Chapter 243 - Scorching Embers

Claire blinked away her drowsiness as she inadvertently took a sip from a fine porcelain cup. It was early in the day, just a few hours past lunch. And perhaps that was why she suddenly found her replacement in the midst of her afternoon snack. Her body resisted when she tried to seize control. It refused to loosen its grip on the reins, snapping back and grumbling when she tried to forcibly snatch them away. The maids, unaware of the struggle, watched with a smile while the fake drowned herself in the deep orange tea.

Each time it drank, she felt a wave of glee pulse through her disjointed system. Her lips twisted into a smile while her body relaxed into the soft, cushioned seat behind it. It was only after the cup was emptied that the fake finally began to relinquish control, yielding it to her whilst sharing a thought akin to a cheeky smile. She was about to stand, but her legs suddenly refused again when a thoraen maid entered the room with a fresh, piping-hot kettle. The replacement’s anticipation washed over her like a cold shower, flooding her senses with another incomprehensible burst of joy.

Though very much annoyed, Claire decided to use the opportunity to examine her surroundings. She knew that they were somewhere in the castle’s west wing, based on the tower reflected in the window, but she found it difficult to make out the precise location. It was one of the many generic rooms whose sole purpose was to confuse a potential intruder. Officially, they were labeled as studies, but the chambers outnumbered the royals by a ratio of ten to one, and that was including the extended family.

“This will have to be your last cup. You’re scheduled for a lesson with Durham in just over ten minutes.”

Two waves of despair washed through the lady’s body. The fake immediately tried to foist control onto the guest in her head, but Claire passed it right back. Only upon receiving it again did the abyssal horror recall that she had no stake in the affair at hand. It would be the fake that was scolded for skipping her lessons. Sensing the thought, the otherwise relieved mind began panicking all over again. She tried to wrest her body back from not-fake Claire, but it was too late. She had already thrown it away.

Finally free to do as she pleased, Claire shot to her feet and bolted out the door. A very confused Beatrice shouted something or other after her, but she paid the maid no mind and ran straight down the hall. Given the building’s scale, it would not have been unreasonable to expect that it would be cold. It had only been three weeks since the solstice, and they were still very much in the midst of winter. But even with spring nearly a dozen days away, it was as nice and toasty as an oven. Not that it mattered to the lyrkress. The homunculus didn’t share her first form’s sensitivity to the cold.

The speed of her escape earned her a number of curious looks, but none of the servants or guards tried to stop her, even with an angry maid hot on her tail. If the local legends were to be believed, they had learned better following their experiences with Princess Octavia, who was feral enough to kick and bite without mercy.

Claire was less violent and more agile. She leapt over a butler’s trolley and slid between a guard’s legs as she rounded a corner. Beatrice didn’t quite give up, but the chase was effectively over. Her frame was too large to get around the obstacles, and she wasn’t any faster than the lady she was after.

On any other day, the halfbreed would have sealed her victory in stone by leaping out the window and navigating the castle from the outside, but the storm looming just beyond the glass suggested that it was impossible. The blizzard itself was not what stopped her; the windows were magically locked, charged with mana to maintain their current state even as the hail pounded against them. And if the storm couldn’t get through, her fists were unlikely to prove any better.

The interior was much more painful to traverse. Like the city built around it, the castle was constructed with a potential invasion in mind. Its halls were so twisted and convoluted that it often took fresh hires a full month to stop getting lost. In some places, accessing a neighbouring room would involve going up and down several flights of stairs, many of which were located in the strangest of places. Closets, trap doors, and moving bookcases were all key to reaching the ruling family’s quarters.

The main downside to such an approach were the extra rules that came with maintaining security. There could only be a single path to each final destination, and Claire had a rather obnoxious guard inbound. She would have to find the exit before he entered the home stretch and cornered her into her cage. Had she been more knowledgeable about the castle, she likely could have taken one secret escape route or other, but Octavia’s wing was the only one she knew like the back of her hand.

