Chapter 40 - Information Control

  The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

  - Edmund Burke.

  “Cornelia, wake up, you silly creature!” Seraphina cooed through the necklace at her throat, each syllable sparkling in the mind of the monster. “And do make yourself smaller. I didn’t gift you that trinket just to make you even prettier!”

  The serpent uncoiled with the languor of ancient royalty roused from a centuries-long slumber. Four molten-amber eyes fluttered open, radiant and predatory, while twin forked tongues—thick as braided ropes—flicked across Seraphina’s cheeks.

  “Still… so… sleepy,” Cornelia sighed, her voice a low, resonant purr that vibrated in the girl’s thoughts.

  “Smaller, Cornelia,” Seraphina warned, a smile as sharp as a knife. “Be quick about it, or breakfast vanishes. Dilly dally, and lunch joins it in oblivion.”

  Miriam, hands trembling slightly, clutched her apron. “P-pardon me, my lady, but… what exactly is Cornelia?”

  “Obvious, surely,” Seraphina replied, flicking a sunlit strand of hair from her eye, as though discussing the weather. “She’s a Hydra, or an Orochi, as the people of the Eastern side of the Empire like to call them. Isn’t it blindingly obvious?.”

  Her words had all the impact of a falling chalice in a quiet room. Eloise and the maid instinctively stepped back, shoulders clenched.

  “A Hydra, Lady Seraphina?” Eloise whispered, voice quavering. “Is that—entirely safe?”

  “For me? Perfectly.” A blasé shrug. Below, the monster obeyed her earlier command. Flesh rippled and flesh compacted as scales folded inwards like living mail. The thick coils condensed until the beast resembled an overgrown lap pet. “There now. Isn’t she precious? Yes, my vicious darling, you are. One day, I shall feed you every rude soul in the realm… Come now, you may pet her as you always do.”

  Eloise, emboldened by the display of control, extended a tentative hand. Her fingertips brushed scales dense enough to deflect steel. Awe softened her fear.

  “See?” Seraphina beamed. “Not changed at all!”

  Cornelia, now scarcely longer than her mistress’s forearm, tasted the air once more. With a pleased hiss, she slithered beneath Seraphina’s robes, seeking the heat against her mistress’s skin. The fabric bulged around her chest, then settled, as if nothing monstrous hid there—save the faint, contented serpentine hiss that reminded every witness that beauty, in this dormitory, kept very sharp teeth.

  ***

  Of all places, the revelation struck Seraphina during Mathematica classes. Chalk motes drifted like lazy fireflies in the late-morning sun while she balanced equation after equation with effortless grace, her quill keeping time against the parchment’s margin. Information, raw and potent, was the currency of power. Its dissemination had to be controlled. And, what better way to control it than to create it.

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  A few desks ahead of her, Miriam—her steadfast Palisa Slug Maid and manager of Seraphina’s greatest business venture, Bottlesworth’s Confectioneries—worked silently. To anyone else, the girl’s brow might have seemed knitted in concentration, but Seraphina recognized the glimmer of satisfaction instead. Of course, Milly would thrive here. Dealing with her business accounts on a near-daily basis had prepared her well for this class.

  Her eyes drifted a few desks to the left, settling on Hughes. He’d been out of it for most of the lesson, barely reacting even when the teacher had harangued him. His face was pale, eyes heavy with fatigue—he looked truly worn down. Seraphina frowned slightly. She hoped he wasn’t overworking himself with too much studying.

  Presiding over them was Master Thagorius, an ancient reed of a man sprouting the most extravagant beard and moustache in the Academy—enough snowy bristle to shame an emaciated walrus. His frail frame belied a voice like rolling iron shot, and he wielded it mercilessly. Whenever Seraphina’s focus strayed even a heartbeat, his questions swooped like hawks: “Miss de Sariens, factor the quadratic … Miss de Sariens, derive the limit …” Each time she answered with a prim smile, masking the bubbling impatience that urged her to spend her mental resources toward her grander designs.

  The bell tolled, signalling the end of class. Seraphina sighed, glad that the morning’s lessons were finally over. Milly, she whispered across their private bond, the single word laced with command. To me.

  Her maid, Miriam, bit her lip hard as she wove through the tide of students pouring out of the classroom, eager as trout released upstream.

  “What is it, milady… I mean Miss de Sariens?” she managed, cheeks blooming pink with the fumble.

  The look Seraphina leveled at her could have stripped paint. One perfectly arched brow rose, promising artful retribution.

  Just then, the Saint of Silver herself—Este Lize—glided past the doorway, hem of her Academy robes whispering with each of her steps. A coterie of admirers orbited her, all soft giggles, fluttered lashes, and half-heard squeals. Sparks leapt the narrow space when Este Lize’s eyes met Seraphina’s: an electric brush of futures yet unwritten. For some reason, Seraphina’s pulse thudded once, heavy enough to feel in her throat, before she snapped her mother’s fan open to sever the moment.

  Only after Este Lize’s entourage vanished around the corridor did Seraphina pivot back to her maid, who waited with her typical frozen-rabbit expression so unbecoming in a servant of House de Sariens.

  “Well, Miriam,” Seraphina murmured, voice thin and brittle as spun glass while her crimson ivory fan screened her lips. “The weather is most clement for so late in the season, is it not?”

  Miriam blinked, lost. Across their mental link, she pronounced a very different edict: Begin purchasing every shop and workspace tied to the Book-Workers’ Guild in Meridian. Quietly. I’ll settle for nothing less than a majority controlling stake.

  “That is quite—” Miriam began aloud.

  Fan ribs snapped shut with a click that echoed like a pistol crack. Seraphina’s eyes narrowed to violet slits. “You will remain silent until I finish, Milly. When the acquisitions are in motion, bring me parchment. I have designs I expect rendered by Meridian’s finest artificers—preferably Dwarven. Their tongues, unlike yours, do not wag.”

  A mute nod. Miriam knew too well what punishments lurked behind her lady’s composed veneer.

  Seraphina exhaled, smoothing her expression into airy nonchalance precisely as Fleur bore down upon her with her usual tail of friends: flaxen-haired Beatrice, towing the irrepressible redhead Moleana like a kite in a high wind.

  Beatrice’s eyes lit. “Oh, lunch! We wondered if you’d care to join us. The kitchens hired a new head chef who bakes the flakiest pies—though,” she added, leaning conspiratorially close, “rumor says the old chef vanished overnight! And, a few stable-hands with him, poof, gone!”