Page 45 of A Requiem of Fire and Ice

From the corner of my eye, Alad moves in front of Walkyer to calm him down and keep him away from me, but my brother is a water element, acting like an earth elemny.

I stare at King Ragan, my eyes darting to every hair follicle, crevice of skin, open scab, dirt under my fingernails, and skin flaking away. But Walkyer makes concentrating difficult, as he becomes a blubbering, incoherent mess. The closer he gets to me, the harder it becomes for me to focus on what happened here and to let the story unfold until it makes sense.

“What the fuck happened, Reen!” Walkyer cries. “Why is…I just saw…”

“Why did you go into my room?” I drawl. Rising from my crouched position, I fold my arms across my chest and grimace at Walkyer. “No one’s allowed in my room.”

Walkyer points to the throne room doors and exclaims, “Because Mother’s room is on fucking fire, and the trail leads to your damn room!”

He’s a mess. Bloodshot blue eyes waver with shed tears, clenched fists yearning to harm me but waiting for a reason, and a rigid, stiff form that suggests someone lacking order in his emotions.

I want to rest my hand on his shoulder and comfort him, as a brother would, but everyone here would consider it out of the ordinary. I will not start now, as it would only raise further questions about why I am acting with more affection than usual.

“Did you meet up with that unawakened woman?” I say as I face away from Walkyer and the mess he has become.

“No…No, I was looking for her location at the taxi bay when I noticed smoke coming from the castle.”

My eyes narrow. “I see…”

I sense Walkyer moving closer. “Did they…did they do it?”

“No,” I admit, frowning.

“But who else would come here and risk their lives?”

“King Ragan has a list as long as the fucking dictionary, brother. There are thousands of reasons someone would want him dead. It’s more about skinning the dead flesh to get to the heart of the cause and reasoning. When I have my answer, it’s easier to narrow down the endless list of suspects.”

I face King Ragan. My frown deepens at his corpse.

“But they were in here around the same time. It must be them,” Walkyer says, and he takes a step towards them from the corner of my eye.

I take a deep breath, irritated by how ignorant Walkyer is about this. He should be…

I look at Alad and say, “Prepare Walkyer for his crowning. A throne without a king will weaken Flesh. It’s best to let Eraminia focus on a new king while I handle this.”

“What! Now? You’re thinking about crowning me now, after Mother…I thought that, if anything, our mother would be the one to draw some emotion out of you, but I was wrong. You’re still a robot following a dead king’s orders.”

“Indeed,” I say hoarsely. “Now fucking leave so I can do my job, brother.”

Alad escorts Walkyer out, and the doors slam shut.

Once the fog clears from my mind, I crouch by King Ragan’s corpse, and my finger circles the hole in the centre of his head. If Alad or even Astin were here, they would stifle a cry of frustration at my tainting of the evidence.

But who else would figure out what happened to King Ragan? Who knows him better than I do? I was the one who got closest to the King. While everyone feared him, I grew closer out of concern for those around me.

No one else knew him better than I did.

“You didn’t hear any gunshots as you all dressed in the other room?” I say to the sex workers when I turn my attention to them.

Veronica Soldado shakes her head, and her short, red hair in a bob style bounces with her trembling quakes of hyperventilation. “No…we d-didn’t hear t-that.”

“But you heard noises?”

“Y-yes,” she says. “K-king R-Ragan was becoming aggressive towards the end…”

“After Layla left?” I prompt.

Veronica swallows before saying, “Yes.”