She did manage to find herself a stairwell by following the trail of servants and guards, but Durham stepped out of it before she could complete her escape. When she tried running past him, he caught her by the scruff and lifted her into the air. The tiny halfbreed soon found herself held eye to eye with a full three meters between her feet and the ground. She tried attacking his fingers, but to no avail. His grip was too tight.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, with a grin.

“That is not the sort of question you should be asking a lady.” She focused her mana into her eyes as she spoke the response, but he didn’t even react. “Now let go of me, you perverted brute.”

“So you can talk? I knew I wasn’t just imagining things last time.” He raised a brow, but continued carrying her back to her study.

“You were,” said Claire. “Now let go of me before I put another rusty screw between your legs.”

The man’s lips twisted into a wince as a shiver ran all the way up his spine. “Y’know, princesses aren’t supposed to threaten people’s genitals like that. It’s not exactly chaste. Or pure, for that matter.”

“And neither is the pile of filth that is your mind. Now put me down.”

She laced the final phrase with magic and transformed it into a command. She was only half sure it would still work whilst she was possessing the homunculus, but the knight’s fingers were shackled by a series of golden chains. They abided immediately by commands and plied his hands apart.

“Oh, come on. Now this is just unreasonable,” he said, with an awkward smile.

“Shut up, pervert. And stand down.”

A second set of chains bound his lips, while a third bound him to the floor. It wasn’t her magic, but rather the result of a contract enforced by the goddess of order. He had sworn absolute obedience in all but mind and speech to both the lady and her father.

“Alright, alright. I get it already. You don’t feel like taking lessons today.” His words were muffled by his muzzle, but he was able to produce most of the sounds for them to make sense. “I’ll leave you alone, so just get rid of these damned chains already.”

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“No.”

She kicked him in the side before continuing down the corridor with haste. Enforcing her knight’s contract had come with an unwanted cost. Every use of it notified her father, and she had no intention of sticking around for long enough to see his ugly mug again.

The lyrkress clenched her fists and made for Allegra’s kitchen. Or wherever else her father’s meals were prepared.

In her head, it was simple. But in reality, it was on the opposite side of a fifty acre maze, and she was nowhere near as fast as she needed to be. She heard her father coming from a mile away, his hooves thundering as he bolted through the halls. There were plenty of rooms around, but hiding from him was impossible, not when he could see blood the same way she could see catgirls.

It annoyed her to admit it, but she was cornered. Left with no other choice, she moved to the nearest door, gave it a twist, and flung her consciousness back into the abyss. More opportunities would come, so long as she was willing to wait.

___

The next time Claire opened her eyes, it was in a dim cave with the faint dripping of water ever present. A few months ago, the sound had been more obvious, more present in the foreground, but with the recent developments, it was forced to play second fiddle to the shouts of its occupants, who were once again screaming at each other for no reason in particular.

“See! I told you this was going to happen! Why the fuck didn’t you listen to me!?” One of the voices was deep and masculine, but he was shrieking like an angry housewife, his wails loud enough to put even a banshee to shame. “I’m your goddamn boss, and it’s about time you showed me the deference you owe!”

“Well it’s not my problem! I did it the way I was supposed to!” yelled an even shriller female.

“I told you that you had to keep it brief, but you decided that you had to be fancy and give the long version! Now look at what you’ve done! You’re going to have to give the short version anyway, and you haven’t even got it ready! And that’s ignoring the fact that everyone else is stuck listening twice!”

She briefly considered shutting them up, but gave up on the idea soon after it formed. Another pair was all but sure to step up to the plate the moment that the first was silenced, but such was life in their base of operations.

“Why the actual fuck are you yelling at me!? Yell at her instead! It’s her fault!”

“You think I haven’t tried!? The whole reason I came to you was because screaming at her didn’t work!”

It didn’t help that everyone was high strung. The part of the dungeon that they had made into their base appeared safe, but not all the non-combatants were able to calm themselves, even after being assured several times over that no monsters would spawn in the locations they occupied. The whole situation was only made worse when one particularly vertically-challenged pony had accidentally revealed that it was a former boss room responsible for more deaths than could be counted on ten hands. Dozens of formal complaints came in soon after, but their headquarters remained unchanged. The squid’s top officials came back each time with the affirmation that Skyreach Spire was far more secure a stronghold than their ruined undersea base.

