Story for the Day: Ladrei's Lamentation

Still working on major story line for book 11 concerning Lucentia. Here is a small exerpt.




Once they had gone and the sound of their door locking echoed through the vacant main hall, Ladrei went to the bar to pour himself a small tumbler of licorice wine to help him recollect himself. Such events were the usual order of the day: a public but harmless terrorization, a private torture session, a ruthless interrogation, a collection of debts, and perhaps an assassination if there was occasion for one, but there had never hitherto been a family involvement of any variety. The episode had agitated him considerably. Being compelled to defend the family he had worked so tirelessly to gather and unite was not his usual office. He should always be their protector, as he was ever in the position to be so, but to have those who would be his clients or victims target any of those he loved was a distressing notion he should soon rather forget. It was the reason that Nidello and Arkastino, the two he regarded as more intimate than brothers, must seem his subordinates in society when they would otherwise be his equals. They had always done well to conceal their attachment to him, but he could not and would not ask the same of Adsen or Kai Linaa, for he had grown with Nidello and Arkastino and her been intimate these near hundred years whereas his attachment with his father and sister were a mere novelty. They had endured enough subordination and adversity in their lives, and he would not be the one to place them in suppression now that they had elevated themselves from it. It was a perpetual disputation against estrangement, the feeling of wanting them close and lauding them in public without the ability to do so safely. He was more the peril to them: his reputation and rank could be the ruin of the peace he had created; his consequence was a encumbrance when borne alone but was a danger when suffered together. He considered what could happen if any one of those in his circle of intimates should be threatened again. Perhaps someone else should endeavor to abduct Kai Linaa, or perhaps someone should attempt to assassinate Adsen in hopes of having Ladrei hastily react. It was a foolish thing he had done, admitting that Kai Linaa was his sister: he had made her a liability when she had been otherwise safe from any known connection.  While it was true that Landano’s corpse was now rotting in the prince’s courtyard, but there could be others whom had heeded his pronouncement and would now pass on the knowledge to everyone of decent situation around the capital. He had not taken the requisite time to consider his words, and where he should have introduced her as only a Haanta representative, his brotherly pride had conquered him and he had claimed her as a relation. This was an object so distressing that he had passed countless minutes in grim reflection without taking a sip of his wine. He only stared into the rippling contents of the glass with a thoughtful expression and regarded his reflection in the wine’s surface. So aberrant and ill-considered a declaration for a guildlord- he chided himself and buried his fretting features into his hand with all the severity and poor judgment the position could allow.

Comments