Each year the Kingdom of Khearia throws a festival in remembrance of one of their most beloved kings who had tragically perished along with his wife and second son. His first son, Prince Fabian, was the only one to survive. Witnesses claimed his cro...
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Stroking his chin, his gaze swept over the black blotted scribbles that scratched across the coarse parchment. There was no gold lining nor extravagant calligraphy in this particular document, the writing was jolted and messy and sometimes incomprehensible in its ramblings. However, the contents of this scrap paper was worth more than any other stacked up in his palace.
"And you're certain this is true?" he asked, his baritone rumble coming out calmly.
The pale messenger squared his trembling shoulders and looked him in the eye. "I am certain of it, Your Majesty."
The King sighed, already having suspected such a thing, but he had dismissed his own concerns as paranoia stemming from his steadily aging mind. It appeared that his own reign wouldn't end so peacefully after all.
Sitting in this grand study room of his, shelves of books standing high and proud like an endless library of worldly happenings that he could never catch up with, he felt small.
"And what of the men who acquired this information?"
"Dead, sire." the man replied, "Shot with arrows only moments after handing this information over."
What the King held in his hands was the hurried ramblings of men who knew their death was coming and he, King William of the Drykas House, would not let their sacrifice be in vain. He would not allow his people to be used as disposable pawns to a war hungry tyrant and his yes-man. Never.
His advisor Harrison looked as unshakeable as ever by his side, but going by the tension rooting in his jaw, King William knew that this fury wasn't his alone.
"Harrison, call me Duke Chamberlain, Commander of the Royal Knights."
"Sire?"
King William shook his head. "If King Fabian wants to play chess, then chess it will be."
----
James groaned in annoyance at the mess on the floor, a mess of limbs and flesh of a man he once knew; the smell reaching out and clinging onto him like the claws of a ghost.
"That's the third one this month," he muttered to himself, carefully stepping back so that his boots would not be soiled.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" the bar's owner asked.
James' middlemen hardly had long lifespans, working as a buffer between a client and an assassin could hardly sing about safety. He'd stopped being surprised when his middlemen showed up dead, but this was the first one he'd seen that was so gruesome. He couldn't tell the difference between his face and feet.
James waved him off, "How long ago was it since he arrived here?"
"Only a few hours or so. I didn't let anyone else through the back in the meantime, just as you asked." The owner rubbed the back of his neck nervously, his brown leathery hair clumping underneath his fingers, "I don't ask what kind of business you run, but this such a mess, Jay. How am I supposed to clean all this up?"
