A crash down the hallway woke Regal Sinclair. He shot up in bed. The sound had come from nearby, from the direction of his father’s study. A scream, then the sound of running. Regal scrambled to his feet, grabbing his sword from its perch beside his bed. Someone banged on his locked door. He drew his sword, unlocked the door, and opened the door and brought his sword to the neck behind it in one swift motion, just as he’d been taught.
“Master Regal!” cried the servant. Regal withdrew his sword to his side. Just a young boy servant, no threat. Fear filled the boy’s eyes – no surprise. But it didn’t clear as quickly as it should have. Panic remained though Regal had removed his threat. “The Master has been attacked, sir,” the servant blurted out, his eyes darting to and fro, his hands working nervously in front of him.
“What? Where?!” Regal demanded, pinning the boy perfectly still with his gaze.
“His study, sir. I was just doing my normal…” the boy’s explanation didn’t reach Regal’s ears. He sprinted down the hallway and skidded to a halt before the only open door. A door that was never left open. Regal froze at the sight. A lamp was shattered on the floor. Only the dim light of the hallway illuminated the room. His father lay in the center of the room, next to his overturned chair. A dagger protruded from his chest. Red blood spread out from the wound much too quickly.
Regal regained his composure. A servant was fussing over his father, but she was panicked – a maid, no help at all. “You,” Regal said to her, his voice sharp and commanding. She snapped together, ready to follow an order. “Get a healer. Now!” She ran to obey him.
Regal hurried to his father, kneeling beside him. His father’s chest still rose and fell, but his breathing was ragged, shallow. The rest of him was still, his eyes were closed. “Father,” Regal whispered urgently to him. No response. “Father, don’t leave me!” he cried more potently. The breathing only became less determined.
“Light! I need light!” cried a female voice from behind him. Regal turned to it. The young woman was already rushing in the room. He recognized her – a slave healer. “Move!” she shouted to him. “You’re blocking the light!”
Regal shuffled out of her way, too anxious to help his father to care about the tone the slave had taken with her master. She knelt over his father, and removed the dagger in one sure motion. She held arms outstretched above his body. She began casting. Her eyes were clenched shut, her lips drawn in a tight, straight line. Sweat quickly began beading on her forehead. The wound began to close.
Her eyes flew open; she inhaled sharply. Her expression was surprised – in a bad way. It filled Regal with fear. She lowered her hands closer to Regal’s wounded father and closed her eyes once more. Her arms were tense, her fingers, separated as far as her hands would allow. She bowed her head. The only movement beneath her hands was that of skin creeping together to patch wounds. Regal’s father had stopped breathing.
“No!” Regal yelled. “Not yet!” A tumult of emotions raged through him. This could not be happening. His father could not be dying. He wasn’t ready for it. The responsibilities, the duties… Regal wasn’t ready. His father wasn’t done teaching him. This was too soon. In desperation, he reached for his father. Both hands connected with his father’s wrist. He held it tightly, and starred at his father’s face. It was pale and cold. Hope seeped out of Regal. But a movement caught his attention. One slow breath filled his father’s lungs. His eyelids cracked the slightest bit. He looked at Regal, and his lips pulled ever so slightly into a smile.
“No,” the healer whispered then, through clenched teeth. Her hands were lower now, almost touching his father’s chest. She was panting; her hands trembled. Regal watched her, eyes pleading with her to pull him through. He was desperate and helpless, a grown man who could do nothing but watch as his father died beside him. The girl shook her head. “Not…enough…light…” she said quietly. “I’m losing him.”
The wounded man’s muscles relaxed for the last time. The breath remaining in his lungs flowed out, taking his life with it. Servants rushed in with lit candles and burning lamps. The healer let her hands fall to her sides heavily. “Too late,” she whispered.
Emptiness opened up inside Regal that consumed the reality of the situation. He sat in a dream. The servants with candles, come too late to help, lent an ominous ambience to the scene. Their faces were ashen, afraid. The girl who had failed to save his father sat back now, her hands cradled in her lap. Her face showed sadness, bitterness. His father’s corpse lay silent and cooling beside him. He released the wrist slowly, carefully. Ran his hand down to his father’s hand. The wrinkles were there still, but the strength was gone. Regal looked to his father’s face. Eyebrows, still that darkest brown, now too soft for his face. Rest in death, indeed, but what of those who are not meant for rest, but for action? The calm in his father’s face on made Regal’s anguish more potent. He had to look away.
