The Mechanicals: Wyvern Chronicles, #2

By Nix Whittaker

The emperor extends a pardon to Hara and Gideon, tasking them with a marital crisis, even as the tale takes an unexpected turn inspired by the twists of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Amidst this dragon-kissed landscape, the intricate plot thickens. The niece of the empress, having fled an arranged marriage, discovers herself entangled in a web spun by a scheming duke and the Roshian empire's cunning spy. The duke, with ambitions to seize the throne, aims to legitimize his claim through matrimony. Now, Hara and Gideon are drawn into a web of political intrigue.
Compelled to rescue the runaway niece, Hara finds herself accompanied by an unexpected ally – the groom left jilted at the altar. However, this seemingly inept companion proves to be a fop with hidden depths, adding layers of humor and complexity to their quest.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Reshwity Publishers
• Release date: Dec 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9780473371562

Book preview

The Mechanicals

Wyvern Chronicles II

Other books by Nix Whittaker

Wyvern Chronicles

Blazing Blunderbuss

The Mechanicals

The Jade Dragon

Wyvern’s trim and other stories

Ruby Beyond Compare

Wyvern Mysteries

Lady Golden Hand

The White Lady

The Lady Doctor

Kitsune Shapeshifter Series

Zero Foxes Given

For Fox Sake

Once Upon a Midnight

© 2016 by Nicola Pike

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical facts, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

To family, far and wide.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Thank You

Chapter One

T

he shale skittered under her feet as Hermia crawled up the steep hill. Pain laced up her legs where the sharp rocks cut into her shins. She couldn’t feel her hands anymore but she wasn’t sure if that was the damage done by the shale or the cold. She could have taken the long winding path that led to the castle gates and reached the warmth and safety of the castle all that more sooner but Hermia was afraid her parents would have the road watched, they certainly had the village canvassed with their men.

It wasn’t that Hermia’s parents were monsters. They had been good parents. They had agreed to let her brother’s tutors teach her as well when many noble families refused to educate their daughters. Her parents had thought education useless in a woman, but they had done it anyway because she had asked it of them.

Hermia had thought she could convince them that she didn’t want to marry the arrogant Demetrius. No matter how important it was politically for her parents. She had been wrong.

Demetrius wasn’t an odious groom compared to some men who had offered for Hermia, so they did not understand her objections to the union. It was difficult to explain that she wanted to choose her own path and not one determined by her parents or even society.

Over the years, she had made herself a small niche in her home, among books and silence. It had given her the illusion that she was free to choose.

Hermia hadn’t realised how trapped she had been until the marriage had drawn close. When the wedding dress had been delivered, she knew her parents wouldn’t change their minds. Hermia would have to take things into her own hands if she wanted a future that was purely her own.

Guests were already arriving for the wedding when Hermia slipped out disguised as a servant and made her way to the small village that serviced her parents’ manor. She found someone willing to give her a ride out of the town. Someone who would not recognise the Lord’s daughter under her disguise.

Hermia had walked the rest of the way to Duke Lysander’s castle once the farmer dropped her off outside the small village that was at the base of the castle. When she had spotted her parent’s men it had forced her to leave the road. She had been grateful for the boots she had purloined with the rest of her outfit. She would have been crippled if she had attempted this trek with the slippers her parents insisted were appropriate wear for women.

The Duke’s castle loomed above her. Her breath puffed out in front of her in the setting sun. Instead of taking the path up to the castle she had been forced to take alternative paths. Unfortunately, none of it had been paved. She scrambled up shale, going backwards as much as she was going forward.

Hermia’s hands were cut up from the sharp rocks as she clambered over. But she pushed aside any thoughts of the pain. She wasn’t going back. When she finally made it to a flat area and glanced up and up some more. The walls of the castle were massive. It was built in the time of dragons when people had needed the stone to keep safe. Dragons were now their allies and the walls were only needed to keep out the Empire’s enemies. It was certainly thick enough to handle any type of cannon the Roshians used.

A guard on the walls spotted Hermia and called out. Hermia put her hands up and waved them above her head a little too excitedly. She didn’t want to be shot just because she had come up the side of the mountain instead of along the path.

When several soldiers ran out, she dropped her hands. They had a look of panic in their eyes and not one of murder. They waved her in but none dared to touch her. It was only when she was in the central courtyard of the castle that Duke Lysander offered his hands to her as he smiled.

Ah, Hermia, my dear. Look at the state of you. When I suggested you come for a visit, I didn’t expect it to be under these circumstances.

Hermia took his hands but Duke Lysander turned over her hands and blood coated her palms. It pooled from the small cuts from the shale. She had stopped feeling her hands a long time ago. They were blue with cold.

Duke Lysander frowned at her wounds and said kindly, This will not do. Let my people look at you. We can speak in the morning. That is soon enough, in any case.

Hermia let out a breath of relief. Thank you, My Lord. She hadn’t realised she had been holding onto the worry that she would have nowhere to go when she rejected her parents’ plans for her.

Duke Lysander’s eyes warmed. Please call me Lysander. We are friends, after all.

The look in his eye bothered Hermia but she couldn’t put her finger on why the look disturbed her. The servants guided her through the castle to a lavish room. If she didn’t know any better, she would have said they had known she was coming.

A servant cleaned her hands and bandaged them up. They brought Hermia food and she was left alone to rest. She slept for awhile but she woke late at night.

She stared at the ceiling for longer than she wished. Her thoughts tumbling all over themselves and keeping her awake. She knew from experience there would be no way to fall asleep now. Her hands throbbed with pain. Now that she had warmed up there was nothing protecting her from the pain. Her feet hurt as well but they had at least been protected from the shale.

