Dragon's Fire

Fifteen

Kayden 

    I’ve been interviewing every staff member in the castle, trying to find some explanation on what happened last night. So far I’ve come up empty handed. 

    Tyler, my senior officer in my army is on guard duty from now on. Wherever Taryn goes, he is right beside her, if I am unavailable. She insists on the wedding going on as planned and I support her decision but I would have no issue in postponing it until we got to the bottom of all this, her safety is my top priority. 

    I finish up with my background checks on the remaining staff to interview tomorrow, shutting off my computer, I stand and stretch. I feel cooped up, I need to go for a fly. I debate about it for a moment before shaking the thought away, I want to stay close to Taryn. 

    Once back in our room I head to the shower, seeing that she is already asleep. As I step out of the shower and pull a towel around my waist I see Taryn standing in the door.    

“What are you doing up?” I ask 

    She wraps her arms around her shoulders and leans against the door frame, her eyes are hooded. She is wearing a thin tank top and a pair of black panties, I can see her n*****s through the thin fabric. She shakes her head, 

“I thought I heard you come in, are you coming to bed?” 

“I’ll be right in, go back to bed, you must be tired” 

    She nods thoughtfully and disappears back into the dark bedroom. I shave and get ready for bed before turning the light off and heading to bed to join Taryn. It takes me a while but eventually I fall asleep, somewhere around 3AM. 

    A storm brews outside, cracking branches against the windows. I can’t sleep through a storm, I stare at the ceiling for a moment before my eyes dart to the balcony door and I see it. A man standing on the balcony starring in. I jump out of bed and rush towards him. I push open the door and he’s gone. The rain is crashing  down on me, soaking me through. 

    I look around to see where he went, but there’s no sign of him. I look to the ground to see if he jumped off the balcony. Nothing. I stare at the woods surrounding the castle, straining my eyes to see in the dark windy night.  

Eventually I go back inside, but I don’t get back in bed, I pull up a chair and sit in front of the balcony, watching. 

A hand comes down on my shoulder lightly, making me jump in the hair. My eyes fly open and I look around, I fell asleep. 

“What are you doing over here? Did you sleep here all night?” Taryn asks as she pulls on her rope. 

“Yeah, I… it’s not important. I couldn’t sleep” I tell her as she comes over to stand in front of me, I put my hands on her hips and pull her close to me. She sits on my lap, she is light, barely making an impact on my leg. She wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me deeply. 

She pulls away and goes to get up, my eyes catch someone out the window. There is a man walking along the tree line, is it the same man from last night? 

I get up quickly and go onto the balcony. 

“Hey! What are you doing down there?” I yell at the man, he looks up at me panicked before scurrying off into the bushes. I jump off the balcony and chase after him. 

    I can hear him running through the woods but I cannot see him. I keep going in the direction he ran off, but he’s long gone by now. 

    By the time I get back to the castle Taryn is in the kitchen, Tyler standing by the door, keeping an eye on her. I give him a nod to meet me in the hallway. He follows me out, 

“What’s going on?” He asks 

“Last night, there was someone on the balcony… then this morning I saw a man, maybe the same one walking along the tree line. When I tried to question him he ran into the woods. I chased after him but he was long gone. I want to double guard and have border patrols every twenty minutes” I explain. 

“I’ll set it up,” He says and heads off. I take a deep breath and go back inside. Taryn gives me a funny look as she takes eggs and bread from the fridge. 

“Where’d you go?” She asks calmly. 

“There was a man on the balcony last night, I saw a man near the woods. I thought it was the same guy, I tried to chase him but I lost him” 

She nods, “Don’t run off like that again. It scared me” 

“I’m sorry” I sit down and watch as she moves around the kitchen, making French toast and sausages. She slides a plate over to me and I dig right in. 

“What do you have planned for today?” She asks as she sits down beside me. 

“I have some more interviews set up, just some follow up questions. I need to find out who that man was, he has something to do with this, I know it” 

She just stares at me, like she wants to say something but is unsure of what. 

I finish my food and thank her, giving her a kiss on the cheek before heading towards my office. 

A knock at my door pulls my attention, 

“Come in” I call out, Tyler walks in and hands me a folder. 

“The new shift rotation, I have Marcus watching over Princess Taryn for the time being. I wanted to personally see to this getting done. I asked around and nobody else saw the man this morning, or if they did they are keeping pretty tight lipped about it” He runs his hand through his hair, frustrated. 

“I’ve spent the last hour grilling the kitchen staff, trying to find out who prepared the Princess’s plate but nobody will come clean and say it was them. I think they are scared of what will happen if they do” 

“They should be. I won’t be letting this go anytime soon. The quicker they fess up the better it will be on all of them” I snap, feeling like I’m at the end of my rope. 

