Lora of Two Worlds

This storehouse was in the southeast corner of the Crown Granary. It held items the royal palace wasn't currently using.

For instance, the pair of ceremonial feather fans Leon had just touched, the ones household ladies and court attendants held behind the King to shade him from the sun and wind, and to show off his station.

Objects that carried the weight of two lifetimes were everywhere in here. Leon felt a wave of disorientation.

At his father's coronation, he had been made Duke of Zahn. In the blink of an eye, he'd lived through his father's reign, his my older brother's reign, and now his Gareth sat the throne. The younger brothers had become ones to guard against, rivals in the King's eye, and so he had been reduced to Baron Chaun.

The world churned on, brief blossom, then fall. Poor, mighty Aurelia, sliding toward ruin she couldn't halt.

Well, what did any of it have to do with him now?

Back in the Princes' Quarter in Augustburg, his Carl Ian had been obsessed with alchemy, spending his days with alchemists or carousing with rakes and wastrels.

His Ambrose Ambrose was a smoother operator. He liked to haunt the Serene Palace, cozying up to the Queen Grandmother. He'd been born to a lowborn mother, just like Leon, but he'd managed to get himself adopted by a noble consort at court and come out with a real position.

And Leon himself? All he'd done was love the chase and the tourney, and keep honest friends. For that, he'd stepped on the lion's tail, the King's wrath. He pushed his wheelchair along, his gaze passing over all these objects, beautiful and untouchable.

Suddenly a shape trotted past his foot, tail high, wagging slightly. Chance had finished the outer room and was heading inside on its own. The dog was faster than any of them, all right.

"We've checked that side. Only this row left. Once Chance finishes in here, we move to the next storehouse."

Lora passed behind him, eyes fixed on Chance, tossing the instruction over her shoulder.

She'd made herself right at home, not a trace of a court lady's reserve. Back in Augustburg, Roland had never mentioned this sister of his. But then, she'd been barely more than a child then.

Whoever pushed her into the river, whoever they were, deserved to die. Leon was thinking this when the wheel suddenly jammed.

He hadn't had the chair long and wasn't all that adept. One wheel had caught on the corner of a shelving rack. With no one to lift the chair for him, he couldn't budge it from a seated position.

He looked over at Lora. She had her back to him, rummaging through a row of wardrobes. Only Chance was nearby, sniffing away.

Leon steadied himself. Carefully, he let his legs down to the floor, raised his hips slightly, and heaved the chair up with both hands, easing the wheel off the rack's corner.

When he settled back into the seat, a pair of round eyes was staring at him. Ears perked, mouth hanging open, long tongue dangling, the dog looked ready to shout:

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You great fraud!

Leon and Chance stared each other down. In the end, it was Leon who raised one finger to his lips. Shh.

Chance pulled its tongue back in, a deal struck. Leon had to admit the dog wasn't bad. Next time, he'd have Roland bring a couple of bones by way of thanks.

Lora shut the wardrobe door and turned around. "Nothing over here. Chance, did you find anything?"

Chance got up and trotted toward Lora. Leon had the distinct impression it was about to tattle.

Sure enough, Chance lifted a front paw and patted Lora's leg, telling her to follow. It walked to the exact spot where it had just been sitting and glaring at Leon, sat down again, and beside it was a large vermilion-painted wooden chest.

Leon, focused entirely on whether anyone had seen him use his legs, hadn't noticed the chest at all.

He and Lora exchanged a look. Both tensed. They moved in quickly. Lora shifted the vellum scrolls and painted panels stacked on top of the chest, and there, in the lid, was a small hole with a fuse sticking through it.

"It really is black powder!" Leon blurted.

Lora let out a quiet breath. The burning of the Crown Granary, that piece of history wasn't going to repeat itself.

She closed the lid, pulled the fuse free, and gestured at the surroundings. "This is just one of them. The things around it are all woodwork, not what they're after. If it burned, it would burn. But the powder is what matters."

"Go find your brother. This style of vermilion chest isn't common, use it as the main marker. And this powder goes out on our oxcart."

Leon hadn't even noticed that he'd already lumped his little Odenheim cousin in with "us."

Chance was the happiest member of the group. Today it had eaten meat pies, the kind it had never tasted in its whole dog life, and it was confident it could go on eating them, as long as it kept finding that awful-smelling stuff.

That man clearly had no meat pies, a poor man, through and through. You could stare at him all day and he wouldn't get the hint. But the young lady from the big house was generous. Maybe she made meat pies herself. From today on, she was Chance's second mistress.

They found Roland soon enough.

Roland hadn't found any black powder, but he'd discovered a cache of weapons hidden in the grain storehouses, single-edged falchions, similar to the Aurelian army's standard arming swords but cruder.

"Good God, this is the kit for an uprising. Four, five hundred blades at least. Too bad we can't prove they're connected to the Yorvik Liaison Office, or we could strip the whole lot of them with a Bill of Attainder and avenge my sister."

Roland had grown up at his grandfather's side, free of parental restraint, a more easygoing soul. But for his one and only little sister, the distance hadn't made him less fond. If anything, he doted on her more than the others did.

"Load it all up. Theodore Venn doesn't want to admit it? Too bad, it's not his call. At worst, we return the weapons to their rightful owners."

The King feared nothing so much as treason. A trumped-up charge had nearly cost Leon his head, hard evidence of steel was another matter entirely. He didn't see how this wouldn't bring the Venn house down.

With Chance on the team, their speed shot up. After a few successful finds, the dog didn't even need to sniff the firecracker tube anymore, a pat on the head and an "Ah!" was enough to send it charging into whatever storehouse Lora pointed at.

The eight storehouses on the east side were swept in short order. Near the city gate, two chests of black powder and several hundred swords.

But the west side was trickier. Over there were the clerks' quarters and the cylindrical grain silos. Going into a grain silo to "pick furniture" was a stretch even Leon couldn't pull off.

"Roland, you wait here. I'll take Chance over alone. Have you finished handing out the ale? The cart comes with me. If anyone asks, we're making a delivery."

Lora had seen that the east side had powder at both the first and last storehouses. She figured the west side would have at least two as well. If they skipped it and the place blew, all the grain would go up.

Linn answered quickly: "There's ale left. The lord set aside half to give the Granary Bailiff when we see him."

"The Bailiff doesn't seem to hold your barony in much regard," Roland teased. "He knows you're here and can't be bothered to show. Loyal to the Dowager Lady, I suppose."

"A lion brought low, baited by curs "

"Curs? Don't insult the dogs. In my book, they're not fit to lick Chance's paws. Come on, I'll ride with the cart."

Roland blinked, then patted Chance's head, unable to help laughing:

"Chance, you're honored, he never praises anyone, and today he's praising a dog!"

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