Reign of Rivalry

Chapter 6

I was going to kill Arius. I'd been sitting in this fucking tree for hours now, spying on the comings and goings of the Fire Kingdom castle. This was grunt work shit, not something you send the commander of your armies to do. But that is precisely what the King of the Darklands had done.

Arius had intel that Lord Dunn was making a visit to the Fire Kingdom, and he wanted to know why. Arius had always been suspicious of the Fire King, and a surprise visit by the family that basically ran trade in Amarayus made him nervous. And so here I sat, my left ass cheek going numb.

It was 10 minutes to midnight when I saw the male figure move out of the shadows and into the stables, a few hundred metres away from my hiding spot. His clothes were plain, but he walked with an air of arrogance that gave him away.

Fraser, Lord Dunn's douchebag son. The kid was barely in his 100s and he walked around like he owned the place. Reports from my spies in the Valley told me he was a giant piece of shit. What was he doing wandering around the outskirts of the castle at this time of night?

Alright, let's get a closer look.

I climbed down from my high vantage point and made my way through the forest to the edge of the farmland where the royal stables sat. I pulled my shadows around me, ready to dash across the field without being seen, when movement near the building stopped me.

A female, coat tugged tightly around her head, dashed towards the doors and slipped inside. Well, that answered that. Fraser was on a late night rendezvous with someone working in the castle.

Poor girl, I doubt she's going to have a good time. But I knew plenty of females who sought males in positions of power.

Shaking my head, I moved back into the forest and continued monitoring the back roads to the castle. Not long had passed when I saw a few of the King's guard make their way from the castle, a few of them fanned out in different directions. They were looking for something, or someone.

I looked back over at the stables. I wonder if they were looking for Fraser? trouble follows that dickhead wherever he goes.

My shadows were still concealing me, so a moved a little closer, trying to see if I could make out anything through one of the windows in the barn from where I was hiding.

A scream, coming from the stables pierced the air, stopping me in my tracks.

Was that a male screaming? Is that smoke?

Before I could run over, I spotted the King's guards heading towards the building.

Shit. I would have to stay in the line of trees.

From here I could still hear the screaming, the pleading, and saw a bright light that burst from the stables and gave way to waves of flames engulfing the structure.

What the hell just happened?

A guard had made it to the stables and walked inside with caution.

That was one brave soldier. Flames quickly tore through the building, the roof starting to cave in. The rest of the guard had made it and were scrambling to try to bring the fire under control. I had assumed anyone trained in the King's guard could wield flames, but no matter how hard they tried, this group of soldiers could not get the flames to come under their control.

How interesting.

Movement flashed out the side of the stables. It was the female climbing out of a window of the now fully engulfed building.

How the hell did she survive?

I was rooted in place watching as she started running, no sprinting, towards the edge of the forest. Towards where I was concealed in shadow.