CHAPTER TEN
The Conclave of Kings would never get a chance to kill me if an angry citizen with a rock bashed my head in first. Rather than something witty and philosophical about this irony, “Murmph?” emerged from my mouth.
Araceli seized my arm. “Follow me. I’ll take you to a carriage.”
“What … how … wait!” I jerked my arm free. “How could rioters get past the guards so quickly?”
“Countess Donya refused to employ the guard against them,” Araceli said.
“I respect her for that choice. It’s not ideal to let a riot break down the palace gate, of course, but people who have been tricked into indentured servitude are angry for a good reason.
Ever since the duchess arrived, this city has been on the edge of a revolution.
One wrong move could turn this situation into a bloodbath.
The rioters have exclusively focused their anger on the Blood Duchess, since they correctly blame her for selling their debt to the slavers.
If you’re not here, they might dissipate. ”
As the person currently stuck in the Blood Duchess’s body, this failed to comfort me.
“Wait. The real duchess had a plan with the former slavers’ guild.
They brought Gifted Knights here to quell the populace.
I took the representative hostage to stop them, but someone has to tell his Gifted Knights or they might attack anyway. ”
“Good move on your part.” Araceli stopped trying to grab me. “I’ll find the captain of the guard.”
“You think I did the right thing?” I asked, desperate for reassurance.
“There will be ramifications for this, but I don’t think you had much choice if he was about to start a massacre.”
That wasn’t the reassurance I’d hoped for, but it was better than nothing.
Araceli frowned at the look on my face. She grabbed my shoulders. “Bora, I promised to protect you, and I will.”
A palace guard ran down the corridor, shouting, “The royal stables’ staff have revolted! They’re refusing to provide a carriage for the duchess.”
Araceli winced and bit her lip. “That’s going to make it harder, but I’ll still find a way for you to escape. Somehow. Huh, protecting people is a lot harder than assassinating them. I could kill you half a dozen ways, but getting you past a mob will be a lot harder.”
“People are angry because King Uctor owed them unpaid back wages, right? Why don’t we pay them back? There are so many fancy things here.” I gestured at the portrait on the wall and the golden candlesticks next to it.
“Even if you sell everything in the palace, it won’t pay off the entire royal debt. The late King Uctor had a spending problem well before the World Games.”
Even so, I wanted to help the people I could. “If I don’t at least sell off what I can, then won’t the debt be even larger?”
She hesitated. “You’ve got a point. Frankly, I’m out of ideas.”
The guard listening to us in confusion finally interrupted. “That’s a portrait painted by the late and great Jdalj. You can’t just give away our cultural heritage! It will end up pawned for a cheap price and sold off to a foreign country where we’ll never get it back.”
Ugh, I didn’t have time to sort out cultural heritage from expensive junk. “How about the duchess’s jewelry?” I suggested. None of that actually belonged to me, and it didn’t belong to Arahasnor either. If there was any heritage in there, it wouldn’t be ours.
“You start gathering the jewelry while I head off the slavers’ Gifted Knights. Don’t do anything before I arrive.” Araceli then spoke to the guard, giving orders.
* * *
Back in the duchess’s bedroom, I headed straight to the jewelry box.
Something hard slammed against the window, making the glass pane rattle.
I jumped, nearly dropping the box. Another impact followed moments later.
It sounded like a rock. This time, the glass cracked with a groan.
Though I knew it was risky, I pulled back the curtain to peek.
A crowd of angry citizens stood below. Their voices rose in an incoherent shout. A group of men clustered at the front held a makeshift battering ram made of logs tied together. They thrust it at the palace gate. The iron groaned in response.
Donya stood on a balcony, trying to speak over the crowd. She was completely alone, without a guard to protect her. “I won’t let the slavers take any of you! I promise!” she screamed into the wind.
“You can’t promise that, my lady,” someone shouted. “Just step aside. It’s the duchess we want.”
Araceli had told me to wait for her, but I couldn’t wait. This crowd looked on the verge of exploding.
I threw open my window. “I can promise you that I’m going to throw the slavers out of the city. Under my leadership, the royal treasury will completely pay off its debt. Here’s a down payment!”
