The Sun's Shadow

Chapter Twenty-Four

Pushing all doctorly tasks aside to focus on family first, he hardly paid the faenix any mind when entering the room where the Queen awaited him. "Wylda, come quick. Jyosith is speaking nonsense and... I'm starting to believe him."

"What do you mean?" She forgot that the girl still had ears or the fact she was even there.

Charles shook his head. "Not here. Come with me."

Instead of healing in their private chambers, the King insisted on being in his office to put things in order in case that thing resurfaced from his son to finish the job. Charles, with Wylda in tow, opened the office doors to find his brother off the bed he had set up with IVs plugged into him.

Instead, he was at his desk with stacks of papers all over it in disarray.

"See." The doctor gestured and went over to clean up the mess at his healing station.

That left Wylda to see to it that her husband returned to bed for proper rest or else his wounds would take days to heal. She tenderly walked up to him, gazing at all the papers on his desk and wondering what spurred all of this.

Then she noticed the pattern. Torn out pages from archaic books and scribbles left by knowledge seekers, all regarding one thing. Black magic and blood sacrifice. Her heart leapt out of her chest and worry took ahold of her entire being.

"What are you up to now, my love?" She placed her hand on one page that had chalk drawings of sinister creatures, far worse than her son. To these beings he looked like a mouse.

The King held up a page and shook it in front of her. "I did this. I did this. Our son..." He shivered in remembrance, then quickly tossed more books and drawings her way. "I did this."

He kept repeating those words over and over. She had to walk away just to regain sanity.

"Is this what he's been saying all morning?"

Charles shook his head. "If only. He also seems to be confessing to some... Pretty deranged things. Did he ever tell you about our older brother?"

She shrugged, "Only bits and pieces, like stories of when the three of you were younger but never much of what happened."

"His earlier mumblings were about killing him. It sounded like an earnest confession. Now somehow it's related to your son, but I can't figure out what he's saying. I had hopes you'd be able to interrupt his madness."

"My husband did not murder-"

Charles placed a hand up. "It's Jyosith we're talking about here. Drop the facade. We both are fully aware he'd do anything to obtain power and ensure his survival."

She couldn't bring herself to argue against that. But still... His brother?

Keeping an open mind, she went back over to his desk and began looking at all the pages, trying to piece them together. Then she found a pertinent clue. One torn-out page had his own scribbles on it, she could identify his handwriting out of hundreds of others.

The page itself discussed blood sacrifice in deep lengths, mentioning that the one attempting it to garner power would need the assistance of a mage and a notable sacrifice. And on that page, her husband had long ago written a date and time, plus the words 'first born'.

She gripped the paper to her chest and shuttered. He couldn't... He wouldn't have.

Then she looked down to where he sat, head in his hands as shook his head, battling with regret. She was all too accustomed to that feeling. When she slammed the paper down in front of him, forcing him to look at it, he groaned and pushed himself away from her.