Chương 289: 2.1

Jewel left the home of Kliatbatrn with poor mood. But the weather was joyous. Their departure was under bright morning sky clear and blue. The spring rains had cleared and so the sun was baking the sodden road and soaked fields. The birds were singing for this warmth amidst the sparse shrubbery of the plains beyond the city. Like they were cheering for Jewel in a Triumph. But It did not feel like a victory.

The brightness of the world around her and all its unambiguous joy seemed wrong for the temper she found herself in. Jewel's vassal still breathed, he even woke most days and looked around. But the ordeal had so far left him muddled and silent. Uncoordinated in his motions. But even this much wakefulness was apparently enough for his family to praise Jewel and her 'healing' of his condition. She knew it was their true feelings, but it rang false anyway.

For them to insist her tour had been delayed long enough and her obligation to her family ally was well paid by this restoration. Thanks and insistence she did not trouble herself more. That staying through all of Birdbane was sufficient time to spend her sorcerous power upon the Baron's ailment. Yes they were right on the surface. She had other vassals to attend and offer what aid and support she could. But still to leave the Lord General even if he appeared to be set on the path to recovery felt wrong.

The sense of it would not leave Jewel. In spite of the good omen of clear skies for her departure. Not even Tsulogothulan's assurance that they did not have more they could do without risking the inherent nature of the man himself settled Jewel's heart. But she could not deny her duty. She had other vassals to meet, other responsibilities to see too. And a home and demesne to manage at the end. And then there was the Capital of Viznove. Kaeketeh awaited.

Her brother would likely happily and skillfully see to the needs of Valaset but Jewel already missed her bathing room. At least in the city they had accommodations that could fit Jewel for a bath. As long as she cleared out nearly every other person who wished to use the facilities. Jewel was so glad she had made the thing a reality. Bathing soothed the far too frequent visits she had to make there. But the cost?!

Jewel was seriously starting to doubt that the histories were true about every single Cantor city having such bathing houses available. Even if every fanciful story of the republic and later empire were true! The facility in Kaeketeh's expense cast great doubt upon the matter for Jewel. The silver that had to go to finding sufficiently skilled bathmen to know how to even maintain a cantor thermae. Nevermind the effort and failures over the years attempting to build one!? Reading on Amazon or a pirate site?

This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Even what of Jewel's sparse sorcery she could enact towards the endeavor of heating merely made the sheer quantity of fuel required astoundingly expensive rather than impossible to endure. A luxury for the richest of her vassals and a treat for esteemed foreign guests to the 'Jewel of Viznove'.

And It had however proved immensely popular, one of the reasons claimed by the populace for why Kaeketeh's population now had risen well beyond the capacity of its walls to hold. Jewel tried to focus on the imminent bath ahead of her as the cold mud squelched between her toes and the spring sunlight warmed her wings. But even that prospect was not lifting her spirits over her failure to completely restore Lord Kliatbatrn.

"You did more than any liege or ally could be expected to Jewel." Paul's words were quiet but in the sombre mood of their party it rang loudly in her ears. Jewel's voice strained to be louder, more overwhelming. To rumble like a collapsing mountain in her frustration. She however was the master of herself and kept it gentle, soft, simply pained.

"But not what could be expected of a Dragon and a Sorceress Paul." Her husband was silent for a time to mull that over as was his way. The sound of the horses' hooves sucking at the mud as the party made their way down the still sodden road. He would answer in his own time. Jewel had come to understand that his silences rarely meant the end of things. Just that he needed time to find the place he wanted to go forward in the conversation.

"Be that as it may, did you do everything you could my wife? Surely you held back no effort?" There was the uncomfortable truth of it. She had done everything she knew how to do. But was it her limit? She didn't think so.

"I don't know what more I could do, can still do. I don't know Paul. I'm a Tyrant Wyrm, I command sorcery unlike any worker of such art be they wizard, priest, weird or otherwise." She clenched her toes in the mud of the road. Cracking an off color portion that had partly dried ahead of the rest in the early sun.

"I don't know what more I could do, but I probably can!" Muriel spoke up, her voice gentle. Although still kurt, the familiar tone for a silly girl who had missed the obvious. The slight burr which had entered her captain's throat over the years adding timbre that had once been absent.

"Then learn what more you could do young Lady." Jewel almost stopped, but she knew better than to cause that disaster of momentum from several embarrassing experiences in her youth. Still the shock addled her mind long enough to bring a snicker from her Knight Smithson. Such near laughter soon followed by an amused tone.

"We are on a tour of Viznove for the purpose of learning more about your Vassals. Surely across all your lands there is something you could further learn about your own abilities? Or knowledge that you've yet to attain that could help in these matters?" Jewel briefly wondered if she would be so fortunate that Jaska was actually secretly hiding somewhere in Viznove. But such a fancy was ridiculous. However it was not only the providence of wizards to perform acts of sorcery.

Gem was definitely not performing any working in the manner of a Weird or a divine bargain. Jewel had confirmed that for herself, such sorcery had little similarity to even lesser wizards and their 'speaking' to the world. And the nature of wizardry was that their truths could blind them. There was indeed a chance Jewel could learn something. The weight that had been dragging down her heart lightened at that thought.

"Thank you, my trusted council, you are all of you right by it." Jewel found her neck rising a little higher than it had sunk in her mood. She even found the lightness of spirit to smile!

"I did all that I knew how to do to help the Lord General." A firm nod and a quick shrug of her wings to shake off the weight of her worries helped too. Tail whipping just a bit from side to side as Jewel wriggled out her spine. It felt good to move on the road after so long cooped up tending a man nearly dead. The warmth of the sun was filling her up. Gem laughed openly, She however kept most of the joy to a demure smile on her larger lips. Still her tone was now bright.

"But I will learn to do more!"