The Razed Ruins Part I: Ill Tides

Chapter 12.3: Payment

It was very late by the time Allison stepped back into the manor and swept the habit from her head. She couldn't hold back a smile. All to plan. A perfect success. She skipped through the stone hallways gleefully. And father thinks I'm a fool. If he'd only thought to broker a deal directly with Lord Greenborne maybe we'd be betrothed now. 

This whole scheme, to entrap Castrol Thomas, had been her brainchild and hers alone. In council, her father and his highest surlords had been desperate for a way to break up the swelling power of House Thomas. "A union of the White Castle, Texas, and The Pike would form a trident of power near-impossible to break," her father had fumed. "That is something Seldor cannot tolerate!"

Her father may think she didn't listen in council meetings, and he usually forbade her from speaking about all but the most trivial of matters. There were occasions, however, she had the chance to confide with him alone, and it had been during one of these moments that she'd made the bold proposal that sowed the seeds of tonight's success. It was one of the great moments in her and her father's relationship when he'd accepted the idea and showered her with admiration for what he called her "merciless and daring imagination."

"Sometimes wars are fought behind locked doors rather than on battlefields," he'd said. It had been behind a locked door that the war council had finalized their plans for this night.

It was my idea, perhaps, but I'll never get credit. It was Lord Hernandes who learned of Castrol Thomas's special interests, and it was he who found Lilia. But it was Allison's conception, and she who designed the details.

What a day it had been. Ever since morning Allison had been torn between going through with her role or telling her father to fuck himself. In the end, she made all sorts of excuses for why she'd still help him after enduring his ridicule and abuse: that it had been her idea, that she would do her duty to contribute to House Rose, that she hated House Thomas. In the end, however, the answer was quite simple: she wanted to do it because it would be fun.

And she'd been right. The sneaking, the disguise, the deception, all of it had thrilled her in a way she hadn't felt since she was twelve years old and arranged secret trysts with handsome, and often much older, sons of her father's surlords and let them to violate her in all sorts of wonderful ways. It was word of these, no doubt, that had leaked into the tavern drunk's songs.

"I am not weak," she boasted. 

She'd wanted to be a waikan so badly, but she was more certain now than ever her father would never allow her to pursue such a study. His disdain for enthusiasts of The Mystery was well documented. It would never do for his daughter to become one.

Mario Hernandes. The idea came to her at once. She knew the things he'd been up to. He's smart and he knows alchemy. Perhaps he could teach her some of things she'd been forbidden to learn.

Allison hesitated at the door to her chamber suite. Instead of going in she formed a new plan. She backtracked down the hallway to an earlier junction and turned up a flight of stairs to the penthouse. She could see wavering candlelight underneath the heavy door at the top and rapped on the wood surface lightly. There was a moment of shuffling inside before the door swung open. Mario Hernandes stood in front of her in a light brown robe. Thrown into relief by the candlelight, his face was even more sunken than usual.

"Princess," he said. Though she was not expected, Allison could tell he was not displeased.

"My lord," she said. "May I enter?"

"Of course, my lady," he stepped aside for her to pass.

The air smelled lightly of cedar and candles scented with essential oils. The suite was lavish. Through a swinging-door was a large bedchamber with a four-poster draped in silks the deep blue and white of the Union.