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Chapter 69
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The Demon Chapter 70
Upon arrival, the guards discovered a horrific scene. Four assassins with wounds of varying severity, one defender who was especially full of holes, and a frightened prince under the bed.What happened?I was sleeping, then somebody pushed me from the bed, bolts started flying, I crawled to the nearest hiding spot, there was a battle...is it over yet?They pulled me out, assured me that everything would be all right, and asked who had protected me.I have no idea.Yes, the country should know its heroes, but personally, I don’t know this one.Find out yourselves who it is, and don’t forget to protect me.They were trying to murder me! Enemies all around! Marquis Chartreuse tried to calm me down, but I was hysterical, and continued writhing in it until the arrival of Tom, whom I promptly assigned as the captain of my personal guard.Chartreuse tried to object, but the five bodies seemed quite convincing.No, marquis. In the future, you’ll only be guarding the dowager queen, and I’ll be
The Demon Chapter 71
Carlie was waiting for me in the parlor, just as I had asked her to. She was pacing the room, twiddling a strand of hair in her hand.“Alex!”“Carlie, sit down, please. We need to have a serious talk.”“About what, Alex?”“Do you know that there is going to be an attempt on your life?”“What!”“You’re carrying a potential child of Rudolph’s and don’t know about the fate of his previous mistresses? Abigail isn’t going to tolerate you...”Now that was something Carlie could believe.“But you will...”“Protect you?”Carlie nodded, but then realized that everything would be more complicated.“Carlie, dear, you’ll have to leave the capital and go to the country. Just for a while.”“Where?”Her voice was filled with so much disgust that one would think she had been offered a worm as a meal.“To the countryside—for a while. Two months or so.”“What for?”“It won’t be safe in the capital. There’s going to be a war with Tevarr, and I’ll have to leave. Who’s going to protect you in the meantime
The Demon Chapter 72
Duke Rataver was hung on the city square in two days. He was declared a warlock, and his daughter, the murderer of poor King Rudolph. Of course, that wasn’t proven, but who else could it be? And really, as soon as we catch her, we’ll prove everything! She’ll definitely confess.The Church will gently convince her to! We sent a letter to Mikael’s son in Tevarr, complaining that my royal counterpart had given me defective goods. Not just shelf-warmers, rotten since day one! And don’t even say that your father hadn’t known it.And now...such a blow!I’m positively shaken. The only way to ease my anguish was a big piece of land, and since my father-in-law was an unholy warlock, then Rataver could be a good way to compensate me for my torment. Either by the king’s will, or my own.I wasn’t laying the duke to rest. I had more important things to deal with: review the troops, hang six generals, two dozen colonels, and a countless number of lieutenants. Based on the results of the review, two
The Demon Chapter 73
For the time being, my priority was reconnaissance, and it didn’t let me down. The Tevarrian force had set up camp two days’ journey ahead of us. More than twenty thousand people—infantry and cavalry—against our five thousand.I had refused to take more. That upset the people, which made sense; nobody wanted to die. I wasn’t trying to calm them, I just said that we would fight. We camped in a convenient location, of course. I wasn’t going to march forward and risk clashing with the enemy army at the time of their choosing.Let them come and attack, and we’ll face them. The generals, who had just been appointed and still were in shock at such a boon, all agreed, and my troops started to set up camp.I complained about a headache, ordered them not to disturb me and to dig fortifications, and retired to my tent...only to leave it ten minutes later.I only took the ritual tools. By the middle of the night, I had to reach the enemy army. Whom did I summon as my assistant?Ak-kvir, of cours
The Demon Chapter 74
Argadon left at dawn, and his army with him. They were a gruesome sight. Well, they hadn’t been nice to look at from the get-go, but clutching pieces of bloody flesh in their claws and paws and fangs and teeth, all smeared in blood, some of them wearing human guts as bandoliers, they could creep out anyone.Ak-kvir stayed, baring his bloody teeth at me.“What are your orders, Master?”I made sure that no other demon other than him was nearby and broke the protective circle. I came out of the pentagram and dusted myself off.My next task was to clean up. I left the bodies where they were, took the cloak with me. The dagger, the candles...is that all? Ak-kvir dutifully let me mount him and darted off.I released him not far from our camp and got a look full of devotion.You bet.So much food each time. I covered the rest of the distance on foot. My absence, however, had been noticed, and six colonels were waiting for me in the camp.“What are you sitting around for?”I greeted them.“Yo
The Demon Chapter 75
Radenor wasn’t especially excited to meet us. Morinar clearly hadn’t wasted any time.The streets were being patrolled, the corpses of criminals were hanging on the square, but the walls were freshly repaired, and the ditch, clean.The roads were also being paved. Maybe the executions had had an effect?Going by his report, that was true. I had barely started reading when Abigail burst into my study.“Alexander! That is unacceptable!”“What is, Auntie?”Of course, it was Morinar, who dared to make lists of thieves and stolen properties, had shut down Abigail’s attempts to continue in this vein, all in all, was behaving in an absolutely disgusting manner and forcing everyone to obey the law.What a degenerate. I had to calm her down. Don’t worry, we don’t execute innocents. If Morinar made a mistake, I will sort everything out.He suspects your family? That cannot be!They are famed throughout Radenor for their honesty. That has to be a mistake!You shouldn’t agitate yourself so much,
The Demon Chapter 76
The next day, the Chartreuses seemed somewhat subdued. And Viscount Latour...“Your Majesty, my wife...”After hearing out his anguished plea about his wife who had vanished together with his heir, I nodded.Of course, you should check the palace and question everyone, you are in your right.Go on.And I...sympathize with you so much. By the way, couldn’t she have left you, too?Carlie is a flighty girl, and during pregnancy, when even the most dignified women start being irrational... Abigail grew pale.Sure.She needed a newborn! But who would give birth? Finding a baby wouldn’t be too hard, but she needed that one specifically. Or would she get up the nerve to buy or kidnap the first baby she could get her hands on? She would, of course she would... Once, my mother had scraped the palace library clean. I made a mental note to return the books later.Before the princess’ departure, Abigail had never read any of them, and afterward, she couldn’t, but there was a lot of interesting re
The Demon Chapter 77
The next five days were dominated by spy reports. I kept reading and reading, even if the ghosts did discard the unnecessary information, leaving only the bare facts.The scale of the remaining corruption was astounding. The treasurer hinted to Abigail that he had always been devoted to the queen, especially if she left him in his position. The commander of the guard, the chamberlain, two senior chamberlains, two thirds of all courtiers... Whoa.If I decided to execute everybody, I wouldn’t have enough gallows in the entire kingdom. I would have to fix the situation another way.Finally, the fateful day came. I was sitting on the throne. In the morning, or, more precisely, at night, I had visited the brothel to make sure that Carlie had still been pregnant.Therefore, the child had no rights to the throne, not being a Radenor by blood. None at all. Even if he turned out to be Andre’s bastard, even then I would have been the first in line, I would have been recognized by the throne, to
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