Otto Luoxi and Oro Tokat lurked behind a rockery, in the palace garden, in the City of Glow, the Kingdom of Dawn
Of course, they were not completely sneaking. At least when entering the palace, they had pa.s.sed through the door, right under the guards" noses. No guard would stop them from visiting any place in the palace, except for the forbidden areas, because all the guards knew that the Luoxis and the Tokats had always been loyal supporters of the royal family, and that these two young men would become the ministers of the eldest prince when they took over their respective families.
"Hey, are you sure about this?" Otto could not help but feel nervous.
If the Dawn castle where the King of Dawn spent time was a forbidden zone, his bedroom was even more forbidden. However, they happened to know a secret way from the garden to his bedroom. This narrow underground channel which they had explored with Andrea and Prince Appen in their childhood was meant to be one of the escape routes from the palace. They had considered it their own secret base and held small parties there occasionally.
Given that they were only 10 years old at that time, the worst punishment, even if they were found by His Majesty Moya, would have been being blamed. Now as grown-ups, if they entered the palace without permission, what would His Majesty think?
"Come on! Gathering the three families to find out the reason why Appen has been acting strange, isn"t that the plan?" Oro twitched his lips. "And now, at this crucial time, you want to flinch?"
"I ..." Otto opened his mouth but he was speechless.
"But how stupid you are! To get messages from Quinn, you told him Andrea"s recent situation. If you weren"t Andrea"s childhood sweetheart, the old man would have killed you," Oro said while looking around, "and now is the best time to tell the truth, will you do it or not?"
After a moment"s hesitation, Otto gritted his teeth and nodded.
What Earl Quinn had told them was astonis.h.i.+ng.
Since His Majesty had fallen ill, the prince often met with an alchemist in the palace, casting his visitors out. It was said that a special drug from the alchemy could resist disease and enabled His Majesty to remain awake for one or two hours a day. As the prime minister, Andrea"s father naturally had access to the palace to obtain political suggestions from His Majesty. The old man had gotten a glimpse of the alchemist and to his great surprise, he saw that it was actually a young woman, covered with a black veil, only her bleak silver-gray eyes showing.
At this description, Otto immediately thought of the church.
If it were not for his recent trip to the Kingdom of Graycastle, he would not think this way. After meeting with Roland Wimbledon, the messages about the church secretly training pure witches, attempting to subvert the four kingdoms and acc.u.mulating its power to resist the Battle of Doomsday had rooted in his mind.
He did not tell what he knew from Roland to Earl Quinn. After all, the impact of the news was so huge that he must confirm his conjecture before deciding the next step.
Hearing from the Earl that the alchemist would appear today, Otto immediately thought of the secret channel from his childhood.
Now that it was impossible to get the support of the eldest prince, this was his only way to discover the truth.
With this thought, he nodded to Oro who immediately poked the knee-high weeds, using a dagger to pry a cover disguised as a stone from behind the rockery. Rusty steel bars appeared in front of them. The fence, which could only be opened from the inside, was about an arm-length in width, but this was not a problem for the two who were fully prepared.
Oro took a gla.s.s bottle from his pocket, opened the lid and poured the tawny liquid onto the lock catch.
A puff of pungent white smoke rose up and the steel bars gave off a sizzling sound, like b.u.t.ter being thrown into a hot pot.
The liquid was the iron-melting water created by a master alchemist of the City of Glow, and a fist-sized bottle cost more than 10 gold royals. Oro was told that iron would become molten in the blink of an eye when using it. But this was not the case. The lock catch first shrunk in half and did not fall off the fence until he had used up the second bottle.
The two men bent over to enter the hole, and Oro did not forget to turn around and close the slates.
After they had crawled more than 10 steps, the channel became slightly s.p.a.cious, and they could walk. Otto skillfully fumbled for the oil lamp hung on the wall, flaming it with flint. The faint light illuminated the cliffs and the arched ceiling. This place was still the same even after more than 10 years as if time stood still here. When pa.s.sing by the lounge halfway, they could still see the soft seats and wine gla.s.ses they had dragged here for parties.
The road began to s.h.i.+ft upwards and Otto Luoxi knew that they had entered the Dawn castle.
Castle walls were divided into two layers, just like a sandwich. The middle part between the two layers was reserved for secret chambers and tunnels. Finally, the two arrived at the end of the secret channel which was the very back of the fireplace in the bedroom of the king.
As the mechanism needed to be opened from inside, they could not walk directly into the bedroom. But they could roughly see the scene in the bedroom through the small gap in the trap door. The voices of conversation in the room could be heard if it was quiet enough.
Otto blew out the oil lamp and peeked through the gap.
The King of Dawn, His Majesty Deegan Moya, was lying in bed facing the fireplace. And Appen, the eldest prince, was pacing by the bedside, looking worried.
They looked at each other, then tacitly nodded and carefully leaned against the door. It was obvious that His Highness was waiting for the alchemist.
About an hour later, there was a sound in the room.
They immediately turned their heads, squinting.
Two women walked into the bedroom. One was the black-veiled alchemist that Earl Quinn had mentioned, and the other was probably the alchemist"s a.s.sistant. She carried a satchel, wore a red and white cope and cloak, and had beautiful golden curly hair.
"You"re late!" Appen said, displeased.
"Sorry," the blonde bowed and answered, "we were delayed by an unexpected situation on the way."
"There"s no need to explain. All we need to do is to wake his father up. It doesn"t matter whether we arrive early or late." The woman in the black veil said this with an icy voice.
"You shouldn"t say that! We still need the help of His Highness." The blonde took out a green porcelain bottle from her satchel. "It"s good for both of us to maintain a harmonious relations.h.i.+p, isn"t it?"
"Give me the medicine." Appen took two steps toward them, but was stopped by the woman dressed in black veil.
"Did you forget our agreement? This medicine is only effective if fed by me, and in exchange, you must meet the requirements of His Holiness."
His Holiness!?
Otto was shocked. This honorific could only be used to name the Pope. He wondered whether they were really sent by the church.
He could not help but bite his lip. Apparently, they were not alchemists, but Pure Witches instead.