I dumped the duchess’s jewelry box out the window. As I’d hoped, the stampede for the jewelry distracted the entire crowd, including those holding the battering ram.
Donya’s eyes jerked over to me. “Get back inside!” she cried, her voice faint over the chaos.
“I have everything under control,” I said.
An old man near the front of the mob pointed at me. “Don’t be fooled! She’s trying to distract us. She’ll never keep her promise. Get her!”
Ha, it wasn’t like they could do anything to me while I was several stories above them.
Someone below hurled a rope. It glowed golden, likely due to someone using their gift. The rope fastened around my wrist and yanked me over.
I had seconds to regret all my life choices as I fell.
I landed directly on one of the spikes of the fence surrounding the palace. My gift made my skin bend so the metal didn’t pierce me. Then I bounced.
What a wonderful moment to confirm my gift still worked even though I wasn’t in my own body.
The buoyancy made me a bit lightheaded. I wasn’t out of danger yet.
The mob screamed incoherently. As I landed on an adjacent spike, it slid off my rubbery skin, and I tried to grab it.
No matter what, I must land on the side of the fence away from the mob.
My sweaty hands slipped. Flipping around in the air, my bottom landed on another spike and bounced again. This time I managed to kick the fence.
I fell backward. After landing on the snow below, I bounced three times before I lay still on my back. My life flashed before my eyes. It was mostly boring, except for after I became the duchess.
Snow soaked through my dress as I stared up at the mob, fortunately on the other side of the fence. Unfortunately, several people held bows and arrows and could easily shoot me from between the bars. Though winded, I got to my feet, prepared to run.
“It’s a miracle!” the old man cried. “The Sun God saved the Blood Duchess! She must have truly changed her ways.”
Donya may not have been skilled at deception, but she successfully seized the perfect cue.
“It’s true! The duchess has repented for her bloody past. All the royal family’s debt will be repaid.
We will also be paying interest in order to compensate for any hardship you incurred due to our late repayment. ”
An “Oooooh” ran through the crowd.
For a moment, I thought myself safe.
Then a young child threw a fist-sized rock at me. It sailed through the fence bars and smacked me in the forehead, catching me completely unprepared.
I felt blood dripping down my face and swayed, woozy from the pain. But I feared falling over and passing out. If I did, then the illusion of a miracle would be broken. My vision blurred and doubled.
An odd silence fell over the crowd. A cold breeze ran through the air, slashing at the cut on my face. The moment teetered on the edge of violence.
Then Araceli ran out the palace door. “More debt repayment! Get in line!” Guards followed her holding candlesticks and vases and other knickknacks snagged from around the palace. “We need to record the names of each person and the value of what they receive.”
Oh yeah, I probably should have thought of that. We definitely didn’t have enough money to pay everyone twice if people decided to lie. People might also lie about their names, but that sounded like a problem for Araceli to handle. My problem at the moment was remaining vertical.
Whether from the promise of money or the threat of the guards, people started to line up in an orderly fashion.
Quite a few of them slunk off into the shadows, including the one who’d thrown a rock at me.
I would consider those the smart people.
The real Blood Duchess would have been collecting names for a far more sinister reason.
Araceli pulled me to my feet. “You’re either crazy or a fool,” she said, but I would swear there was a note of approval lurking behind her words.
“I can be both,” I said, then passed out against her shoulder.
I woke up lying on my back in bed.
Looking at my pale hand, I briefly wondered who had painted my nails and why my skin color had changed. Ugh, did my joints feel unusually sore? Why was my head heavy from excess hair? Who’d hit me on the forehead?
Reality came rushing back to me. I must have survived the mob, because I was back in my bedroom.
The duchess’s bedroom. Same difference. I felt nauseous.
I’d nearly died, and it was all the fault of this stupid body.
It hadn’t worked properly or been fast enough when I’d needed it the most. Ripples of fat sagged off my bones.
I glanced at my tummy, felt sick, and looked away.
It wasn’t my body. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to be the Blood Duchess.
I had a mad desire to rip off my skin and throw this whole body away.
I moved, probably to do something nonsensical, but a stabbing pain in my head stopped me.