As Khamene and Ron were proceeding to the cafeteria at Witcher Hall, Khamene still shaken by the vision of the dark figure, a Wontarian Guard was walking briskly towards the chambers of King Heralla.
The guard was wearing purple balloon trousers, black rattan sandals, and an armor suit protecting his upper body. On one hand, he was gripping a silver lance that glinted like a twinkling star.
He walked down the long hall to the chambers. Floor-to-ceiling windows covered both sides of the hall, each pane painted a different color, triangles and rectangles of colored light that was nothing short of spectacular and grand. This section of the castle looked and felt holy, as if it was the largest wing of a cathedral.
Panting, his bangs sticking to his sweaty forehead, he raised his free hand and placed it against the large mahogany door to the chambers. At the last second before he applied force, he remembered to ring the bell first.
On the right side of the curved door was a golden bell hanging with a two-foot red nylon rope that served as the clapper hanging inside. He grabbed the clapper and shook it until the bell rang. In his disturbed state, the guard found the ringing deafening in his ears, and the vibrations he felt caress his skin made the hair on his arms stand.
He waited two seconds, three, four, before pushing open the door.
Inside, King Heralla was writing what seemed to be a letter on his desk on the left of his wingback chair. He seemed to have not heard the ringing of the bell or the guard's entrance. He was still scribbling, his golden crown embedded with different gemstones perched on the edge of the table.
The guard pretended to cough to grab the king's attention. Even then, it took two more seconds for King Heralla to turn to him. His eyebrows were furrowed, clearly irritated, but then his face softened and became devoid of any emotion.
"What is it?" he asked. He dropped the pen to the table, one palm down and holding on to the piece of paper he was writing on.
A wave of curiosity passed through the guard, wondering just how important that document was. It was obvious that it was important enough that the king should cover it with his hand to prevent the guard from seeing any words written on it, even if the guard was ten feet away from him.
The Wontarian Guard refocused, shifting his gaze from the piece of paper to King Heralla's face. Now, the king's eyebrows went up his forehead, likewise curious.
"There was an. . . incident," the guard said. He turned around, realized that the door was still open. He stepped farther into the room and shut the heavy door. The news he was about to divulge to the king was confidential. Even he, a lowly guard, should not know such information.
"What kind of incident?" the king asked.
"A murder."
At this, King Heralla's eyebrows shot farther up his forehead, practically reaching his hairline. The guard waited for him to say something, anything, but King Heralla merely waited for him to go on.
"A couple down in Larthas," the guard continued. "A lover's quarrel. . . they think it was a murder-suicide. Which one of them killed the other, they still don't know."
In actuality, the guard was not the least bit convinced that it was a crime of the sort. A murder--murders--yes, but suicide? Unlikely, given the injuries on both the man and the woman. The crime scene, to be precise, looked closer to the result of a violent animal attack than an escalated argument between lovers.
"When did this happen?" King Heralla asked, brushing his graying hair back with the hand that wasn't pinning the piece of paper down. The guard had worked long enough for the king to know that the movement was Heralla's tell when he was getting nervous.
"This morning," the guard answered.
King Heralla nodded, momentarily gazing down at the floor. Suddenly it was getting warmer in the room, the sun shining through the windows too brightly, the light too golden.
The king looked back at him. "Does anyone else know?"
The guard shook his head. "Just a few of us. Rodanka's cousin works in the police force. It just so happened that this cousin accidentally told him about the investigation, and then he told us. Loose lips and all that. . ."
Heralla's reponse was swift, stern, his voice deeper. "Make sure no one else knows. This stays between us."
The guard nodded.
"I can always count on you, Fredrin," the king said.
Fredrin the guard tried not to smile, given the heaviness of the news he had just told the king, but his heart skipped a beat, as if he was a child being praised for being a good boy. He was certain that he was one of Heralla's favorite guards, probably even his most favorite. He sucked up more than the other guards, and he was glad to be of service to the king. Heralla's Dog, the other guards called him, to which he did not feel any offense for. If all of his pathetic efforts amounted to the king recommending him to the Roztock Order to become the next king, then that was all that mattered.
For now, he simultaneously served as a guard and the king's informant.
"Tell the others to keep their mouths shut," King Heralla said, then waved a hand in the air. "No, nevermind. Tell them to come here so I can tell them myself."
The guard nodded.
"Now, Fredrin."
"Yes, sir." And then the lowly guard was off, trotting back down the hall and outside the castle to look for Rodanka and the others.
As Fredrin exited the castle and went to the garden at the front of the castle, he felt eyes watching him. He stopped for a moment, turned to his left, then to his right, saw no one, then continued on galloping like the obedient horse that he was.
He decided that there was no one watching him; he was just unsettled by the incident he'd heard about this morning. Such a decision would prove to be the biggest mistake of Fredrin's life.
Behind a bush that was a vibrant green with purple berries, a Skullor was crouched down, watching Fredrin. Their reach was expanding. It would not take long for their dominion to come, and they would start with Wontaria.
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It was a minute or two before Heralla went back to his document. He reread what he had written so far, not fully understanding the gravity of the words. His mind was disturbed by the information that Fredrin had shared with him.
A murder, here in Wontaria, here in the land that he ruled over. If there was anything he knew about leadership, it was that all leaders were pulled into all tragedies, and they would always be painted as a perpetrator, an accomplice to bloodshed. Crimes like the murder-suicide in Larthas always looked bad on the leader of the land, because it meant that they had failed to keep the peace.
A man hard on himself, Heralla took this news as an oversight on his part. Even if he couldn't possibly control Marina and Braheen's relationship, he regardlessly felt that he had a fault in this.
Surely I could have done something, he told himself, feeling a tightness in his chest that was disappointment at himself.
He cared about his people.
The only thing he cared more about, was his family. A wave of goosebumps rocketed down his body at the thought of how this would look on his family, on Khamene.
Sighing, his jaw clenching, he crumpled the piece of paper on his desk and grabbed a fresh one from a drawer under the table.
Writing the letter was good timing, he thought. He didn't have to change anything he had written before, only the amount he was going to give to the Roztock Order. It had to be a larger sum of money now.
Today, there were two things that the people of Wontaria didn't need to know: the crime committed in Larthas, and King Heralla's corrupt ways of staying in the Order's good graces.
He began writing the letter, wondering how many more zeroes he would have to add.