The Wax Wind Conspiracy

Chapter Three: Livers (Part One)

Chief Justice Rupert Rupert stormed into his room, almost shaking the door out of its frame when he slammed it. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped from his greasy cowlick. His heart tried to pump its way out of his chest, and the blood in his brain caused his vision to swim and contort. Medicine. He needed his medicine. The judge stumbled to his desk drawer and nearly punched a hole through it trying to get the thing open. There. A small silver bottle in the back. Barely conscious, it was a miracle that Rupert got the cork off and managed to force down a trembling guzzle. Then he crawled into bed and tried to ignore the screaming in his head.

For what felt like a day, the judge was assaulted by visions of blood and fire. He dreamed of the idiot in the blue suit, of tearing out his throat and beating his face into a bloody pulp. When the man was little more than a puddle of guts, he turned to the girl and ripped her in half. Then he tore into their corpses. He kept shredding and ripping and digging until he finally found them, and tore free their shining livers. He was so hungry. He brought them to his mouth, he tried to take a bite.

When Rupert reopened his eyes, his heart had finally calmed. Everywhere hurt, especially his head. He suppressed a groan as he rolled limply out of bed, a wet impression of his body etched into his sheets in sweat. Thank the stars for laudanum, he thought, as he tucked the bottle back into its hiding place in the back of the drawer. Where once was rage was now only a pleasant numbness. He frowned. This couldn't continue. The laudanum was effective at first, but now, only two months later, he could already feel its effects begin to weaken. Under the medicine's soothing calm, he felt a seething rage. How much longer could it hold him back? How much longer until he'd have to find another solution? He was running out of solutions, and horrifyingly, the episodes were growing not only in frequency but intensity too. Back there, he hadn't had an episode that intense – not since before the execution. He shook his head. He couldn't think of such things; the apothecary had warned against it.

Instead, Rupert tried to focus on the man he'd seen earlier that day.

The Judge arrived early for boarding as he did for everything in his life. By the time most passengers were struggling aboard, he'd already unpacked what meager supplies he'd deemed necessary to bring. While people were suffering to find their rooms, Rupert lounged in the ship's observatory, whiskey in one hand and fungus cigar in the other. Papers littered the table before him. For the judge, this trip was no pleasure cruise. In two weeks, he would be presiding over the trial of the Heretical Traitor himself. It would be the crowning achievement of his short career, and he'd make sure the Traitor would hang for his crimes. He just had to hold on until then.

The glass dome of the observatory cast its gaze over everything worth seeing, from the pink clouds above and below him to the distant islands drifting in the breeze. Small settlements and farms grew on these islands, like moss on river rocks. Watching the people, rendered as small as ants by the distance, milling about their mundane and awful lives, Rupert felt a complete calm wash over him. After so much struggle and so much pain, he was here. Surrounded by more wealth and opulence than he could possibly have dreamt of in his younger days. And not only did he have wealth. He had power too. As the newly appointed King's Justice, no one was out of his reach. He could change lives with a stray word, he could crush communities on a whim. The thought itself was more than enough to electrify him.

No. It was happening again. Rupert shook his head as if to shake off the thoughts. When that didn't work, he threw down a heavy glass of whiskey and poured himself another. After setting the bottle down on the floor, though, he noticed something out the corner of his eye. Something that made his blood run cold. Something he never thought he'd see again. A face, staring back at him from across the room. When they made eye contact, the man turned away and back to his book.