Chapter 6-2

Leonas was, quite simply, bored out of his mind. They had put Milly and Anjanette in the other wing of the jail, and he was stuck with a dozing drunk in the temporary holding cells. He stared at the plain white walls, and sometimes through the grate in the door through to the plain white walls in the hallway. If nothing else he had variety.

He paced the room. For the thousandth time he tried to conjure up some magic – telekinesis to grab the guard’s keys, some sort of teleportation – but he always hit a wall. Leonas had heard that most of the big cities had anti-magic areas for prisons and government buildings. He guessed this was one of them. It felt eerie, vaguely inhuman, like a room with just too little air.

Leonas was worried about Anjanette. And Milly too, he realized. They wouldn’t survive in jail. He knew how to keep a low profile, and perhaps more importanly, how to suck a dick. But Milly seemed frightened of talking to her own shadow, and Anjanette eternally refused to shut up.

They needed to get out.

His mind raced in circles.

* * *

Valgard had won the auction, of course. He had the entirety of Alleria’s coffers behind him. His father, King Damien, had explicitly told him to use any and all of the nation’s resources on this quest. But it didn’t take all of Alleria’s coffers, once he had Milly and her group arrested. Nobody else was bidding against him.

Linnar bowed to him, his golden armour flashing light in his eyes. “Sir, we have consulted the prophecies, and we believe the next location to be the tomb of Inias Grunwald, the famous Tiger of the Kendrans. When shall we set off?”

“Tomorrow,” decided Valgard. “I want to take in the city tonight. Let’s see how the AOK treats royalty.”

They had come as soon as word spread of his dramatic intervention at the auction. Minor politicians, clerks and aristocrats, all welcoming him to their great city. Valgard despised them so. A common man selected his ruler not by merit or distinction, but by who had prostrated themselves before his class or group the most. Thus you had a nation ruled by spineless demogouges. Democracy, in Valgard’s experience, was sung in soprano.

He had been given an invitation to dinner with the Head Councillor, but it had been delivered by one of his lackeys. Fitting for an artist or merchant, but to a member of the purest bloodline in the world, it was an insult. He might go someplace else instead.

Valgard took a look out the window of his penthouse suite. Down on the street the Aokians hustled and bustled, going on with their daily lives. The women showed far too much flesh, and the men were far too vulgar. They cared for nothing but themselves, cared nothing for their country or honour or God. It was not like this in Alleria.

It reminded Valgard of why he needed to succeed. When Alleria was ascendant again, when the Golden Kingdom once again stretched from coast to coast, the streets would not be full of whores and brutes. Honour and dignity would be restored.

He would restore the world.

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