Chapter 173 — An Uneasy Wind

Ansu did indeed have a rotten system, but its kings had, by and large, been clever men.

Now before him lay a secret letter from Viscount Andrew Leslie of the southern marches, and its contents were graver than what the nobles elsewhere had reported:

Cultists of the Congregation of the End of All Things had appeared in Tamsin Town. The cultists had at one point infiltrated the castle and used dark arts to control some of its people; fortunately Duke Gao Yang Cecil had come to their aid, and the duke had wiped out the cultists entrenched in that land.

The old king would never know that Viscount Andrew Leslie had concealed a great deal of the truth in this letter—the Tablet of Eternity that had already fallen into Gao Yang's hands, for instance, and the details of his own subjection to the cultists' control—and he had deliberately played down the gravity of the whole affair by a great margin. Even so, the intelligence disclosed in this letter was enough to alarm the old king.

Cultists who had once dared to move only in the shadows had this time directly invaded the mansion of a landed noble!

In the past, whether they used living sacrifices or performed rites with the bones of the dead, they had never put true nobles on edge, for such deeds were done to the "lowborn." The Ember Shadows cultists had seemed well versed in respecting the bottom line of the game, never reaching a hand into the noble order—but now... the wind had shifted.

And it had shifted at just such a time, at the time of greatest tension between Ansu and the Tiphon Empire. Francis II had breathed a little easier when he learned the Tiphon Empire would not launch a war this winter, believing he could seize the chance to further strengthen the border forces and lay the groundwork for war. But now it suddenly struck him that the Ember Shadows cultists probably did not wish him any such leisure.

Just as the old king sat steeped in gloom, a gentle, warm sensation suddenly filled the whole room.

He looked up in some surprise and saw Verodai, clad in the white robes of a priest, entering the chamber.

This "saintly princess," wearing a smile and a touch of girlish coquetry, came toward her father. "Father, I asked Lord Aiden, and he said you were still in your study."

"Verodai, my daughter... what brings you here today?" Francis II looked at Verodai with some surprise. Though his daughter still retained her status as princess, she had already formally converted to the faith of the God of Holy Light. She spent most of her time at the Radiant Dawn Cathedral and rarely returned to the Silver Fortress.

"Have you forgotten? Today is the day I leave the cathedral to come to the castle and see you," Verodai said with a smile, tracing the emblem of the God of Holy Light over her breast. "To serve the Lord is not to forget to serve one's parents—such is the teaching of the Holy Light."

"Look at this head of mine," the old king could not help striking his own forehead. "I had the day wrong!"

"It's all right. The burden of the kingdom weighs on you, and you must put your duty as king first," Verodai said, and as she spoke she noticed the weariness on Francis II's face. She raised a hand and summoned a shaft of holy light, easing her father's mental strain with divine arts. "Father, has something happened?"

Francis II sighed. "Cultists—the Congregation of the End of All Things, the Order of the Long Night, and petty sects like the Blackstone Cult and the Abyss Followers. I don't know what madness has gotten into them, but as winter comes on they've all started making trouble one after another."

At the word "cultists," Verodai, a devout follower of the Holy Light, could not help but frown. "May the Holy Light save those poor souls beset by these ruffians... Cultists always spread everywhere. It is a pity that, apart from the Radiant Dawn sect and the War God sect, the divine arts of the other sects are all too feeble against the dark arts of the Ember Shadows cultists."

Francis sighed. "Rest easy. Those wicked men would not dare make trouble in the royal city."

Verodai glanced at the secret letters from all over the kingdom, each bearing its special seal, folded her hands over her breast, and said piously, "The Holy Light will shelter Ansu."

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