It wasn’t until the next dusk that we stopped in the forest, far from where that noble family was and farther than they could expect someone to have gotten, I leaned against a tree as I breathed deeply, my body was sore and hurt from the prolongs horseback riding, not needing my own rest, but Omen needing his, leading to him being near dead asleep across the small area we were in, it wasn’t a clearing, he was asleep fully on the ground because of how comfortable he is around me as I stood and leaned against a tree.
I focused before doing the same thing I did before when I caused the scry spell on my sister, but this time, I sent it after Aldoric, my vision went through the same bottomless darkness before reforming into view of the massive palace of Lodor, fourteen narrow and square towers forming the markers of the protective wall around the palace, pale solid walls made of magically bleached white basalt, huge windows scattered generously amongst the walls in a fairly symmetrical pattern with slots for archery and artillery along the top of the walls between the galactarates, a huge gate facing the massive plaza at the coast; one side leading into the palace, the other leading to the market plaza, the gate was about ten-fifteen feet wide made of metal with archery slots beside it forming the only known entrance, past the fourteen walled tower were ascending levels of the palace, the first level having nine solid round towers were purple toned turrets, crenellations marked the walls and areas of the palace, huge pendants and things hanging from spots, ivy and purple flowers grew up the stone, all of the towers dwarfed the rest of the city, with each tier of the palace having random amounts of various shaped towers, some being round, some square, other triangular, some rings had each tower a different shape, but every wing, tier and tower were covered in highly pitched, slightly concave purple roofs, gold/silver statues and vines along the top seam, there were a lot of windows lit, but my sensor swirled around the palace as it kept going higher and higher to where a tower had a huge wing grow off it near the top ending in a nearly free-hanging tower and faded into the tower.
Aldoric was sitting on the glass encased balcony, the moon light covering him in an intense ivory wash of light, his skin was glistening with moisture, his hair hung around him loose to pool on the cushions beside him in tight ringlet bouncy coils of icy white gold, his makeup was off and he was just clad in a single layer of dark purple silk patterned with white roses on gold vines, edged in white, but his legs were up on an ottoman showing he had thigh high white stockings on those thick thighs of his showing off how tiny he is, he had a book open on his lap.
“Enter.” He said, there was a full tea set on a small end-table between the couch and ottoman even with his knees, teacup softly steaming with pink toned tea in it, a small bowl of sugar and a decanter of cream on the pewter tray, a guard of the palace in full eggplant, gold and ivory toned gambeson, black trousers, black boots and similar accoutrement across his person, walking with his hand around the haft of a tall spear with a wavy Damascus spear head and matching war-hammer like counter balance,
“My liege” the guard said bowing his head as he fell to a knee, “News has just been reported from the La-Minnings residence in Albadoba.”
“…DB?” he asked, softly setting his book down,
“Yes, my…liege. Do…do you wish to read the report they sent?”
“Yes” he said snapping his fingers as he held a hand over the back of the loveseat he was on, the guard walked over and put a thick bound scroll in his hand, “You’re dismissed.” He added with a brushing waft of his hand, the guard bowed again before walking out of the massive chambers. Aldoric snapped the wax seal as he unfurled it, I could see…even in the icy toned moonlight that washed his already pale skin snowy pale somehow even further as his brows softly rose, eyes growing wide, “DB…has her throw the baby in the fire place.” He said quietly as he read everything that I did to that noble family. “Albadoba is…three days travel from here, it…it couldn’t have been Aram, she’s a necromancer, teleportation isn’t necromancy, she also didn’t have a horse or anything with her.” He said, frantically trying to put things together to make me not DB in his eyes, “She…she can’t be DB…she can’t be the assassin.” He said putting a hand against his sternum and chest, “Hopefully…the guards can find her so I can talk to her again, she must know something about this assassin.” He said before putting the scroll on the loveseat beside him, gripping his robes, “I mean, she…talked to me like that and protected me from those muggers, if she had known I’m a prince she would have joined with them and killed me or something, all DB does is…mutilate and destroy noble families and military barracks.” He said as he looked towards his feet, one hand idly twisting his still dripping wet hair around his fingers, the other hand digging into the bottom of his silken robe.
The rest of the ten minutes comprised of him mainly panic about trying to link ideas and things together to not have me be DB. Working himself up into a panic till he was trembling, his face was flushing and his eyes were pin-points despite the darkness, I looked towards the scroll on the table as I looked for a name or market for who wrote the report before all I saw was an L near the bottom. I sighed softly as I looked around his massive chambers of marble, bleached basalt, dark purple velvet, brocade and dark green velvet covered furniture like that loveseat, couches and chairs, the dark stone fireplace was blazing casting long, rippling shadows to stretch across the ground, walls and ceiling as the crackling filled my ears and the smell of smoke, herbs and fragrant wood filled my nose. My vision faded to blackness around the edges of my vision not letting me see really more beyond a few foot wide sphere around Aldoric, the scry spell is mainly focused on spying on the person or location you wish to see, not for trying to see the area the person you’re looking at is in.
I laughed softly as the spell faded and my vision returned to my own eyes as I looked towards the night sky, my breath fogged aggressively to the point specks of ice and snowflakes formed in the air, it was cold, but nowhere close to cold enough for my breathe to be fogging like this, let alone freezing into snowflakes like this. I cracked my neck, the sound echoed out into the clearing and was loud enough to send a few birds scattering into the air, my boots dug into the soft sod as my leather clothing softly dug into the rough bark of the tree I leaned against before I stood up properly. I took out my list of nobles from my hip and unfurled it, biting my finger as I slid my thumb across La-Minnings, my own blood is warped and twisted in color because of my magic, not reds of mortal races, but my blood is pure…ink black. I twisted the scroll back up as I memorized the next name and location on the list.
As I waited for Omen to finish his sleep, I went through all of the jewelry and things I stole from the manor, using a tiny chisel to shave off things like crests, maker’s marks and things of that sort so they cannot be traced back to me, back to that family or things of that could incriminate me as having stolen them. I also cleaned off any blood on them and got started on the labor intensive process of removing gemstones without harming them, making the pieces look like I scavenges them from less than proper environments rather than stealing them from the freshly murdered noble families.
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