NOVEL NEXT 147- Where's Marco?
The whole time we stick to roads that get wider and wider as we approach a less remote part of the kingdom. Eventually, we leave the wooded area and enter farmland. We pass a few farmers, but we're going so fast they don't have time to react, to see that it's an academy student riding a skeletal deer. Well, if they get suspicious and alert a patrol, no problem. They'll just have to verify it's a necromancer's creature and not an escapee from a dungeon.
As I get closer to my unwanted fiancé's parents' estate, I slow down. The wind whispers through my uncomfortable mount's bleached bones as we climb the gentle slope of a hill. Its hooves echo against the packed earth of the path. Because it has hooves. Somehow, when Ronan brought it back to life, the keratin of its original hooves was replaced by bone growth that mimics their shape. They're blackish, unlike the yellowish-white of the rest of its bones.
From the hilltop, I watch the landscape spread out like a brown blanket before my eyes: harvested fields show dry stubble that rustles in the cold breeze, dotted with scattered farms with thatched roofs. Autumn is ending, and it's much more noticeable here than at the academy.
(Well, in the Blue Mountains dungeon, it snows even though winter hasn't arrived yet—the elevation makes all the difference.)
Down the path, rising solid among well-maintained orchards and corrals, stands the barons' manor house. It's a two-story stone and wood construction, sturdy and practical, with chimneys releasing columns of gray smoke into the crisp midday air. As I get closer, I can see the windows are wide but without excessive ornamentation—designed more for functionality than for show. A low stone wall surrounds the property, clearly functional for containing livestock, interrupted by a reinforced wooden gate that separates the main courtyard from the surrounding fields. The path winds between stables and barns to reach the gate.
I stop my mount as soon as I reach the wall's gate. Some farmers have been following me with their eyes, curious, ever since they saw me appear over the hill with my skeletal deer. I guess seeing undead isn't very common.
There's a single guard watching the gate, which is wide open. He's a middle-aged man with a graying beard and serious expression. He observes me cautiously, though his hand doesn't move toward the sword hanging from his belt. His eyes go from my face to my skeletal mount with a mixture of curiosity, fear, and respect. My deer stands motionless like a bone statue, waiting for orders while the wind stirs the strands of my hair.
"Good morning, I'm Bianca L'Crom. I'm here to see Marco."
"Good morning, Lady L'Crom. I see you don't remember me, maybe because you were smaller the last time you came by here, with your parents. Please, come in. The butler will attend to you and notify the barons."
"Thank you, very kind."
I advance slowly with my mount along the path. It soon makes a curve and I disappear from the guard's sight. But I'm still close, so I hear him talking to what I assume is one of the farmers who must've approached to ask questions. He tells them who I am, also that there's no dark magic in my family, that he doesn't know where I could've gotten my mount.
I shake my head. Does Ronan really have to put up with this every day? I guess so, especially now that he's building a reputation.
I arrive at a cobblestone courtyard, passing stables where some horse whinnies nervously upon sensing my undead mount's presence. We continue at a walk, advancing between auxiliary buildings until we end up in front of the house's main entrance. It's a solid door of dark oak, reinforced with black iron bands, but without excessive ornamentation. Two windows flank the entrance on both sides, and above the lintel there's a simple stone plaque with the family coat of arms carved into it. There are no guards here, just the heavy iron knocker hanging from the center of the door, waiting to announce my arrival.
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I dismount and knock. After a few minutes, an elderly butler opens it.
"I'm Bianca L'Crom, I've come to see Marco."
From his look, like the guard before, he recognizes me.
"I'm afraid, Lady L'Crom, that Marco is not here at the moment."
"May I come in to wait for him?" I ask, imagining he must be working in the fields.
"He won't be back for several days. He's left to attend an event at the royal academy."
Oh, shit. But there's more than a week left. Has he really already gone?
I think by carriage it was 4 or 5 days of travel. Unless he's planning to make some stops, he should still be at home.
Ugh... I'm realizing that I, traveling so much by portal, have assumed everyone does it. I should have thought about my trip to Hosca or to the academy, both by carriage.
I don't know if it's because of the economic cost or the bureaucracy needed to get permission to use them, but portals aren't common even among nobles. At least not among barons and counts; the high nobility, who knows. Every time I've used one, it's either been for the trials, or because we were going with the prince, or because the king and queen required my presence.
"Would you like to speak with the baron or baroness?" the butler finally asks me, seeing that I've been silent for more than half a minute.
For a moment I consider it, but that would be as cold as breaking up by text, wouldn't it?
Or worse. Ugh, having your parents tell you that your girlfriend is leaving you...
"No, thank you very much."
"Any message for the young lord?"
"No, I'll see him at the ball."
What else can I do... Because I'll either find him on the road, which seems unlikely, or run into him at the academy event.
This sucks...
Either I think of something, or I'm going to have to go to the ball with him and politely take him aside to talk privately and explain that I want to cancel the engagement.
Obviously, I wouldn't be able to make my engagement with the prince public until after the ball. It's not about causing a scandal and embarrassing Marco in public.
I don't know him; I have nothing against him. That's precisely why I don't want to pull such a dirty trick on him.
These things are better handled with discretion.
But if he's staying in Solstar before the ball, I'll find him and cancel it.
"Lady L'Crom?" the butler is asking me.
"Thank you for your help, I'm leaving now."
Back to the goblin village.
I'm going to try not to make a big deal out of this. Nothing has really changed, it's just that the moment of being officially free is delayed a bit.
I spend the rest of the day with Ronan and the goblins. Curiously, he hasn't raised all the undead bodies that fell during the battle with the ants, just a few. The bears, though, he's raised all of those. The goblins have moved the rest of the corpses to the bone pile.
"Since I have a limit, my lady, I prefer to control stronger creatures. I have already raised some trolls and snow alpha wolves."
"Where are they?" I ask, since I don't see them around the cave.
"Buried, of course, just like the animals were before. Ready to fight if necessary. The golems are the only exception. They are down below, cooling the chamber. As for the big ones I'm raising, I leave those on the cave ceilings."
I nod. It's a good way to have troops ready that aren't visible to human patrols. And why do I want troops? Obviously, to defend the goblins from the giant ants or other threat.
"By the way, that snow alpha's bracelet, the cold protection one you did not want, could you give it to me?"
"Sure." Since I'm still wearing it, I take it off and hand it to him. "What do you want it for?"
"For the new manager of the cold chamber. That way he'll handle the temperature better when he has to store or retrieve meat."
This Ronan thinks of everything. It wouldn't have occurred to me to give a magical item to a goblin for something so mundane.
Since I haven't used today's licks, Ronan asks me to create a new cave, the one he wants to use for his potion laboratory. The six points I had left plus twelve more from two licks allow me to make a pretty spacious one. The spell doesn't level up, but at this rate, I have no doubt it will very soon.
We have dinner, sleep in the main cave, and the next morning I head back to the academy. I've asked Ronan if we can take today off from the trials and their dungeon, and he asks if it's okay for him to stay with the goblins to help set up the potion lab and other facilities he has in mind. In fact, before I leave, he's having me enlarge one of the existing caves, a small one, so it better suits his needs.
By the way, with the bricks I made for him, he built some kind of furnace for the forge.
As for me, today I want to stop by Solstar for two reasons. First, to see if Marco might have arrived, though I imagine it's too early. Second, the dresses. Mary and I need to try them on to see if they fit like a glove after the seamstresses made those small changes.