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

After my ordeals, I had taken analmost perverse pleasure in completely ignoring all of it. Ifigured I deserved it, and most certainly my family had. Now I waspaying the price.

In my absence, the new Queen had beenhard pressed to solidify her hold on the governance of Lothion. Thecapital had been in a state of near anarchy when she returned. My‘solution’ to the problem of Andrew Tremont had traumatized thecitizens and given birth to a whole host of rumors and outrightlies.

If I had been there, much of it mighthave been avoided. The Lords would certainly never have been sobold as to press a case against me. Gareth and to my surprise,Elaine, had done their best to support Ariadne during thetransition. It had actually been Elaine’s handiwork producing theenchanted privacy shields in the palace, although Gareth had taughther the design.

But Gareth Gaelyn hadn’t had the samesort of reputation and general clout that I did. Combine that withthe fact that I had done my best to ruin myself in the eyes of justabout everyone, and it was a recipe for my politicaldownfall.

A knock came at the door. After amoment, one of my footmen introduced the visitor as Lady Rose. Thatstartled me a bit. I hadn’t seen her in weeks.

“Gentlemen,” she said. It was onlyPeter and me in the room. I had spoken with Penny about it earlier,and she’d been rather perturbed. She still hadn’t gotten past the‘cutting them into small pieces’ stage of angermanagement.

“Rose,” I said, trying to keep myemotional reaction off of my face. I took her hand and passed itunder my lips. Not something I did on most of our greetings, but ithad been a while and it helped to get my face out of view for amoment. The last thing she needed to see was pity on myface.

She was not so easily fooled ofcourse. “I am not so fragile that I will break, Mordecai,” she toldme. Setting her hand to my chin she lifted my head, forcing me togive her a direct stare. My eyes began watering almostimmediately.

Seeing her brought Dorian’s death backinto stark, painful focus. She pursed her lips, trying to keep herown eyes dry, and then she hugged me tightly. A few minutes passedbefore we were able to return to the discussion at hand. Steppingaway Rose moved the conversation on, “We’ll talk about thingslater, for now I need to hear about your trial.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Why?” It wasrude the way I said it, but I had thought to leave her out of this.She was still grieving.

“Two reasons,” she said, beginning herpoints in the same logical fashion she often did. “One, you needsomeone to represent you. Two, I need to do something—anything,before I go mad.”

I couldn’t help but agree. Not tomention, it was a relief to hear the words. Somehow I couldn’timagine my case going poorly with Rose defending me. The woman wassharper than any two noblemen put together. I had learned a deeprespect for her during the years I had known her. She was a forceto be reckoned with.

“Tell me about the charges,” shesaid.

I offered her the charging documentand summons, which I had just received. She scanned through it andthought for a moment before speaking again.

“This is rather unusual,” she said atlast.

I nodded intelligently.

“I thought they might press a casebased on the events in Albamarl, but this relates to what happenedat Tremont’s estate. They really don’t have any evidence of yourinvolvement there. Were you involved in it?” she asked.

My alter-ego had sent a legion of theshiggreth to wipe out Tremont’s holdings. While I had some blurrymemories of arguing with him, trying to convince him otherwise, hehadn’t been swayed. In fact his actual orders had been rather openended. The shiggreth had killed every living person at Tremont’scastle, everyone in the neighboring town, and most of the outlyingfarmers.

It had been an almost completeslaughter. Afterward, many of the shiggreth themselves had diedthere, when I freed Mal’goroth/Brexus. The first people to try andrestore contact with the region had been horrified to find a landfull of dead and rotten corpses. It was still unoccupied. The landitself had acquired a cursed reputation.

“I think so,” I told her.

She frowned, “You thinkso, or you know so? Explain, please.”

I launched into a lengthydescription of the events. Their faces grew paler the more Italked. In fact, the more I went over it, the more I wondered athow quickly I had pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind. Ihad been very carefully notthinking about all the things my other-self haddone in my name during the past year.

“Well, they don’t really have a case,”said Rose after I had finished.

Short of arguing that I hadn’t been inmy own mind at the time, I couldn’t see how that would be. My facetold her as much.

“There’s no proof you were in chargeof the shiggreth,” she said bluntly.

“I was a shiggreth,” Ireplied.

“They cannot infer control from thatalone, nor can they prove that you were, in fact, a shiggreth,” shesaid calmly.

“But I was!”

It was her turn to raise an eyebrow,“You don’t look like one to me.”

“I got better. Look you know most ofthe story already.”

She sighed, “That’s notthe point, Mordecai. Theydon’t know the story, and we don’t have to shareany facts that might incriminate you unless directly questionedregarding them.” She paused for a second and then added, “And ifthey did know thefull story, they’d drop this entire thing. You don’t deserve this.There wouldn’t be a court to prosecute you in if you hadn’t donewhat you did.”

“So should he tell them the wholething?” asked Peter.

“No,” she said calmly. “They’ll neverbelieve it. I meant if they really knew the truth. There’s no wayto convince them of the actual story. It sounds like a fabricationto protect him from blame.”

“I’ll just tell them the truth. Whatthey do with it is none of my concern,” I stated, wearying of thetopic.

Rose gave me an incredulous look,“Well of course it’s your concern. This could affect you and yourfamily in serious and permanent ways, and that’s withoutconsidering the possible damage to our nation.”

Mal’goroth had been potentiallydamaging to all human