Chapter 807: Liam Dunn’s Ambition
Liam Dunn thought himself to be a well traveled, worldly man. In order to pave the way for a more prosperous Dunn Barony that could transform into Dunn County, he'd been sent to one of the finest schools in Keating Duchy. It might not have been as prestigious as the Royal Academy in the capital, but for the son of a frontier lord, it was much better than anything he could have experienced if he'd attended school in Lothian March.
Keating Duchy was hundreds of years older than the march, and the grandeur and splendor of Keating City had left a deep impression on young Liam. Each summer, when he returned home to the frontier, he brought with him a host of ideas, and he gushed to his father for days about the things he missed the most from his school.
As he grew older, the desire to see the advancements of Keating Duchy take hold in the frontier never left him, but he gradually came to understand what it would cost to bring about such a transformation.
Public carriages pulled by a team of horses along fixed routes through the city were a tremendous convenience but without enough people who would pay for a ride instead of walking, it was a marvel that couldn't sustain itself. Likewise, the grand fountains and public displays of impressive statues were all funded by men who had more wealth than they could spend on their needs.
Despite his desire to see such things in the Town of Dunn, when his father asked him if he should build a new tannery or a grand plaza, the answer was all too obvious.
In a way, Liam's exposure to the finer life enjoyed by the well settled duchies away from the frontier was both a blessing and a curse. His desire to see his own home reach those heights fueled his ambition like lamp oil poured on a bonfire, but the realization of the enormity of the task to achieve his ambition burned him like a bonfire turned into an inferno.
Now, as he walked the halls of the ancient demon fortress on his way to dinner with Lady Ashlynn, he realized that the demons didn't just live as well as he had in Keating Duchy… they lived better lives.
"You said that they're rebuilding the city on a grand scale?" Liam asked Hugo as they followed a diminutive horned demon servant who had come to fetch them from their chambers. "Is it all going to be like this?"
"Better, if Lady Heila is to be believed," Hugo said, though he struggled to understand how a city could exceed the grandeur of the ancient fortress. The tapestries and paintings that hung in the corridors had clearly been created by Master artists, woven from the finest silks or painted with the richest, most intense pigments he'd ever seen.
More impressive than the art, however, were the functional elements that had been transformed into works of art in their own right. The gilded chandeliers ran on lamp oil with dozens of wicks and there were so many of them that even in the dark of night, the grand hallways were as brightly lit as mid day.
"Lady Heila," Liam said, rolling the unfamiliar name over his tongue as he sifted through everything he'd learned from Hugo and Carwyn since he woke in this strange place. "Lady Ashlynn's lady-in-waiting? The one they call the Willow Whip?"