Joles was a brawny man of cruel visage. His right cheek bore the scar of an arrow that near ended him, the red flesh there deeply furrowed. His arms were scored with tattoos of thorny vines, and bones, and skulls. Once he had been a petty bandit, working alone upon Fywater Road, preying on pilgrims too frail to resist. It was there when Menek first espied him, crouched in bracken, measuring his ambush. Joles had ever preferred weaker quarry than guardsmen, and so he let Menek pass. But Menek did not pass, instead calling him forth and offering Joles honest work. In time, Joles became the Captain Menek’s chief enforcer, carrying out the nefarious orders passed down from Cleon.

  But that was twenty years past, and Joles, now balding and losing his teeth, knew that his days in the court would soon be ending. The boy rex seemed to have no appetite for midnight justice, and Joles was too ugly for the court or to parade with the high guard, and too old to return to banditry. Yet should Menek rise to steward, his trade and proper life might endure for many years.

  Joles now sat alone hiding out within a stable, pondering this change of life, the musk of old straw upon the air. At last he fell asleep, dozing until a hand finally shook him awake.

  “He is unguarded,” whispered the voice in the shadows, before darting off into the night.

  Joles leapt up at once, brushing the straw off his vest, fingers finding the blade at his waist. He hurried out the door and into the street, the way marked by glow beaming from windows and cobblestones lit by moonlight.

  As he followed the cobbles toward the keep, his thoughts turned unbidden to old reckonings. How many have I slain? Twenty? No, twenty-four. He tried to name them all as he walked but their faces blurred beyond fifteen. But how many had been young men, mere boys like Cerenid? He recalled none.

  Cerenid would be easy prey, he thought. The rex was thin and unhardened by trial. If death wasn’t quick, there would be pleas for mercy. But no quarter would be given. Twas Menek who buttered Joles’s bread, not the rex. It was Menek alone to whom he was loyal.

  He entered the keep without haste, and the posted guards scarce lifted their gaze. Such was the privilege of long service, that a known man moved freely where strangers would be halted. He noted their names in his memory. They would be dealt with later. The courtyard glimmered in torchlight, her pathways abandoned at the late hour. Joles kept to the shadows along the wall, his pace measured, his breath slow and sure. He had done this many times.

  He moved in silence through the garden, swallowed by hedges and clipped yews. The fountains murmured softly in the shadows. Somewhere, a drunkard’s singing carried upon the air. His only witness, the silhouette of an owl perched on a near branch, slowly turning its head to follow him along the dark path.

  Joles crossed the garden unopposed. He reached the inner stair where a guard should have stood but found only the brazier, its coals burning low. He set his foot upon the first step, paused, felt for his blade, then began the ascent.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The stair wound upward, to his right in a narrow turn, the stone worn smooth by centuries of passage. He steadied his breathing, climbing slowly in his soft soles so no echo might betray him. His fingers strayed again to his blade. The air of the stairwell lay close and stale. Sconces flickered and his shadow danced on the tapestries hung slack upon the wall, their woven kings and battles gazing down in mute judgment as he passed.

  At the landing before the rex’s quarters, the corridor lay utterly still.

  No voices.

  No sentry.

  No light save what bled thinly from the stairwell behind.

  Joles halted there a moment, tightening his hand upon the haft of his knife. He listened long for human voices, for breath, for footfall, for the faintest stir. It was as though the keep itself had drawn a breath and chosen not to cry out. Hearing nothing he advanced.

  Lunge and be done? he pondered. Or slither in and end him quiet? One promised speed but alarm, the other patience but peril. He chose the latter. He preferred to savor his work.

  He carefully pressed his blade though the jamb of the door and lifted the brace that barred it. Knowing its weight and balance by feel, he raised the bar off the hook. Holding it with his knife, he eased the door in without the faintest creak. When opened far enough, he reached his free hand in and let the brace down without a sound. He was within.

  The hearth lay cold and the chamber was lit only by starlight filtering through the window, but Joles knew his way through the room blind. Across stood the canopy of the rex’s bed, the muslin drawn down to thwart the flies and night worms. Within its cocoon lay the figure of the rex, turned to the window and back to the door. Hand on blade, he listened, hearing the: slow deliberate breaths of sleep. He crept forward, knife drawn. He reached to part the curtain. He raised the blade—

  And then a force of iron swung into his knee, knocking him to the floor. Hands grabbed his arm and tore loose his blade. Fists rained upon his mouth and ears and face. Boots belted him in his ribs.

  They dragged him out of the chamber and into the corridor. Three men bearing him, one pressing steel to his throat. Lantern glow filled the stairwell. Two men cloaked in Dregrove colors appeared. Una followed behind them. She halted before Joles, peering upwards into his bloodied face. Defiance, therein, guttered and died, replaced by naked fear.

  “Thy plot hath failed, Joles.”

  He spat blood. “But not thine, it seems. Have the Blodwins taken Gruen, now?”

  “Take him below.”

  That same night, Cerenid sat beside Kethu in his dim chamber, which the old Aeonite had not left for many weeks. Kethu’s face was pale like linen, and his hair had thinned to wisps. His blue-veined, arthritic hands trembled without cease.

  “Teacher,” the young rex said softly, “what is thy counsel?” The rex leaned close to hear Kethu’s faint reply.

  Kethu’s eyes stirred, fixing upon Cerenid with a clear gaze, hands yet trembling. “Thou must uncover all who had hand in this,” he whispered. “Joles would not have dared this alone. His hand was guided.” Kethu paused to draw breath. “Flush them forth, all of them, or they shall come for thee again and again.”