"What do you mean, he disappeared?" Empress Valeria's voice rose as she sat at the head of the council table, her piercing eyes focused on Lord Vrator, her nephew.
Normally, the fate of the little bastard wouldn't have concerned her. He was nothing more than a stain, a reminder of a long-buried indiscretion. But the audacity—the insult—of someone daring to make a mockery of her authority within her own city made her blood boil.
Lord Vrator, her nephew, bowed his head slightly, visibly uncomfortable under the Empress's withering gaze. "Your Grace," he began cautiously, "the guard was found unconscious near the entrance to the dungeons. It appears the infiltrators placed an open bottle of wine beside him after bringing him out of the cell. Those who passed assumed he had simply... drunk himself to sleep.So, for some time the matter was left unreported as the discipline within the dungeon keeper is lax at best, only when the guards woke up on his own, we understood what had happened."
