TBTT 70. Implied smooth future here

[moonshadows]

The Chancellor’s household staff takes the news with stoic silence and well-smothered fear, and he feels his lips curve into a cruel smile as he is led on a tour of his new domicile, the soft adoration of his Champion warming him where it laps against his mind.

“…and this is the master bedroom,” the butler announces, every inch as smooth and unshakeable as a Majordomo as he throws the double doors open.

The Chancellor’s bedroom boasts a bed big enough that it would sleep four easily – or one with broad wings and a habit of tossing and turning. There are windows, but they are covered in heavy drapes of some dark-blue fabric that easily keep out the late-afternoon light. One door leads to a bathroom more luxurious than the Prime Minister’s, and the other to a walk-in closet nearly big enough to be a room of its own. The only way out – excluding the window – is through the lavish sitting room that could swallow his Champion’s bedroom and still have room for its various couches and chairs.

“Alert my servants; I will sleep here,” he says coldly.

The butler bows. “As my Lord wishes. I will see to it that my Lord’s things are brought here.”

I’ll stay in the sitting room, his Champion says silently inside his mind.

You do not desire your own room?

I don’t trust the Chancellor to have not arranged for an assassin.

An excellent point, he concedes. “My demon will be sleeping in this sitting room,” he says aloud. “Have her things brought here as well.”

“I made several purchases to be delivered to the hotel,” she adds calmly. “Do not bring any of those here; they are to remain in the foyer until I can inspect them and verify that they are not dangerous.”

The three politicians, four city guard, head delegate, reporter, and nervous cameraman all start at that.

“I believe we have accomplished quite enough for one day,” he says. His smile shows too many teeth for anyone else’s comfort. “Senators, I will see you in the morning. Guards, you are dismissed. You-”

The head delegate freezes in the act of turning to go. “My Lord?”

“See to it that my demon’s tickets for the Hot Candy concert are delivered, and make arrangements for her guide – Christine, was it? – to be brought here in plenty of time to escort her.”

Thank you, Kal’shan!

The adoration in her thoughts nearly causes his smile to soften, and he hastily turns it into a sneer as the man bows his way out, leaving only the reporter and cameraman. “As for you two, you will remain for a handful of minutes longer. For your excellent service, you may ask me three questions. I do, of course, reserve the option of refusing to answer.”

She takes a position behind and to his right as he seats himself in an armchair as though it were a throne, hiding a smile as the man with the camera gestures the reporter over and whispers frantically to her. A dip into their thoughts reveals that the man has some kind of transmitting device, and their superior is angrily demanding they ask certain things that the reporter doesn’t want to ask.

A minute later, the reporter turns defiantly and seats herself on a couch across from the chair. “I’m not going to ask the things my boss wants me to,” she says firmly. “I doubt you would answer them, and that’s not what my viewers want to see. So…” She takes a deep breath. “It’s been decades since the Demon War, but your demon doesn’t look much more than sixteen. Where did you find her?”

His eyebrows raise slightly. “She was a gift,” he says. “She had been tamed by a man in the mountain region. When I conquered it, he surrendered her to me. He has been rewarded well for his excellent service.”

“We know she was shopping while you toured the city,” the reporter continues smoothly. “What kind of things did she buy?”

“I have no idea. However, you may ask her and it will not count against you.”

The reporter turns to her. “Miss Demon? Will you share with our viewers what you bought on your shopping spree, courtesy of our city’s finest stores?”

“Some of the usual,” she says with a grin. “Fancy clothes, jewelry, expensive desserts. Most of the jewelry and clothes were gifts for my shopping companions. Hot Candy’s newest album, of course, and some other albums I’ve been meaning to get. Several bolts of fine cloth and spools of embroidery thread, a few other gifts, and I commissioned Sylvester Laurel to make me a hydrating cream for my wings.” She pauses to smile, then answers the unspoken question. “You didn’t think this was my real form, did you?”

Recovering with remarkable swiftness, the reporter turns back to the smirking Warlord. “Have you seen your demon’s real form, my Lord?”

“I have. One question left.”

The reporter flutters her eyelashes. “Are you married?”

The cameraman chokes, then backs up nervously at the stony look on the Warlord’s face.

“You would be wise to not pursue that line of questioning,” he growls. “Leave. Now.”

As soon as the door shuts, she starts massaging his shoulders and he sighs as some of the irritation is soothed away by her touch.

“Are there any recording devices in the Chancellor’s rooms?” he asks in the language of his birth. He’s still not sure how she discovered the one in her chambers.

“One. Do you want me to short it out?”

“Yes.”

