LEGACY BETRAYED Read Online Free

connected to the majority of CC followers. I could use it to send the message. Then , when everyone congregates, they’re arrested immediately. It would save a huge amount of time.”
    Kaizen glared thoughtfully at the young rebel leader turned shrewd informant.
    “Abner?”
    “Yes, my lord?”
    Kaizen glanced coolly at Abner, whom he had never liked, and took a vindictive relish in his next words. “You have been relieved of your duties as the personal advisor to the duke until further notice. You may return to Lion’s Head as soon as possible.”
    “But– my lord–”
    For the first time, Kaizen wielded his father’s scepter. He used it to point to the door, and Abner acquiesced to its command as if compelled by the late Duke Malthus Taliko himself.
    “Trimpot,” Kaizen commanded. “I may regret this. On the other hand, it’s probably wise to keep a close eye on you. I’ll honor my father’s promise and bring you into the court of Icarus until further notice.” The scribe was scribbling furiously now, and the only member of the cabinet not wearing a definitive scowl was Claude, the hawk-nosed steward whom Malthus had always privately suspected a sympathizer. “I believe that is all, then, for tonight. I still haven’t slept. I should do that. You’re all . . . dismissed,” Kaizen finished, waving his hand, and hoping that was how these things concluded, though from the confused expressions on the faces of his courtiers, it was not.
    “I’m going to need protection , you know,” Trimpot added casually, as if in afterthought. “Being a turncoat is dangerous.”
    “I have hardly any protection myself,” Kaizen snapped. “Did you not know that my entire guard staff has been blinded? That I subsist on auxiliary defence from local establishments? Did you not hear that the Center itself is without sufficient staff to send N.E.E.R. new supplies? How could I send even two to Lion’s Head?”
    “Perhaps you need send none from the castle walls,” Trimpot suggested. “Perhaps you could afford me a small wing of the palace. Ah! Yes! Why not the dismissed advisor’s vacant quarters?”
    You devil. “A home in Lion’s Head will be arranged until further notice,” he allowed. “However, you may stay in the castle keep, under the surveillance of the auxiliary sentries. You will always be free to go into Lion’s Head. If you feel unsafe, you may stay in the keep for this time.”
    Trimpot silently deliberated. “I hate to be watched,” he murmured darkly, “but I’ll still take the castle keep.”
    “I’ll accompany you there,” Kaizen replied. “We’ll send a man for your things.” In all honesty, he wanted to be able to control what the recent revolutionary had on his property. “I need to see the royal machinist, Master Addler, anyway. If any automata have been repaired yet, I’ll need to use it to contact Dyna and ensure that she maintain the claim that the condition of the late duke – I mean, my father – is stable.”
     
    Master Addler’s wiry gray head was hunched like a surgeon over his worktable, an uncovered automaton sprawled before him. Most automatons had no porcelain coating left of which to speak. It had been crushed and lost in the massacre, or remained, horrifically stained. Seeing the bronze monster there, all the creations of gear and pulley, ball-joint and marble eye, slumped in a line against the wall, made the young duke slightly nauseated. Perhaps he had a touch of post-traumatic stress disorder, but then, he wouldn’t take that counseling.
    “. . . be able to fix you up something,” Master Addler murmured to himself. “Though I still think you’re a very pretty–”
    “Master Addler,” Kaizen announced his presence.
    “Not you, too!” Master Addler sighed from where he dug in the brass guts, glaring over at Kaizen. His eyes were comically magnified behind the goggles he used for work with miniatures, perched at the tip of his bulbous nose. “Well, go lay