The Prince's Shadow

Chapter 7: Whispers in crimson

Chapter Seven: Whispers in Crimson

It began with gossip.

Lord Cedric Thorne was not the sort of noble one gave respect. He was hot-headed, young, and boasted his family's modest wealth like a garish cloak, each coin jingling more loudly than words ever had. He was the sort of man who strolled to court not out of duty or strength, but for the thrill of secrets and scandal. A painted fool, with rumors instead of paint, and wielding them like stale daggers.

He had been spotted the previous day in the Grand Parlour, two drinks in each hand, entertaining a group of visiting nobles with some yarn about the prince's miraculous recovery.

"If you ask me," Cedric had said, his voice slurring with laughter, "a coma does not sharpen the cheekbones, does it? Or give one a new gait. Or cause one to speak in riddles like some tipsy monk. No, there is something. unnerving about him. The prince smiles too much. Does not blink often enough."

They had laughed nervously, but amused. Some glanced over their shoulders. One politely steered the subject away. But Cedric, flattered by his own cleverness, went on.

"And noticed the ring? He used to wear it on the left. Now on the right. Little things. Odd things. Perhaps I'm crazy, but I'd bet he's not the same fellow who slept ten years ago."

At midnight, Cedric vanished.

The court awoke the following morning to learn of his absence. Lord Renlow, in his typical gruff brevity,

"Lord Cedric departed early for his family residence in Westmere," he informed those who asked. "He left a written communication with the Hall of Itineraries."

A copy of said communication was later posted on the court bulletin board:

‘I find the court stifling and the air increasingly poisonous. I return to Westmere for sanity. Do not follow. – Cedric Thorne

The signature was illegible. The ink had smeared.

Few questioned it.

For one thing, Cedric was a drama king. Perhaps he'd taken his theatre too far. Perhaps he'd insulted the wrong lord. Perhaps he'd simply grown tired of the echo of his own voice off the marble corridors.

But to others especially those in the servants' wing the story didn't quite sound right.

"I heard he was taken," murmured Mara, one of the East Wing maids, as she polished the floor of the upper gallery.

"Taken by whom?" Jorren, a stable boy who passed through with buckets, inquired.

"I don't know. But Old Sef from the kitchens told me he saw Cedric fighting with someone in the cloisters last night. A man wearing a black coat. Tall. Gloves."

Jorren snorted. "Might have been a guard. Cedric always insulted guards."

"Sef told me the man had red thread tied around his wrist. Like a seal. Like the prince's crest."

Jorren hesitated.

"I thought it was gold on the prince's crest."

"Not always," Mara breathed. "Not in the old days."

In a room hidden behind a long-forgotten stairwell, Tate Wyvern stood beside Sheila, both gazing down at a set of ancient court transcripts they'd bribed out of a sympathetic clerk.

"I knew Cedric," Tate grumbled. "Arrogant, yes. But not the sort to run."

Sheila followed a name on one of the parchment pages. "He said something, didn't he?"

"About the prince?"

She shook her head. "Too loud. Too public. Someone overheard. Someone did not approve."

Tate clenched his fists. "We have to find the original letter that he allegedly wrote."

"You think it was a forgery?"

"I think it was written under duress. If he wrote it at all."

They arrived at the Hall of Itineraries in the evening. The keeper of the records, a weary woman with a limp named Alna who had a sweet tooth for candied pears, let them in under cover of late-night counting.

"Cedric's record is here," she said, taking a scroll from an upper shelf. "Recorded yesterday morning. But…"

"But?" Sheila prompted.

"It was already sealed when I entered. I do not like that. I am the only one who keeps the key to the seal drawer."

Alna gave them the scroll. The wax was cracked, as though it had been opened and shut.

Tate read it aloud:

The air is perilous. I must escape. The walls whisper in a voice that is not my own. – Cedric

"Cryptic," he whispered.

Sheila turned it over. Her eyes ran over it. "This seal is not Thorne's crest."

Tate leaned in. "It's a variation. Look at the sword in the wing."

"The same as Niven," she whispered.

They looked at one another.

Somewhere else, behind locked doors of the north win off-limits to everyone but a select few Lord Cedric Thorne's dead body chilled on a marble slab.

His eyes were open.

His mouth sewn shut.

Emblazoned on his chest, same as Niven, was the sigil of the dead prince.

A wing rent apart by a sword. Red and raw.

The figure in the darkness struck a taper candle and brought it near the body, appreciating the quiet.

"Too loud," he whispered. "But it wasn't personal."

He turned aside, stuffing his gloves into his belt.

"They'll notice the design eventually," he whispered to himself. "But then, it won't be important."

He headed back into the shadows.

Back in the city, Sheila and Tate were following Cedric's last steps. The Grand Parlour. The outer cloisters. A small passageway behind the Royal Archives.

"Here," Sheila pointed to the stone floor. "Scrape marks."

"Like something was dragged with force."

Tate knelt, examined the minuscule smudges of dried blood. "Why so scrupulously clean. but leave this behind?"

"Because they wanted us to see it," said Sheila.

He looked at her.

"Breadcrumbs," she said. "Someone inside is either careless… or trying to talk."

They returned to Lysa's apartment with pages of scrawled notes, sketches of the sigils, and a growing list of names who'd sworn against the prince.

Sheila rubbed her temples. "They'll kill again."

Tate nodded sternly. "And nobody will do anything about it. Not unless we expose them."

That night, a page was shoved under their door.

No seal. No signature.

Just five words in crooked script:

> He's not wearing it anymore.

Sheila stared at it for a while.

Then she turned to Tate.

"We were right. Someone has seen something."

Tate read the message. "Wearing what?"

Sheila's whisper was almost inaudible.

"His mask."

She knew what it meant.

The killings were not all about concealment.

They were about warning.

And the killer was becoming increasingly rash.

The whispers were no longer whispers. They were impending screams.

And Lord Cedric Thorne was only the beginning.