rivalries. If one of the Royal Knights we’d fought with hadn’t been with us, I suspected we’d have been snatched into a local jail cell for being suspicious. 

The Palace was grand and beautiful, having been remodeled long ago in the Empress’s current favor. Silver inlaid obsidian accented the cool gray marble walls. The floors were made of red and blue stone panels and rugs. It was a lot to pay attention to and I was getting a little overloaded. I’d not slept for more than forty-eight hours, so forgive me for not using my energy on observing opulence and splendor. 

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We were taken to a smaller room, relatively. It was still bigger than my flat. When my flat was not a burning husk that had the corpses of two government agents in it. 

We were [Inspect]ed. Our identities confirmed, a stern woman dressed in the Royal Guard Officer’s outfit that identified her as a Viceroy, sat in the desk chair opposite us. There were only a dozen Viceroys, if I recalled. Three other well armed guards also stood behind her. I am sure there were more outside. 

“Begin with your break-in to the palace three days ago, Justice, and explain what is happening right now.” 

Justice swallowed and began. 

It took a while, and Justice actually had to go back to when he first escaped Sanctum and set off a war artifact, killing cultists and setting a forest ablaze. 

I chimed in when it was my placed to do so, and helped Justice explain things that wouldn’t make sense unless one believed he could see the future. 

When Justice brought us to the present, the Viceroy turned to me and said. “You raised a Priority Letter to the City Commander.”

“Yes.” 

“In it, you stated that you heard that there were criminals intending to disrupt the coronation from relatives.” 

“Yes.”

“Who in your family gave you this information.”

“No one in my family gave me that information.” She didn’t look impressed with my flat reply, so I continued, “I was taken into the confidence of High Investigator Raim.” 

Some of Raim’s activities were no doubt secret, particularly the human trafficking of slaves to freedom, but I also did not want to go to prison for being too cute by half at this moment. He was more than capable of coming up with a good lie for how he uncovered a huge conspiracy that helped save the city from mercenaries and criminals.

She stared at us, her own Guidance screen floating beside her, a seafoam blue color, where she was no doubt taking notes. I had my own Guidance open, having explained that I was a Master Scribe and had taken copious notes of our journey. 

“Fine. You are to remain in a lounge until we decide what to do with you.”

We rose, myself hopping off the upright mammalian chair that I’d turned sideways. One of the guards opened the door and a nervous looking assistant was standing outside. He swallowed, “Uh, the princess would like to meet these two.”

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