And looking away, he caught sight of the dagger. The dagger that had killed his father, a dagger he recognized. He reached a trembling hand towards it. The glittering ruby insets, the finely crafted gold decorations. A blade precisely the length of his own hand span. A dagger made exclusively for him, on his twenty-first birthday, to celebrate his entrance to the world of men. He’d thought he’d never see it again. Stolen, three years later, and only a handful of months prior to this present. The memory was still fresh – the escaped slave, the galling letter, the blatant threats. Threats he’d made good on.
Krys.
Krys, the only slave the family had ever lost. Krys, thief of a prized possession. Krys, who threatened his family. Krys, taker of his father’s life. Krys, murderer. Krys, deserving of painful deaths. Krys, to be hunted.
Regal stood, purpose flooding his soul. His father had been murdered, and he knew the perpetrator. It was his divine duty to strike Krys down for the injustice he had committed. Nothing would stand in Regal’s way. But first he needed a plan. He needed to track Krys down.
Just as Regal desired his presence, Clayton, captain of the house’s guards, entered the room, followed closely by two of his men. Clayton was tall and broad, overshadowing the servants in the room. His silvery armor shined brilliantly in the light of so many candles. “I’m sorry sir,” he began, with a nod of respect. His voice was crisp and dutiful, emitting from a mouth hidden by a blond mustache. “The guard is still searching, but it appears as though the enemy has escaped.”
Regal had expected as much. If Krys could escape once, he could do it again. Last time, they had tracked him, tracked him to the edge of where they could follow, at the time. His father had weighed the cost, and deemed the price of continued pursuit too heavy for an escaped slave and pretty dagger. This time, no hurdle, no matter how difficult, would stop Regal from finding him.
“It’s Krys,” Regal said. “Send men to the docks. Cut off his escape.”
Clayton gave orders briskly. His two men rushed off to carry them out, but Clayton remained. “Sir, it is my duty to protect you at this time.”
“Then you’ll come to the docks, too,” Regal said. There was little hope of his men catching Krys. Krys could ride swiftly on the power of dark magic to his destination, and none of his guards had that ability. Regal, calling on the same power, might be able to get to the docks in time. Regal began purposefully for the door.
Clayton blocked his exit. “Sir, with all due respect, as one charged with defending your life, I cannot in good conscience allow you to pursue Krys at this time,” he said with disciplined haste, body fully blocking the doorway. He stood tense and ready. “Krys will not be alone at the docks, and even by himself, he would be a formidable opponent. This would be perhaps the worst time to attempt to overtake him personally. My men will uncover where he has gone, and we will pursue him properly when the time is right.”
A sudden distaste for the lamplight and candles in the room sprang up in Regal. In a darker room, Clayton wouldn’t have been able to stop him. But Regal knew that Clayton was right, as much as he hated it. “We both know where he’s going, and this time, I’m going to follow him,” Regal said in a growl. “Regardless of the danger.”
“So be it,” Clayton said with an obvious sense of release. He had been ready for more of a struggle. “Then there are preparations that must be made. My men know to acquire the use of a ship to follow Krys. I am no expert on the workings of the enchanters’ world, but I know that only users of magic can enter, and even they must make special arrangements.”
“I am aware of the need for a contract,” Regal said. “As I am aware that neither you nor any of the guards will be able to follow me. Are you so sure it is wise to stop me here, Clayton?” Regal asked. He’d have to face Krys alone, regardless. Why not do it now? But he could not contend with the master of the guard in a fair fight, and black magic was useless to him in a lit room.
“Yes, I am sure,” Clayton replied. “The guards are not the only ones under your command, sir.”