“Then drop her in without instructions,” shouted the woman. “Who the hell cares what one random VIP is doing anyway?”

“I tried that too. Didn’t you hear about the whole debacle with Lord Strollemn?”

“Wait, that was her?” Her voice was all that was needed for Claire to see her paling face.

“Aye. I watched her tear out his spine myself.”

The dungeon was still far enough away from the Vel’khanese capital that its course was not yet entirely obvious. They were circling away so that they could loop around and breach the city from the side after luring the queen into a false sense of security—or at least that was the plan. Meltys could more or less manage the dungeon’s speed and direction with the console on its otherwise empty tenth floor, but the eldritch bird claimed that it was a difficult and painstaking affair. The dungeon had the propensity to alter its trajectory at random, and it took constant supervision to keep it from moving wherever it pleased. Even assuming that it was perfectly driven, impact wasn’t slated for another week; the operation would begin with the coming of spring.

In the meantime, the forces that flew the rightful queen’s flag focused on a mix of sabotage and defense. Their base was certainly a safe haven, but their other strongholds were not as well protected. Every day, the queen’s task force would launch investigations not only into the nobility, but notable commoners and organisations as well. The effort had resulted in a number of losses, but so too had it come with an influx of fresh sympathisers and recruits; it was not just those disloyal to the crown that were being purged, but any with too deep a foot in the Vel’khanese underworld.

“You sure we shouldn’t just bench her?”

“Good luck with that one. She’ll probably hit you just for bringing it up, and the princess’ll be mad too. She’s the one that ordered us to let her do whatever the hell she wants.”

Arciel was happy to welcome new allies into their fold. Claire, on the other hand, was less optimistic. With the way things were going, the coming reign was sure to be wrought with corruption even with whatever plan the squid had in mind.

To aid one such unscrupulous criminal was precisely the lyrkress’ next mission. She hadn’t paid attention to the details, but she vaguely recalled one of Arciel’s subordinates mentioning something about a con artist in need of help. Claire preferred not extending her hand to such a lowlife, but the soldiers on his tail provided more experience than similarly leveled monsters. The erdbrechers in particular had been especially bountiful. They gave several times what she received from the already profitable locals, and they would always come running as soon as she caused a stir.

“We could just say that we couldn’t deploy her because she was asleep.”

“I’m awake,” said Claire. She raised her giant, half-draconic head as she rose to her feet and turned towards the man. Though she didn’t pay much of any attention to keeping it stable, neither the foxgirl, the lizard, nor the manatee sleeping atop her head budged an inch. “And I’m not going to hit people because I don’t like their opinions. I’m reasonable.”

“I’ve seen you hit people for pretty much exactly that,” he replied, with an awkward laugh. “Myself included.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Claire cocked her head and spoke nonchalantly, even while recalling an instance where she had kicked him against a wall and gored him with her talons. “I’ve never hit you.”

“Right, of course not.” Admiral Ray’esce coughed into one of his fins and turned to his pale, fish-tailed subordinate. “You see why we listen now?”

“...Yes sir.”

“Good.” He turned to Claire again and handed her several rolls of parchment. “These are the people you’re going to be assigned to guard this time. And I think this doesn’t need saying, but please don’t kill them this time.”

“As long as they don’t try poisoning me again.” Her massive, serpentine body shrunk into a tiny humanoid frame, adorned from head to toe in expensive, silken garments.

“Please don’t kill them even if they try poisoning you.”

“Oh, you silly old fish. I would never dream of it.” The noble lady giggled as she hid a bashful smile. Her cheeks were red, and her expression was perfect, but the admiral only shook his head. He had been flustered the first few times, but he wasn’t about to let her trick him again.

“Either way, we’re expecting them to attack in the next three days. Might be a bit longer, but your job’s to watch over them until it happens. We’ll send Lia to reinforce when she’s done with her current assignment.”

“Okay.” Claire flipped through the documents and found one with a map. And then, without waiting for any further instruction, nor any of the other soldiers present in the room, flapped her wings and took off.