The Final Redemption by Michael Manning (little red riding hood ebook free .txt) 📕

a different vantage point. I could sense a large swathof the city, but most of the palace was curiously opaque. Many ofthe interior walls seemed to have some sort of embedded shield thatblocked magesight.

Stepping back inside, I walked until Ireached the closest wall with one of the new shields. Peeringclosely, I could see the small runes engraved along the base of thewall. It was an enchantment I hadn’t seen before, but its purposewas self-evident. Someone had put privacy shields throughout thepalace.

They weren’t powerful. I could haveeasily broken one, but I could tell they were linked to somethingelse, probably something to signal that the enchantment had beenbreached. It was the sort of thing that should have been done agesago for King James. It made perfect sense for the ruler of ourpowerful nation to have privacy for matters of state.

Except, I had never thought ofit.

Apparently someone elsehad, though. It had to have beenGareth, I assumed. The man hadn’t beenhuman more than a month, and he was already sticking his nose intopolitics.

I sat, irritated, and waited untilsomething like five minutes had passed. Finally I got up, and as Iwas striding toward the door, it was opened by someone I recognizedjust before I got there.

“My lord,” said Sir Harold, looking abit embarrassed, “If you will follow me.”

I raised one eyebrow, but followed himwithout comment.

He led me along a longcorridor, one I already knew quite well. It did not lead to the royal quarters, orto one of the meeting chambers. He was taking me toward thebarracks.

“Harold,” I asked calmly, “Where arewe going?”

“Forgive me, my lord,” hesaid quickly. His eyes looked a bit furtive, as though he wasafraid someone might spot him. No, as ifsomeone might spot me, I corrected myselfmentally. “This is the way to my office near the barracks. We cantalk privately there.”

I nodded as though that were perfectlynormal.

We reached his office withoutencountering anyone, which I figured had been his purpose. He musthave known that the men in that area were already on duty. As soonas we entered, I pounced with my first question, “Why do you havean office in the palace, Harold?”

His face turned a funny shade of pink,telling me I had hit a sensitive spot. “Well, my lord, that’s aninteresting story. While you were away, a lot happened. The lordsnearly rebelled when we moved to have Her Majesty crowned. Peterthought it would be a good idea to provide the Queen with solidsupport to prevent the same sort of thing that happenedbefore…”

“Alright, I get the picture,” I saidcutting him off. “But this is an office.”

“The remaining Knights of Stone havetaken over security for the palace, as well as command of the royalguard,” he explained.

“For how long?”

His color grew deeper. “This is merelya temporary measure, Your Excellency, since you were unavailable,until…”

“Until, what?”

“Until you sign the documents theQueen has had drawn up,” he finished. His eyes wouldn’t meetmine.

“Documents,” I muttered.

“Her Majesty intends to nationalizethe Order of the Stone,” he replied, his voice growing softer asthe sentence wound down to its end.

I gave him a sour look.“Nationalize, as in she’s taking myknights for her own?” I took a deepbreath.

“Peter should have informed you aboutall of this,” suggested Harold.

I waved my hands dismissively. “He’sleft a lot of papers and reports, but I haven’t gone through themyet.” I was regretting that already. I had left my self-imposedretreat without warning, and Peter had been out at thetime.

“So, you have no idea about today’sconclave?” Harold asked tentatively.

I tilted my head to one side and gavehim my best ‘what do you think’ look. “Surely there’s someone herewho will share the news with me,” I offered, staring throughhim.

“They’re in the Hall of Lords,” beganHarold. “They’ve called a full conclave to discuss what to do withyou.”

“Of course,” I said dryly,“I figured it would be something silly, like confirming the supportfor her coronation or reorganizing after the disaster. I neversuspected it would be something soimportant.”

“The coronation was held last week,”mentioned Harold.

They hadn’t wasted much time with thatthen. Obviously, I was woefully lacking in information. “So, whatare they trying to decide about me?”

“The majority of the nobility iscalling for a trial, to settle the matter of your actions duringthe recent insurrection,” he explained.

“Trial?” I spluttered. “What are theycharging me with?”

“Today’s meeting was to decide theformal list of charges, my lord.”

That’s when I finally realized thatAdam had been trying to do me a favor by keeping me from wanderingblindly into a meeting I wasn’t prepared for. Instead he hadbrought Harold, giving me the opportunity to discover what lay infront of me.

“Tell me honestly, Harold. How bad doyou think this is?”

“Do you know what the people in thestreets call you?” he asked suddenly.

I shrugged.

“They’ve taken to calling you the‘Blood Lord’ or sometimes the ‘Blood Count’. You’re what they telltheir children about when they want to make sure they don’t leavehome at night,” said Harold.

“Well that’s new,” I respondedblandly. I was completely blindsided. While I was deeply ashamed ofwhat my alter-ego had done that night, I hadn’t thought anyone hadseen him, no one still alive anyway. Since he had restrictedhimself to the usurpers men, I didn’t think it would have been amatter for a trial either.

“They found over a thousand peopledead,” said Harold urgently. “And that was just inside the city.There were thousands more outside of it.”

Well true, but most of those had beenshiggreth. They had stopped moving like marionettes with theirstrings cut when Mal’goroth/Brexus had finally died.

“A lot of those were already dead,” Itold him honestly.

Harold clapped his hands over hisears. “Please don’t make me a witness, my lord.”

I sighed. Sometimes Harold was toohonest for his own good.

“The point of all this, is that youshould return home. Plan your response,” he advised me.

Chapter 51

“I told you there was a risk of civilwar!” said Peter loudly, almost on the verge ofshouting.

“You didn’t say anything about themputting me on trial,” I groused.

My blond chamberlain ran his handthrough his hair again. It was a miracle he hadn’t pulled it allout yet. “I wasn’t informed. That was in the private missives thatthe Queen sent you. Didn’t you think to