Chapter 61: Trouble Will Always Find You Even In Peace.
As Mark finished speaking, he caught himself, and his frown faded into a bow. He bent his head low and said, with deliberate humility, “Forgive my earlier conduct, Grandduke Elowen. I acted in a manner unfit for a noble of the Vaelcrest name.”
The Grandduke regarded him for a long, silent moment through the curling veil of silver smoke from her pipe. Her eyes, sly and calculating, shifted just slightly in approval.
“For the help you’ve rendered to my house,” she said, voice smooth and languid, “I shall overlook it—this time.”
Mark straightened slowly, his smile returning with the precision of someone used to long dances of politics and daggers sheathed in silk.
Grandduke Elowen was no child. A woman of her standing, she could tell when someone was trying to use her.
While no one of significant power would like that, she was very curious to see what would unfold as a result of this 'game' Mark was playing.
And if he she saw his motives as threat, she would crush him like the bug she thought he was.
She tapped her pipe lightly against her glass stand. “Then, Mark of Vaelcrest, what is it you desire in return?”
“Cassian Vaelcrest,” Mark said simply, his voice carrying a tinge of venom beneath its calm surface. “I want his fall.”
Elowen said nothing at first. Instead, she turned languidly to her right, exhaling another plume of smoke. The aether-rich mist shimmered unnaturally as it coiled upward—twisting and morphing into the vague, looming shape of a bestial silhouette with wings and blades for limbs.
“Give this,” she said, handing over a folded parchment to the smoke beast, “to our people in the dungeons. They will know what to do.”
The smoke beast bowed and vanished into the shadows.