Chapter 18

She denied any involvement vehemently, but my powers of persuasion brought her to her senses. She admitted to having conspired with Sir Vodin to have Lady Heather kidnapped. I’m sorry, Emperor, I know how much she meant to you.

Lady Madeema’s words came back to me in the early morning hours, making me sit up with a start.

I hadn’t slept a tick, but my body had needed to lie down and rest for a while.

The bed still smelled of her and I had tried to occupy myself with memories of our conversations instead of imagining what was happening to her, to some degree of success. My fear and worry for Heather stayed on my mind though.

At the time, I had been too thunderstruck by the possibility of Heather being dead, but now, I heard her words in a different tone. Lady Madeema was a master at her craft. I was positive the way she had extracted this confession from Lady Natoi had been most… unpleasant to the lady. Lady Madeema wouldn’t be easily tricked into believing a lie. And I was sure that Lady Natoi had lied, just as I was sure that Sir Vodin was innocent in Heather’s abduction. As certain as one can be, I amended. Still… it bothered me even though I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly what. That Lady Madeema had been tricked?

For now, we still operated under the assumption that the Cryons were behind Heather’s abduction. I had filled Lady Madeema in on our suspicion in order to have her explore this option as well. But now that I was having doubts regarding her…

Before I could dive deeper into this, a servant announced Commander Noctus.

“See him in,” I called from the bedroom, rising and rushing into the living room. “What news?”

“I was able to trace the strato glider that transported Lady Heather,” he came straight to the point.

His comm opened a holovid on the ground, showing a map of a very seedy part of Pandrax. Commander Noctus circled a large area. “I already have guards dispatched. They’re going house-to-house through this area. If she’s still there, we’ll find her.”

Hope surged through me. “Take as many guards as you need.”

“An entire army is combing through it,” he assured me.

“Good, take me there.”

“Your Imperial Highness, I—”

“Now!” I ordered in a tone that wasn’t to be denied.

“As you wish.” He bowed, and I followed him out to the balcony where a strato glider was just arriving to take us. Armored Special Forces strato gliders aligned themselves to position us at their center and guard us as we made our way to the seedy part of Pandrax I had never visited before.

The closer we came, the more dilapidated the houses got. The canals running through the center of the streets were filled with slush instead of water, and at some point I watched a bloated body float by.

I wasn’t a stranger to battle, had seen my fair share of dead bodies, but seeing one here—in the center of my main city—bothered me.

Just like every other species in the universe, Pandraxians came with varied dispositions. We had medical help for the mentally ill, every disease known, and every injury imaginable, but we did not have a cure for criminals. I had created a program to have all children sent to schools—not just the ones whose parents could afford it—like the Hettitas did, but it was new and hadn’t reached every nook and cranny of my empire yet.

It still didn’t offer any guarantees that youths would not be lured by drugs or the promise of fast money, or sheer laziness forcing them to end up in rotting areas like this, but hopefully it would stem the flow.

Once upon a time, this area had been sprawling with shops owned by the finest jewelers, but one by one they had been pushed out. Now, no person in their right mind would venture into this district during the night, some parts not even in broad daylight. A perfect place to hold someone hostage. The very streets surrounding it serving as prison walls.

Something needed to be done, I told myself, but not today. Today, all I wanted was to get Heather out of here, feel her warm body pressed against mine, hear the sound of her sweet voice, and reassure myself that she was alive.

The strato glider hovered over the streets, high enough to not be hit by any stray beams from blasters, as soldiers below made their way from house to house. Searching, tearing it apart, and pulling the protesting inhabitants out.

Never had I seen a more pitiful group of my subjects than that day. There weren’t only Pandraxians there, many races of the empire were represented, but not in a good light.

Hours moved by slowly, and sorely tested my rising temper. Impatiently, I drummed my fingers against the armrest, waiting and watching as slowly the entire district was being torn apart, house by house.

Finally having had enough, I ordered the strato glider down.

“The more guards I have to assign to your security, the less will be searching for Lady Heather,” Noctus muttered.

“Then call in more. Call in the palace guards if you need to,” I replied dryly, exiting the glider.

Down here and outside, the stink filled my nostrils and made me gag. Just the thought of Heather being here, exposed to this filth, these people, was enough to flare my temper.

Screams from farther down made me turn, but there was nothing to see. The houses stood so close together, they ended in darkened allies.

I walked to the canal and stared at the slow-moving slush in disgust. How did people live like this? Didn’t they have any ambition or any drive to better their situations? And if they did, did we have anything in place to lend them a hand to move up?

I was glad for these thoughts because they distracted me from Heather, even though she stayed close to my mind. I will, however, see to having something done about this, I promised myself. Come to think of it, I had stayed in my palace for way too long. It would be time for me to visit the far reaches of my empire to see my subjects’ living conditions with my own eyes. Something I should have done a long time ago, had politics not kept me glued to the palace.

The prospect of traveling my empire with my new empress by my side cheered me enough to keep my flaring temper under control. Vra, I decided, I would make Heather my empress, and we would travel her new home while I was getting reacquainted with it myself.

When I looked up from the slush, I noticed more gliders had landed, unloading Imperial Forces to hold back the slowly growing mob of unhappy citizens, most of them pointing at me.

“Your Imperial Highness, your presence is more distracting than helping,” Noctus beseeched me once more.

Seeing the gathering crowd, I agreed with him and was just about to heed his advice when I noticed a little girl darting through an alley and the crowd. Her eyes were fixed on me and her expression imploring and urgent.

She is probably only going to ask you for a handout, my mind told me, but my feet carried me forward.

“Emperor!” Noctus called exasperated after me.

Guards hurried to surround me.

I could tell the moment the little girl lost her nerve. Her eyes widened and shot from left to right before she turned.

“Stop her!” I yelled.

Several guards rushed forward, while some of the mob parted to get out of the way to let her pass. A Groblin stopped her. He was at least eight feet tall with the telltale green, puckered skin of his race, but his was dotted with black boils, indicators of his addiction to hram.

The girl screamed as he held her up high in the air by her wrist.

“Pay him,” I ordered, and watched as the girl was exchanged between the Groblin and several guards. Two kept a tight hold on her arms, while another paid the Groblin for his services as some in the crowd muttered angrily.

“You’re looking for the yellow-haired human, vra?” she railed on me the tick I reached her.

“You saw Heather?” I nearly ripped her from the guards’ hold.

“I know where she is… for a price,” she said cunningly.

“How much?” By Staphor, I didn’t have the patience to bargain with a crindat—street urchin.

“How about your life?” Noctus offered with a grimace that would have made the most hardcore criminal flinch, but not the little girl.

“Listen, Emperor or whatever you are, if I tell you where the human is, I cannot stay here, they’ll kill me.”

“You can come with us and I promise I’ll find adequate housing and a good life for you,” I offered, not immune to the irony that not too long ago I had wondered why the citizens of this district didn’t have the ambition or drive to better their situation. Well, here was one.

Her eyes narrowed and searched mine for falsehoods. With a sigh, I pulled the gem-studded pin that held my cape together down and handed it to her. “You have my word. In the meantime, take this as a token of my promise.”

She gripped it and bit on it, nodding happily when it didn’t break. “Alright, follow me. And for Staphor’s love, keep the mob from me.”

I hid a grin and waved at the guards to follow her through a narrow alleyway of a part of the district that had already been searched.