Draconia Offline vol. 1

72.2. The Viceroy - Part 2

Liana trusts that the research team will do everything in their power to come up with a solution and quickly returns to the Royal Quarters. She finds that she likes having people she can truly depend on around. That was never a thing when she was still human and led her company.

"What are you doing?" Liana narrows her eyes at Noage who's drinking one smoothie drink after another while still connected with his tentacles to the Emperor.

"Feeding His Majesty intravenously," he explains. "I'm eating in his stead and sending nutrients directly to his veins."

"It's highly experimental, but it's been working really well so far," Julia assures the Viceroy. "Mana are calories are interlinked, so if we keep feeding His Majesty, we should gain more time."

"The rate works against us, though," Noage sighs. "His Majesty is channelling out more mana than he's able to restore over time even when I'm feeding him. Still, it bought us a few hours."

"Excellent," Liana appreciates, gently pets Aefener's feathers and looks at the Royal Consorts.

As expected, Erik and Gotrid are worried sick. Well, everyone is, of course, but Emperor's partners are taking it tenfold worse. Originally, Liana wanted to ask one of them to help her calm down the people in the skyscraper, but it's obvious nothing in the world would persuade them to leave their precious partner right now.

"Your Excellency, we need you in the conference room," Luviael silently comes in and her eyes water when she sees the Emperor in such a weakened defenceless state.

Liana nods, anticipating exactly that, and they leave the infirmary in a hurry. Barely thirty minutes elapsed since Aefener put up the shield, so the whole skyscraper is only starting to fully realise that they've been attacked for real and that the Emperor is unconscious.

"Your Excellency, what happened?! Nobody knows anything!" Laurin is nervously stepping in front of the conference room and he isn't alone—the Czech Prime Minister is with him because he was meeting her today.

"Liana," Bauerova's voice is trembling when she addresses her. "Was it a monster attack? We didn't see it, just heard the impact."

"Let's come inside, Katerina," Liana invites her in without a second thought, even though the Council is supposed to be Draconian only. All the ministers have gathered already and the atmosphere is extremely tense.

"Your Excellency, is His Majesty...?" Celestial Ministers flock to her and their wings are shaking.

"The Consorts and the doctors are taking care of him," she assures them. "We won't help him when panicking. Sit, we have a lot to discuss. Is it on the internet yet?"

"For a few minutes now," Luviael confirms grimly. "The skyscraper is closely monitored by police and media drones all the time. They have a recording of the whole thing including our Emperor casting the shield. The media are streaming it non-stop."

Liana clutches her hands, but she didn't expect otherwise.

"How did he know?" Forent doesn't understand. "We didn't feel a rift opening, it couldn't have been a monster attack."

"No, it wasn't," Luviael says slowly. "The media slow-motioned the recording, look."

She puts the video on the 3D projector and everyone watches the moment that thing hit the shield in slow motion. It's a bit blurry, but the proof is undeniable.

"A missile," Liana feels numb all of a sudden and her lips go dry.

"Whoever it was, the EU has no part in it, I'm sure!" Bauerova exclaims defensively. "They knew I was meeting the Draconian Minister of Foreign Affairs today."