Page 80 of Gilded Crown

The man lay limp in his blood with his eyes partially opened, and the moving leaf tattoos on his chest stopped moving too. Jari breathed heavily as he yanked his blade out and eyed the dark bedroom. Nothing else came running out while swinging and drooling, so he let his eyes fall to the corpse.

The man wore nothing, and he was dirty like he hadn’t bathed in weeks. His ribs stuck out along with his hip bones, and his matted hair stuck up. Jari couldn’t tell if he’d been a servant or what.

Just because that man on the road hadn’t mentioned anything didn’t mean no one else had been locked in the attic with him. If Zylem had gotten a hold of a beggar, a criminal,or anyone that wouldn’t be missed for a while, he could have brought them back to his room one night and used the crown to twist them.

Afterward, they could have been kept in the attic like dogs. Actually, dogs were treated better than that. Gullveig must have had someone restrain this one and leave him in the bedroom as a gift and a last fuck you to Aurelius.

“Fuck,” swore Jari.

Zylem had twisted this one to the point where he likely would have died pretty soon on his own. Jari crouched to look at the man’s eyes. The gold was fading to reveal the purple underneath. If someone was twisted with the crown, it seemed none of them received a moment of lucidity before death. That was it. Perhaps Eurig wouldn’t have either if he’d gone much further down the path to insanity. They’d never know now, and Jari closed the man’s eyes.

No fairy’s life should end like that. Hopefully, he’d been too far gone in his mind to feel pain, and Elira would fix him now. His suffering was over.

No one awaited in the privy room, and the man had pissed on the floor by the bed. Jari forgot about splashing his face and headed back down. He found a few Wockstons on the way and told them to go check the attic but to be careful of drugged men. They appeared confused by his odd order before hurrying off to obey.

Aurelius was in the office with the desk practically torn apart, and he looked up as Jari came in. “The fool tried to hide the seal in a jammed compartment. I managed to get it open.” He tossed up a gold ring and caught it. “I would have found a better hiding spot.” His eye widened as he looked at Jari’s chest. “That’s fresh blood.”

Jari glanced down at the new red smears on the metal of his armor. “Gullveig left a present in your bedroom. I had to killhim, and he was wild like-like a rabid animal, and he looked like he hadn’t eaten in ages. Zylem must have kept him in the attic too, and Gullveig got him into your room. I’m guessing the poor guy was too far gone in his head to remember how a doorknob works since he stayed.”

Aurelius’s jaw tightened as he swiped away a few loose strands of his hair. “If he was emaciated…that makes sense. Let’s go see the attic.”

“I sent men to look.” Jari yanked a cloth he’d tucked in his chest piece to wipe his sword again. Hopefully, he wouldn’t need to use it again for a while.

If there were any left, they’d hopefully be chained up to keep them from running around and potentially attacking.

On the way upstairs, they met a soldier with her hair in a messy bun. “M’lord, there’s nobody in the attic, but we found something. I think someone was kept as a prisoner there.”

The attic was empty of anything living except for those Jari had sent up. Chains looped and nailed around a few support posts with shackles at the end said enough. Scraps of food lay scattered around including chicken bones, and whoever had been up there had defecated and pissed on the floor.

The attic space was quite large, and Jari could see what looked like crates in the gloom toward one end. The chains weren’t very long, so any who had been locked in here didn’t have much slack to walk around. Near the hatch, it smelled like shit and unwashed bodies.

The hatch was far down the hall from Aurelius’s rooms. No wonder they’d never heard a thing. Zylem and Gullveig must have come up once in a while to toss food at their “pets” with the intent to use them later.

If Zylem had been able to use the crown for longer, he probably would have amassed more.

“Do you know something about this?” one of the men asked. “Who was up here?”

“He had a harem,” one of the men muttered.

“What does that have to do with this?” A soldier gestured at a pile of shit and wrinkled her nose.

“Zylem had sick interests,” Aurelius said smoothly. “He never told me directly, but from some things he said, I think he had desires that even a whorehouse wouldn’t fulfill for him. I’m not sure about Gullveig. Whoever was up here, he kept them hidden to do…well, you can use your imagination.”

A soldier glanced at the shit and hurried for the ladder to get down. “I’d rather not. The smell up here-I’m sorry. I can’t.”

Jari gestured at Aurelius whose cheek was twitching, although it probably wasn’t from the stench. “You can go down first. Someone needs to go to his bedroom and get the wildman out. He tried to kill me, and I think he’d been dosed with turf until he lost it.”

Zylem would probably be remembered as a Prince who had such sick desires, he had to keep them a secret and lock slaves in the attics to live like animals. It was better than people knowing about the crown.

Chapter Eighteen

“Never underestimate the power of a woman who lives in the woods and makes mixtures to cure gas or make a man’s cock hard,” Aurelius told Jari as they headed toward the city after receiving the report from a scout who said the herb woman was safe in her home. “A good one will always have a way to kill or incapacitate even if she never uses it.”

“And don’t underestimate a Mother who plans ahead for her sanest child.”

A faint smile ticked on Aurelius’s lips. “Who’s also the brightest and smartest.”

“Okay, Prince Big Head.” Jari hesitated. “You are brilliant.” Aurelius practically purred. “Someone who’s collected nornine for years is also something to be feared.”

---