Chapter ten

The airboat flew swiftly toward Vondium.

Once I had received Delia’s message I had wasted no time. A quick trip to our villa in Drakanium, a change of clothes, with a flustered majordomo and flunkies running in circles, a hamper of food and drink, weapons, money, and I was away in one of the small fliers we kept at the villa, as we tried to keep a voller or two at all our places.

I did not think my cover had been broken, but then, I didn’t give a damn if it had. What had happened in Vondium to drag Delia away? Was the emperor dead? But everyone would have known — no. No, perhaps not. It paid very often to keep news of the deaths of kings and emperors secret for as long as possible.

The voller was a fleet craft, for its stabling at the vill……