THE LAST SWORD MONARCH

Chapter 6: The Story Zephar Told

The first scream came from the tunnel entrance just before dawn.

A young guard named Farris had gone down to relieve the night watch and found the lantern still burning beside a body that no longer had a throat to breathe through. He didn't stop to check the second one. He ran, boots slapping against stone, shouting for the captain of the watch before he'd even reached the stairs.

By the time the sun cleared the eastern wall, the whole Royal Estate knew. Two guards dead in the old tunnels. The prisoner they'd been escorting gone without a trace.

Captain Cedren Halvor was the first officer on the scene, and he knelt beside the fallen lantern bearer for a long time before he touched anything.

Farris hovered near the tunnel mouth, still pale, still gripping his own sword like it might steady his hands. "Captain, should we send for more men? If something's down there, we shouldn't be standing here alone."

"Nothing's down there anymore," Cedren said, without looking up. "Whoever did this is long gone."

"Single strike," he said quietly to the guard beside him. "Straight through the throat. Whoever did this knew exactly where to put the blade."

"The boy," the guard said. "Has to be."

Cedren didn't answer. He was looking at the second body instead, at the clean line across the chest that had dropped a trained soldier before he could clear his sword an inch from its sheath.

He said nothing more. He simply stood, brushed the dust from his knees, and went to find the king.

He never made it. Lord Zephar intercepted him in the corridor outside the throne room, already dressed, already composed, as though he'd been awake and waiting for this exact moment.

"Captain," Zephar said. "I trust you've seen the tunnels."

"I have."

"Then you understand the gravity of what's happened."

"I understand two men are dead," Cedren said. "I'm not yet certain I understand how."

Something flickered behind Zephar's eyes, gone as fast as it came. "The boy killed them and fled. What more is there to understand?"

"A servant with no training killing two armed guards clean enough to leave no mark on himself," Cedren said. "That's what I don't understand."

"Perhaps he had help," Zephar said. "Perhaps he had more skill hidden away than any of us gave him credit for. Does it matter which? Two of my men are dead either way, Captain, and I intend to see the culprit answer for it."

"I intend the same," Cedren said. "I only want to be certain we're chasing the right man."

Zephar's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Desperation makes men capable of things they shouldn't be capable of, Captain. I'd have thought you knew that better than most." He didn't wait for a reply. He continued past Cedren toward the throne room doors, and Cedren was left standing in the corridor with the taste of something wrong sitting heavy on his tongue.

Inside, the court had already gathered. Nobles murmured behind raised hands. King Evandor sat upon the throne with his features carefully still, the way he always looked when he was listening for what wasn't being said as much as what was.

Zephar approached the throne and bowed low.

"Your Majesty. I bring grave news."

"I've already heard it," Evandor said. "Two guards dead. The Arundel boy gone."

"Then you understand what this confirms." Zephar straightened, and his voice carried easily across the chamber, pitched for every ear in the room. "I did not wish to believe it. I told myself the boy was merely troubled, merely unfortunate in his birth. But a man does not kill two trained soldiers with his bare hands unless something in him was always capable of it."

"He had no weapon," Evandor said.

"None that we gave him," Zephar said. "Who can say what he found down there in the dark? The tunnels are old, Your Majesty. Who knows what a desperate man might arm himself with."

A murmur ran through the gathered nobles. Zephar let it build before he spoke again.

"House Arundel were traitors once. I did not want to believe blood carried such things forward. But here is our proof, laid out in the deaths of two loyal men who did nothing but their duty." He turned, slowly, taking in the full chamber. "I ask that a bounty be placed. Not out of vengeance, but out of duty to every soul who might cross his path next."

"That is a serious request," Evandor said.

"It is a serious matter, Your Majesty."

The king was quiet for a long moment. Around him, the court waited, and Zephar waited with them, his expression carefully arranged into something that resembled grief rather than triumph.

"The bounty will be granted," Evandor said finally. "Alive, if it can be managed. I want him questioned before anyone decides what he is."

"Of course," Zephar said, bowing again, and if he was disappointed by the qualifier, nothing in his face showed it.

The court began to disperse, nobles breaking into knots of conversation, already reshaping the story into something they could carry to their own households by evening. Zephar remained a moment longer, watching Cedren standing near the doors with his arms folded and his jaw tight.

"You disagree with something, Captain?"

"I haven't said that."

"You didn't need to." Zephar's voice dropped low enough that only Cedren could hear it. "Careful where that skepticism leads you. Loyalty is remembered. So is the lack of it."

He left without waiting for a response, his footsteps unhurried across the marble, and Cedren stood alone in the emptying chamber with the weight of an unspoken threat settling over him like a second layer of armor he hadn't asked to wear.

He looked back once at the throne, where King Evandor still sat, unmoving, his gaze fixed on the doors Zephar had just walked through.

"Captain," the king said, before Cedren could leave. "Stay a moment."

Cedren turned back, and something in the king's voice told him this conversation was only beginning.