Giving on trying to sleep with the pain she swung her legs off the bed.

Hermia lit a candle but it was difficult with her bandaged hands. She almost caught herself on fire, so she took off the bandages. Her hands were cut up but they weren’t bleeding and as long as Hermia was careful, she shouldn’t hurt herself too much. It wasn’t like she was about to forget that she was injured with the way they throbbed even worse when she rested them by her side.

She tucked one up under her chin and without the bandages, it was much easier to hold the candle as she made her way through the castle.

Hermia had been here before and she searched for a particular room that she had only heard of but had never visited. The last few times Hermia had visited, it had been with her parents and they had certain expectations of her behaviour when visiting people. Along the lines of seen but not heard. Which meant she hadn’t been allowed to peruse the library.

It didn’t take Hermia long to find the large doors and push her way into the library. Shelves towered toward the ceiling in the massive room. All the shelves were filled with books with gold lettering on the spine. Ladders leaned against shelves so she could reach the top.

The only problem she had now was deciding which book to read first. The process took longer than she thought it would and she yawned by the time she tucked the book under her arm and headed back towards her room.

A clanking sound from outside made Hermia go to the nearest window to look outside. The moon wasn’t very bright and it took a while to make out the shapes hidden in the shadows in the courtyard below.

They were enormous automata, like boulders who ponderously moved about the courtyard mindlessly. Hermia wondered what they were for as they were too large for most construction work or labour in the fields. Hermia shrugged it off. Many people had automata. They could build things and move things. She doubted they were to move things as they were just too slow but she could imagine they could build big sturdy walls.

She laid her hand on the wall of the castle. The coolness of the stone was pleasant on her painful cuts. She had only assumed the castle was old because of the size of the walls. But it could be a fairly new building if it had been made by those automata. Why would Duke Lysander want a castle that could withstand a dragon?

Her parents had never encouraged Hermia to bother with politics and geography as those were male subjects and in any case, Hermia preferred science and medicine. So she didn’t know how old this castle was.

Maybe she could ask Lysander if she could look at the large automata in the morning. Their power source would be very interesting. He would also know how old the castle was.

Hermia was about to enter her room when a woman said, You shouldn’t wander around at night.

Hermia turned to see a stunning woman leaning against the wall further down the corridor. The woman had no candle or lantern so her face was obscured in the shadows but her voluptuous curves were obvious even in the darkness. Hermia held the book in front of herself as an unconscious defence.

Hermia asked, Who are you?

The woman moved away from the wall and stalked towards Hermia like a panther stalking its prey. I am Helena. I live here at the castle and I can tell you it isn’t always safe to wander around at night.

Hermia wasn’t sure the woman warned her out of some need to be kind or for some ulterior motive. In fact, she wondered if the woman told her not to wander around for another reason that had nothing to do with Hermia’s safety.

I’ll be careful, Hermia said cautiously.

Helena huffed. Suit yourself but don’t come crying to me or the Duke if you find yourself in a situation a noble woman like you shouldn’t be in.

Helena turned and left Hermia standing by her room with her book still pressed to her chest.

Hermia wondered who the woman really was. She spoke with an accent but the words had been clipped and controlled like other nobles. Her dress was also of a noblewoman but the tone of Helena’s voice said she didn’t like nobles.

___

A

boy delivered the telegram to the Blazing Blunderbuss while they were in a Middle Eastern port. It was such a rare occurrence to receive any correspondence so everyone looked over Hara’s shoulder as she paid the boy and turned the message over in her hands. When Hara realised she had an audience, she decided she would take the message somewhere private.

That was more difficult than she expected. Even in Hara’s room, Gideon followed her. She gave him a glare but he was oblivious to the daggers she shot his way and closed the door behind him. He considered her room his space as well ever since she had joined his collection.  She had even tried leaving him in the capital but he had merely followed her. A good thing as he had saved her life but she had been hoping he would go back to his previous life as a professor of mathematics and leave her alone. She should have known better.

That time she had walked into her room to find him naked in her bed after he had flown to catch up with her. She believed he had been naked to punish her for leaving him behind. He was a dragon and his logic wasn’t like her own.

Hara said, Boundaries, Gideon. I thought we talked about this.

Gideon grinned. You talked, I listened, but that doesn’t mean we decided on boundaries.

That was an argument for another time. Her curiosity had her opening the message instead. She frowned at the few words and then glanced at Gideon. It is from the Emperor. He is summoning us as he has a task for us and in return, the Empire will pardon all my crew.

Hara’s hand tightened on the message. She knew them becoming pirates last summer would have repercussions but they really hadn’t had much choice. When they were threatened by the Roshian government to do their dirty work for them they had to turn to a life of crime or the Roshian’s would send endless assassins after them wherever they went.

Gideon frowned at her revelation and she asked, You know the court better than I. Do you think this is for real?

Yes, and that concerns me. They have not bothered with me in centuries, he said sagely.

Hara raised an eyebrow. What about those guys at your house when I dropped you off? They were sent by the Emperor. When she had left him at his home, there had been two men from the court. One had been Harlen, Gideon’s brother. He had been a surly type in all the interactions Hara had had with him so she could imagine Gideon didn’t really want to see him.

With the way the other man had deferred to Harlen she had the impression that he worked high up in the Empire. Gideon didn’t have much in the way of family. He had explained to her once that dragon eggs were abandoned after they were hatched. The only way they could keep their biological family was to add them to their collection.

He waved off her insight. "Oh, that was more about family than the court. It is unusual for a formal summons like this. And it is addressed to you. I think they might have heard