He watches as she spins a complex net of magic that settles in one corner of the room and tightens. The sound of something breaking can faintly be heard a moment later.

“You were right about the afternoon’s attempt,” he says suddenly. “Do you think an assassin is a real threat?”

She moves around to sit on the floor where he can put his hand on her head. “Not tonight. If there’d been one set up, we’ve just thrown a wrench in it by moving here. Tomorrow night is the next likely window of opportunity.”

His hand tightens on her head. “Tomorrow night, while you are at the concert.”

The defenses around his mind are shut tight, but that doesn’t stop her from seeing the worry that without her there, he will slip up somehow. “I don’t have to go,” she says softly.

The hand tightens again, then withdraws entirely. “No. You will go, and you will enjoy yourself. I will manufacture a reason to stay here, where any assassination attempt will go unrecorded.”

She realizes that he’s hoping for one so that he has an outlet for his tension.

“You were amazing this afternoon,” she says softly, and his hand returns to stroke her hair absently. “The reporter went against her boss’s wishes because she wanted people to like you more.”

“Hn. What did her boss want her to ask?”

“Oh, whether you were going to have me destroy the city if they didn’t surrender. If you’d planned to kill the Chancellor all along. That kind of thing. The reporter thought you wouldn’t answer and that seeing that would make people more scared of you, so she tried to ask questions that would make people see you as a person and not as someone terrifying.”

He almost says, Not as a monster? But he does not want to scratch at that wound again, not while the scab is still new and while he does not have the luxury of doing any of the things that would sate his temper. What he says instead is, “Assassination attempts are not the sole reason you wish to sleep here, are they?”

“No,” she whispers, fighting a blush. The silence stretches, drawing out her words. “The other bedrooms aren’t even on the same floor. If I need to do my job, I don’t want to be so far away from you.”

There’s nothing he cares to say to that.

“I will not be the one to tell your grandmother that you could have stayed in a luxury hotel, but instead slept on a couch,” he half-growls.

“Kal’shan…” she fights a grin, leaning her head against his knee. “She probably saw it on the news. I’ll tell her it was my idea,” she says as dismay radiates from him. “And I bought her a bunch of music that was really popular when she was my age. That ought to distract her.”

“A temporary distraction only,” he mutters. “Somehow, I doubt she will be pleased that I murdered the Chancellor rather than having you do it.”

“You were totally amazing when you did that.”

Her admiration washes against his mind and, greedily, he opens the rest of his defenses so that he can bask in it. After a minute or two, he stands and crosses to the couch the reporter had used. She takes the unspoken invitation and snuggles up to him.

“So,” she says slowly, “how was your day?”

He seizes the distraction and in the absence of his ministers, discusses the conquest of the city with his Champion. She’s more knowledgeable than he expected, until he remembers her mentioning that young dreadlords are taught the basics of world conquest. On the heels of that, he remembers the suspicion that the Demon War of this world is somehow personal to her.

The next time there is a lull, he says, “Why did you come here?”

“To the delta?” she asks in confusion.

“To this world. When you left home…” he trails off, feeling like there’s something he should be remembering about why she left her homeworld.

“My father led the assault on this world,” she says quietly. “It wasn’t an official invasion backed by the Nathrezene Council or the Burning Legion. He just wanted to see if he could do it. No one on Nathrezene knows he tried, no one knows he failed, and no one but one of his blood could follow his trail here. He marked this world ‘quarantined’ in the records, no explanation, but worlds only get marked that way if they’re too dangerous to try to conquer.” Her fingers tangle together, and she avoids looking at him. “So I came here because no one would think to look for me here, and if they did, they’d think twice about trying to fetch me home again.”

He almost asks her why she did not try to take this world for her own, but he remembers how little respect she holds for her own strength in comparison to his. As much as she enjoyed pretending to be a human girl with a loving family, he does not doubt that she did not try to conquer this world because she did not think she could. For a moment, he imagines himself as the undisputed ruler of the world, and pictures the expression she would bear if he were to casually hand it to her.

“My Lord?”

The butler’s voice shatters his pleasant daydream, and the irritation boils up, waking his rage.

“Your servants have returned with your luggage, and there are several packages the hotel was holding for your demon.”

“I’ll take care of it,” she murmurs, giving him a hug before hurrying to the door.

Yes…better she handles it, with how fragile his temper is right now. He smiles coldly as the servants scurry in discreetly with bags and suitcases. When he told her to not be so hesitant about doing her job, he did not expect her to become more assertive in her role as his tame demon, but he can admit to himself that placing herself as a buffer between him and the rest of the world was a wise move.