“Bring in everyone who was working in the kitchen last night. I want them in the Crown room in thirty minutes.” I say with a wave of my hand, Tyler leaves with a small bow. 

I call Theodora to my office and ask her to do something I never wanted to ask. 

“You want me to help you interrogate the staff? Using a truth spell?” She repeats my request. 

“Yes. I know it’s not ideal and you do not normally do this kind of magic, but I’m desperate. I need to know who tried to kill Taryn so I can prevent it from happening again” 

“I understand your request, but I am not a dark magic witch Kayden, you know this. I’m not sure I could even do it.. It takes great strength and practice to meddle in someone’s mind like your asking..” She explains as she places her fingers on her temples and rubs. 

“But you went into Taryn’s mind and you helped me inside her mind too. I saw it with my own eyes.” 

“Kayden, that was a different kind of magic, I was guiding, not forcing. Truth spells are forceful and dangerous when done by an inexperienced hand” She is trying to explain but I’m not listening anymore. I do not understand why she won’t help me. 

I get up and walk out, if I can’t get through to these people I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can hear Theodora calling after me. I keep walking, which only makes her chase after me. 

“I can still help you, even if I cannot do magic on them I can still read their body language… Witches have a stronger sense of people, we can sense quickened heart rates and nervousness. Let me help you” 

“Just don’t get in my way” I warn, we get to the Crown room and find everyone waiting. 

“Is this everyone who was working in the kitchens last night?” I ask the room. 

“No King Kayden.. There was a young lady named Fiona, she didn’t turn up for her morning shift today.. Also Jacob, the dishwasher, is missing as well” 

“Find them.” I bark at a guard standing nearby. He looks terrified and nods his head shakily as he scurries out the door. I see the staff before me, some of them are standing confidently, others look like they are ready to s**t themselves. I start at one end, slowly looking over each person. There’s a few new people, they only started a few months ago, so far I haven’t had a reason to distrust any of my staff but things are different now.

 “Some if anyone has anything to say, now’s your chance” I announce to the room. 

Lucy, a small thin woman looks towards someone then back at the floor. I walk over to the woman she looked at, standing in front of her. 

“Anything you need to say?” I ask her, she looks up at me, fear on her face. She shakes her head hastily, trying to avoid my gaze. 

“You sure about that?” I look over to Lucy, her eyes shift from me to the woman in front of me. 

“Alright, everyone out but you and you” I say as I point to the two women. Everyone else clears the room in a hurry. 

“Alright, out with it. Spill” I demand.

They stay silent, for a moment I think they are communicating through mind link but that's not possible. 

“Someone say something. NOW” I bark at them, I see Lucy flinch.

“It w-wasn’t us!” She whimpers. 

“Then you know who it was” 

“All we know is that Fiona said that Jacob was making her do something she didn’t want to do. She was afraid that if she didn’t do it he was going to do something bad...She wouldn’t tell us what he was going to make her do. When she didn’t show up this morning we thought she was hiding from Jacob” Lucy explains. 

“But then Jacob didn’t show up either, we were worried he did something to her.. We didn’t want to say anything because we weren’t sure”

“Yeah, we didn’t want to cause any trouble, but we are worried about Fiona..” Lucy finishes. 

“Go back to work” I tell them, they practically run from the room. 

I go back towards my office and log onto my computer, looking up Jacob and Fiona on the staff list again. 

Fiona started about the same time that Taryn came home, about three months. Jacob started shortly after that, he has kept to himself for the most part, staying under the radar. 

I have a strong feeling that Taryn heard Fiona and Jacob in the storage room the night she was poisoned, I think that Jacob was threatening Fiona to do the deed for him, but why? 

That’s what I need to find out. There’s a knock on my office door.

“Come in” Tyler walks in, he looks stressed, “Did you find anything?” 

“Oh yeah… You need to see this” He says as he nods out the door. I get up and follow him out of the castle, down to the living quarters behind the gardens. There’s a small cabin near the back with the door ajar. Tyler pushes it open and steps inside, I follow close behind.  

Inside it is like a bucket of paint has been splashed along the walls, only it’s not paint, but blood. 

Crimson smears along each wall, over the furniture and streaked across the floor, leading to another room, I assume the bedroom. 

    Tyler opens the door and reveals Fiona, her body has been mutilated, her hands tied above her head. Her throat had been slashed, her body limply hanging. Her face has been beaten to a pulp, looks like she had been tortured for quite some time, but why. She had done what she was asked, had she not?

Tyler has to look away, the sight too much for him to see again. 

I don’t see anything that could be of use so I go back outside and find Tyler leaning against the side of the cabin.