Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 88010 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88010 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
I walk into the kobold den quite casually, unworried about the guards. I’ll let them attack me if they feel the urge. They cannot actually damage me and a good portion of them scatter the moment they see me. If I had Melissa with me, they would all attack her. She would seem like prey dressed in mismatched armor.
“It’s Ornisius, Destroyer of Worlds!”
The chief of the kobolds is in his room at the very end of the den. He is sitting on a tall chair cobbled together with bits of junk salvaged from various excursions. He is slightly taller than the other kobolds, and wearing a crown made from smaller, shinier junk.
I can understand the urge to collect. It is ingrained into my psyche as well. But where I sit upon a horde of handcrafted precious jewels, this poor creature must linger in the dirt with garbage facsimiles.
“Where is the fifth seal?” I intone the question.
His eyes glitter with glee as he realizes he is going to have the opportunity to lie. Kobolds love to lie. “Fifth seal? Fifth seal? We don’t have any fifth seal.”
“There was a package with some couriers. A letter indicating the transportation of the fifth seal.”
I look around the room. I feel it, but I cannot see it. The item thrums with power, of course. It is here. Undoubtedly. I close my eyes for a moment and I let my senses do the work for me. One of my kind always knows where something precious is.
It’s behind me.
I turn around. There is nothing behind me besides the door I just came through. Strange. And then I see it. The oversized handle that doesn’t fit the door properly.
The fifth seal has been painted with beige paint and stuck to a door in the form of a handle.
“Nice, isn’t it,” the chief cackles. “It makes my hand hurt when I touch it.”
“You are lucky it did not blow your head off completely. It must have taken pity on you. It is an artifact of great power, and it belongs to me.”
As my fingers close around it, I feel a rush of that same power I just described. It is like warm sun flowing through my veins, a beautiful, rich, intoxicating feeling that makes me want more. I have one of these of my own, of course. No leader is supposed to have two, but this cannot sit down here, a powerful artifact being used as cheap, ugly decoration by those who do not recognize its power.
The kobolds do not try to stop me as I leave the den. It is almost anticlimactic, and yet fascinating. The fifth seal belongs to Bjorn Birna, the shape changer. It bears claw marks across its faces to represent him—or at least, it did, before they were filled in with paint made from mud.
I wonder if something has fallen Bjorn, if he has been bested, or if this was stolen from him. I will have to send envoys immediately to uncover the truth. If someone is moving the seals around, there may be trouble ahead.
I have an uneasy feeling in my gut, even as the power of the seal surges through me in slow pulses. I put it in a pocket, my summoned clothing having multiple places to put precious items in such a manner that they cannot be removed without my knowledge.
This matter is not over. This is just beginning.
I leave the kobold den, and return to Melissa, who should be neatly bound to the underside of the tree limb where I left her.
She is not there.
The way my entire being hitches when I realize she is gone cannot be described.
Otto is still ground tied where I left him grazing on the grass around the bushes. He seems unbothered, which confuses me. He is no guard animal, but he is also not usually entirely immune to the effects of a struggle or a murder.
“Melissa?” I lift my voice.
“Help!”
I direct my eyes down into the bushes. The very same ones Otto is eating around. As it turns out, they do not only contain grass. They also hide my mate.
I know I bound her securely, but I also know that if she spent the entire time wriggling back and forth she might have managed to half-free herself. I am horrified by the realization that she could have seriously hurt herself in the process, had there not been a bush beneath. She could have gone crashing to the ground face-first and knocked herself out. She could have hanged herself from the rope by accident. She could have spiked herself onto an inopportune branch and bled out by the time I returned. Keeping Melissa out of danger is a far greater quest than any other.
It would be easy, and even proper for my relief at seeing her alive to turn into anger at her reckless actions, but she does look quite cute still tied up and rolling around in the greenery.