The slaves. Regal had no magically talented guards because they were expensive. They knew their worth, and they charged for it. With slaves, on the other hand, one could get lucky. A hurried trader who didn’t know the value of newly acquired goods; an infant born unexpectedly gifted. It happened. Like the healer. Regal turned back towards her. She was casting again, this time to honor the fallen. She used white magic to preserve Regal’s father’s body for burial. The sight pulled Regal’s thoughts from Krys for a moment, calmed him, saddened him. “Begin the preparations for burial,” Regal said to a nearby servant in a soft tone. A pair of servants left, leaving only a handful in the room.
“Unless, you need the light?” Regal asked the healer, remembering her source of strength.
She shook her head, and took a step back, away from his father. “It is done,” she said, and then she fell softly into a cross-legged position on the floor. She looked very tired.
Regal motioned to the remaining servants, and they took up his father’s body to prepare it for burial. They took the light with them as they left, and Clayton’s imposing figure before the doorway shadowed much of the room. In the darkness, the healer felt different to Regal. Ah yes, he remembered. The time the family had gotten very lucky indeed.
“Come,” Regal said to Clayton as he began walking out of the room. “We have much to discuss.”
* * *
Ellis Zanders sat alone for a moment after Regal and his captain of the guard left. Her tied-down brown hair appeared a dull gray in the dim light. Her sharp hazel eyes were dilated in the effort to see. None of Master Sinclair’s blood had fallen to the carpet. Regal had taken the dagger with him. Only the broken lamp told of the past commotion in the room.
Ellis felt weak from the exertion of attempting an impossible heal with so little light to draw strength from. The dagger wound was deep, but that alone, she could have handled. If the weapon had not been so well poisoned…
She hadn’t told Master Regal about the poison. In the moment, communication was not her forte, and in the aftermath, Regal didn’t seem particularly concerned with that sort of detail. He was only concerned with revenge, though the murder of a father did seem a likely catalyst for such feelings. Ellis knew she would have been overcome by grief. Grief indeed filled her despite the lack of blood connection between her and the deceased. Failure to save a life was the bitterest defeat to Ellis. Rarely did it happen, and every time, she had felt the pain of loss more keenly than the last. She wished for strength in healing, but to what avail? Few healers could best her skill and fewer still her raw talent. There were wounds that no one could heal, and conditions that even the most well-trained could not overcome. She had done everything possible to save the Master, but it was not to be.
And now they searched for his killer, a once-enslaved called Krys. She remembered Krys faintly. She bore him no particular ill will, though she could feel no attachment to any who would kill someone under her care. Ellis sighed. Her feelings on the subject wouldn’t matter, of course. Best to get on with life.
She rose and returned to her quarters, heavy of heart. The walk was not far – as a healer, she was assigned a small room that was central to the grounds. The grand entrance chamber and the stables alike were only a short sprint from her room. She arrived quickly, and her father was waiting for her. He stood in front of her door with his arms hanging loosely at his sides, knees bent ever so slightly above his heavy boots.
“Papa!” she said in hushed happiness as she ran to hug him. They separated quickly, and he held her at forearms’ length. The wrinkles on his forehead multiplied, and Ellis recognized his concern. The corners of his mouth twitched to pull down his face into a frown. “You have heard then,” Ellis said, mirth fading from her.
“Yes,” he replied, his voice, gentle thunder. “And I fear the implications for you.”
“Master Regal did not seem angry with me, Papa,” Ellis said, cocking her head. Her sharp brows came up to a confused point. Her father lifted a hand to push a strand of hair from her face.
“And who could ever be, my dear Ellis?” he replied. “But that is not my concern. Regal will require your services, and not in the usual way. He will put your life at risk, and I will be powerless to help you.” He cupped her face with one hand, and drew her close to embrace her.
When they released each other from a tight hug, Ellis’s eyes glistened with the beginnings of tears. “I don’t understand,” she whispered, infected by her father’s concern. She’d only seen her father this way once before, and his fears then had not been in vain. Whatever was in store for her, the road through would not be easy. “Father, please explain,” she asked.
He opened his mouth to speak, but then a guard came walking briskly, purposefully down the hallway toward them. “Ellis Zanders,” he said as he approached. “Come with me.”
Ellis and her father exchanged one more fretful glance, and then she followed the guard.
