“Your Royal Highness,” he whispered, cautioning me.
Instead, Elizabeth stepped forward to field his question. “Lord Vilienne?”
She smiled innocently, and her sweetness caught the wrathful minister off guard. Then she proceeded to say the last, most brilliant thing she possibly could have given the circumstances—and off the cuff, no less.
“This is my cat,” she confidently announced.
“C-Cat?!” Vilienne did a double take.
“Mrgh,” grunted Lars. “Mrrrg… Mrraowr?”
The sheer audacity of her assertion sent a tremor down my spine. Even better was the look of mixed confusion and humiliation on Lars’ face as he was suddenly forced to play along. He was still her familiar, and that meant he had to obey her every whim, no matter how fickle.
What a lucky duck—er, I mean, poor fellow.
“Of course, he’s my cat,” she insisted adorably. “Look, if I scratch his sweet little chin, he even purrs for me.”
“Gragh…PRRRRRRRRRR!!”
He began to “purr” with all his might, producing a puzzling growl that was only made more unsettling by the way his blue eyes flashed with the effort. To be fair, he did seem harmless enough now, but the issue lay elsewhere. His devotion to Elizabeth was blinding, and she was touching him to an enviable degree.
I snapped my fingers, and Harold briskly turned to the servants.
“Tell them,” he instructed.
One of them stepped forward—the man who had attempted to murder Leohardt.
“Please allow me a word!” the servant bellowed. “Marquis Vilienne, the man before you, ordered us to assassinate Prince Leohardt! He falsely used the name of His Majesty the King to do so!”
The reformed servants behind him raised their voices in agreement. To them, Vilienne was the traitor, and they would not be silenced. Even the royal guards and surrounding servants were shaken by the news, and the muttering only grew.
Vilienne quivered with rage. “You worms! How dare you betray me?! You told me yourselves that Prince Leohardt was colluding with that wretch!”
The king, however, paled and turned to face him. “Vilienne, you didn’t.” His family had served Orion generation after generation, but he had finally pushed too hard. “Guards, arrest Marquis Vilienne! See that he’s locked away, and put a watch on him so he doesn’t cause any further trouble!”
“As you will!”
Vilienne bit his lip as the armed guards approached him—but a moment later, he sneered wickedly. “Bwahaha! Just try to catch me! I won’t even need the full extent of my powers to best you!”
He pulled something small and black out of his sleeve, along with a handful of manacites. He shut his eyes to concentrate as he began his incantation.
“Is that what I think it is?!” I gasped.
Leohardt squinted. “Isn’t that one of Lars’ scales? As in, a fellywrm scale?”
Elizabeth blinked. “Lord Lars? Why?”
At the word “fellwyrm,” unease rippled throughout the room.
Vilienne threw his arms wide. “O great evil lost to antiquity, heed my call! Manifest before us in thine vile splendor!”
The magic circle engraved on the scale spewed miasma, and it hungrily absorbed the manacites into itself. Then, the glinting black scale lashed out a dozen black tentacles, entwining itself around the sickly nobleman’s form.
“Haha, this is how you truly summon a fellwyrm! Your so-called cat is nothing compared to this!”
“Grmraow?”
Lars gave him a confused look, despite Vilienne’s triumphant grin, as he rapidly warped into something less than human.
I don’t blame Lars for being baffled. He’s gone from fellwyrm to hallowyrm to “housecat” in so many minutes. I bet he doesn’t even recognize the scale as his anymore.
The guards moved to strike the marquis down, but I held out my hand to stop them. They wouldn’t be needed here.
“You know what to do, hallowyrm Lars,” I told him.
He glared at me as if he could tell I was poking fun. “Grwaaarr!”
“I’ll help, too!” Lady Lecia chimed in. “It’s my job as a saint to save this country from evil!”
To make a long story short, it was a slaughter. Vilienne didn’t last a second. He was a half-baked, spur-of-the-moment fellwyrm at best, and he was being tag-teamed by both a saint and a proper hallowyrm. To Lady Lecia’s merit, the malevolent marquis wasn’t killed—the fellwyrm portions of his transformation were dissolved into nothingness by her divine powers. I doubted that he could truly appreciate that, however, as he was swiftly marched into the dungeon by the guards.
Since the succession issues plaguing the kingdom of Orion were resolved, not to mention the formal acceptance of Lady Lecia as Prince Malius’ bride, we were free to return home. That, truly, was the end of it.
Leohardt was still watching the future king and queen with a smile as we were about to leave. Since I was every bit as two-faced as he was, I could tell his happiness wasn’t heartfelt. He had stood by Prince Malius’ side as his closest friend and confidant for many years, but he had officially been replaced. It had to be hard to watch, even if he was ultimately the one responsible. I understood how he felt—I’d gladly sacrifice myself to put Elizabeth with another if it would make her happy.
Or could I? The thought is torture. I hope I never, ever have to make that sort of decision. I suppose that’s one point for you, Leohardt.
There was the issue of how Vilienne came across one of Lars’ scales in the first place, but I’d have the time to look into that later.
“All right, Lord Lars. Let’s head home.” Elizabeth ushered Lars back into Harold’s basket, where he curled up neatly at the bottom. Something about his movements struck me as oddly catlike.
I cast him a disapproving look. “I wonder if they’d worship you as a dragon-saint for life if I made you a nice little temple far, far away from us?” I muttered.
As I pondered how to get rid of him, the tiny drake glared at me and hissed.