TO&FQ: Book 2 - Chapter 40 (RAW)

Chapter 40 - Information Control The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. - Edmund Burke. “Cornelia, wake up, you silly creature

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 titanic 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.

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 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!”

“You shouldn’t fling such gossip around like that, Bea,” Fleur chided, but her smile lacked conviction. “They are still investigating. Or, so they say,” she added, whispering the last bit.

“It is odd timing,” Moleana mused, her tone serious. “The seniors are furious—the old chef could recreate just the most fantastic dishes from the Empire...”

Seraphina offered a tight-lipped, but still dazzling, smile. “By all means, tell me every scandal you overhear. Life grows dull without a little… seasoning.”

Before more could be said, Sir Gravens strode up, the robes of his uniform immaculate, jaw chiseled as if by some inspired sculptor of old Qis. Sunlight from the tall windows caught the line of his cheek as though it favored him. Several girls inhaled in unison.

“Please, allow me to escort you,” he said, voice warm velvet.

“That will be quite all right,” Seraphina replied sweetly, snapping her fan shut with decisive finality. “You will escort my lady-in-waiting, Eloise.”

It was a deliberate gambit: send Gravens to Dahlia, a reminder to Eloise of his recent indiscretion. Perhaps, with Desdemona also in Dahlia, the ripples from such a move would be… interesting.

“My lady—” he protested.

Tap. Tap. Tap. The fan’s edge rapped her desk thrice: sentence, verdict, execution.

“As you wish.” A stormcloud settled over his features, yet he bowed and took his leave.

“Oh, to be Dahlia class right now,” Beatrice sighed, practically swooning.

“Won’t you call him back?” Fleur pleaded dreamily. “I just know lunch would taste better beside someone… so gallant.”

“Come now, such salacious chatter!” Seraphina laughed, light as a wind-chime. “He is easy enough on the eyes—in an artistic sense—but truly, we must curb our talk of boys here. 

Faces fell.

She relented, glitter sparking in her gaze. “Because girls, lunch provides a far more relaxed venue for discussing them. And, you can borrow him after Eloise is finished with him,” she added with a naughty smile.”

To punctuate, she glanced toward the back row where Hughes slumped asleep. Normally, the boy always found some excuse to inveigle himself into her plans. Today, it seemed, he remained adrift in dreams.

“Come, ladies,” Seraphina declared, gathering her books in a practiced sweep, an alien pang of regret in her heart. “Let us see what delights the kitchens have prepared for us.”

Hearts fluttering, the little procession spilled into the hallway, secrets braiding around them like the first stirrings of an adolescent summer storm.

***

The young noblewoman had finally remembered the missing part of her usual morning routine from her old world. And, now that she had remembered it, she had amended to rectify the situation.

Seraphina de Sariens sat cross-legged on the edge of her narrow dormitory bed, the coverlet rumpled and half-slid to the floor. A Zajasite lamp painted blue, purple circles across the high ceiling, but its crystalline light was enough for her quick, confident strokes. She wielded a crude pencil, a recent acquisition, a hollowed-out piece of wood with some graphite down its center. With this, she filled sheet after sheet with her thoughts and design specifications. Each line was purposeful, each measurement precise; even the smudges at the edge of her thumb looked deliberate, like the battle grime of a commander sketching maps at dawn.

Short blonde hair framed her face in a careless halo, tiny fly-aways catching the lamplight. She muttered under her breath, recollecting what she knew about the first primitive printing devices, already envisioning the machine that would press written words onto cheap paper—the future heartbeat of the Kingdom of Aranthia’s very first newspaper. 

The dwarves of Bronzegate she had invited onto her father’s land had assisted her with a letter of introduction to the Understreet Clans of Meridian. Hopefully, with these instructions, it would be enough to inspire the dwarven artificers to create a machine.

Across the room, Eloise, dark-haired, porcelain-pale, and far too neat for this late hour, perched on a stool like a delicate doll just lifted from its box. Her skirts hardly rustled as she leaned forward, curiosity coloring her usual reserve. “Lady Seraphina,” she said with her usual shy smile, “Do tell, what manner of contrivance are you putting to parchment?”

“A catalyst.” Seraphina did not look up; her pencil skated into the shape of a press’ frisket and gallows. Then she flicked her mother’s crimson fan open and hid half her smile behind the bird design—the gesture equal parts aristocratic affectation and private amusement. “Imagine words multiplied a thousandfold, Eloise. A machine that feeds on information. News on every corner before rumors can sprout wings. We’ll print sheets faster than court gossips can even blink. And, for free!”

Eloise’s eyes widened, fascination overtaking propriety. “But paper is expensive, you intend to give out such valuable information… for free? And how would you intend to feed such a machine with information?”

“For free, at least at first. Soon enough, there will be people begging to place their names upon those sheets.” Seraphina tapped the parchment, punctuating each name like a drumbeat. “Count de Viserac’s is a wealth of information about the goings on of the Kingdom. Added to this, Captain Fanzazino’s network. And the Lehman’s bank—oh, they traffic in more than coin. Their ledgers hum with secrets even the spies of the Crown overlook.”

“But won’t some of these powerful people be put out by having their secrets divulged?” Eloise asked, her brow furrowing prettily.

She paused, finally meeting the petite girl’s gaze. In that calm, evergreen jade stare burned equal parts mischief and conviction. “That’s it, though. I will, of course, consult with them first, but ultimately, I will be the one who controls what is put on those sheets… and in a manner, so can they, depending on how much they assist me. In three months’ time… no two… First, the City of Meridian, then the Kingdom of Aranthia will awaken each dawn to crisp pages smelling of fresh ink—and every headline will carry my will. Information, Eloise, is the purest form of power. And I intend to wield the sword of my truth before anyone realizes the battlefield has well and truly changed.”

Outside the dormitory window, the flowers and the grass rustled in the evening’s breeze, utterly unaware that a brave revolution had just been drafted in graphite and expensive parchment.