King Roland D'este Fellianore paced his garden, banishing all but the oracle. “Why!” he shouted, his face red as he rounded on the hag. “You know what my interests are, and you swore to serve them, so why did you say her name!?”

“Now she’s out there somewhere, under the wing of one of those… “ Roland waved his arm about as the word escaped him.

“Sycophants,” The hag rasped, her smile never leaving her face. “You’ll also recall that I swore to tell the complete truth, withholding nothing from the recipient of my yearly divination, the fact that telling the truth in this instance damaged your standing was… unfortunate.” The hag’s black-toothed grin sent shivers down Roland’s spine.

“Silence, demon,” Roland said in a commanding tone. The hag’s mouth cinched shut, making her smile disappear, but glimmers of humor could be seen dancing in her eyes. “I know what you are under that hideous mask, and that you find delight in my suffering. No power on Ilestar could make you preform beyond the letter of your contract.”

The hag watched him, silently.

“Speak,” Roland said with a wave of his hand.

“Then why waste time complaining to me?” the hag inquired, her head cocked. “I can only do as I am told. If harm has come to you, the responsibility is yours, and the solution must come from you as well.”

Roland glared at the hag for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I suppose I’ll have to manage,” he said solemnly. “Summon my scribe with a list of nobles, prioritized by how desperate they are for the throne, especially the ones trying to marry their daughters off to me. If one’s changed behavior recently, that’ll be the first place to look.”

The Oracle turned to leave. “Hold a moment,” King Roland said, and the hag stopped in her tracks. “Before you go, place your hand on this desk.”

The hag complied, placing her hand on the dark oak. Without warning, Roland drew his sword and slammed the blade down atop the Oracle’s wrist. The hag watched impassively as her right hand was sheared away, black ichor oozing from the stump as Roland sheathed his sword.

“Let that be a reminder,” Roland said, cleaning his sword before sheathing it. “To put my interests first in the future.”

The Oracle held up the stump, and cocked a brow. “You do know that-“

“Suffer.”

The Oracle collapsed to her knees and began keening in pain, curling around the stump as if to isolate it from the pain flowing into it like water.

“Now go,” Roland said, glaring down at the hag on the floor. “Deliver my message.”

The Oracle stood with a moan and fled the room. Roland watched the grand double doors swing closed behind her, and he sat down in front of his desk, his gaze travelling along the new gouge in the surface of his desk. “Let that be a reminder to me.” He said, leaning back as he closed his eyes.

Roland must have fallen asleep because when the knock at the door came, he jerked up, his mind disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings. His wife and daughter were gone, and he now lived alone in the palace, constantly beset on every side.

“Come in,” Roland spoke. A willowy young noblewoman entered, carrying a stack of papers about a thumb’s width. Bait, Roland thought to himself as his tired eyes assessed the woman’s lovely form. Some nobles had taken the liberty of placing attractive young women in places where they would come into contact with the King often. Roland’s scribe was one such. In fact, she even bore a resemblance to the king’s late wife.

All the schemes only stoked the hate in his heart. It had been twelve years since it had begun to slowly die out, but recent events had added fuel to his burning hate of the ones who had orchestrated the death of his family. Now they thought they could use this acrobat girl to get some kind of advantage against him.

Roland broke into a sneer as his thoughts turned dark, and his scribe hesitated. “Your majesty,” she said, holding the papers forward with a shaking hand. “The list you requested.”

Roland smoothed his face, and snatched the list from her. The scribe was wise enough not to mention the severed hand adorning his desk in a pool of black ichor. “Thank you,” Roland said, scanning the details of the list. “You may leave.”

The scribe turned and ran out of the room, and Roland delved into the list, narrowing the list of people who could have orchestrated the attack on his authority. Testimony from the oracle could stand up in a court, and it was possible that one of these cretins could have her legally recognized as Roland’s daughter.

If that were to happen, the fight would no longer be to marry their daughters to him, but their sons to her, and of course it would be far easier to outmaneuver him and arrange a marriage for a daughter. One way or another, these nobles intended to steal the throne from him.

Roland’s fingers tightened on the paper, inadvertently crumpling the list of names as the fire inside him burned hot again for a moment before he took a deep breath, smoothing out the document again. They weren’t going to get their way, not this time. He was going to find the family who was sheltering the girl and exterminate them.

Hours passed as Roland poured through the details of the most suspicious families, uncovering tax evasion and dirty pasts swept under the rug by virtue of well placed bribes, but he didn’t find what he was looking for.

Another knock sounded at the door, and Roland raised himself from his slump over the desk and straightened his clothes. “Come in,” he said, assuming a royal frown of disdain. His disdain became quite real as Franco De’Bann entered the room, strutting like a peacock in his gilded white uniform.

Roland’s first impulse was to stand and hurl his chair at the fool, and a muscle in his leg twitched before he could completely control himself. “Franco De’Bann, what brings you to my office.”

“Obstruction of justice, your majesty.” Franco said, thrusting out his chest. “An appalling display of callous disregard for the respect granted by my office, these arrogant upstarts think they can flout the law at every turn-“

“The facts, please.” Roland said, pointing at Franco with a hard edge to his voice. “Or learn to speak with half a tongue.”

Franco swallowed. “I applied for a search warrant, and was turned down by the court,” Franco said. “As they are covering for their bretheren, this is clearly an abuse of power and-“

Roland held up his hand, a migraine beginning to form at his temples. “What grounds did you give to justify the warrant?”

“They’re hiding things!” Franco declared, raising his fist to the sky.

This time Roland forgot decorum, and rested his head in his hand, massaging his temples with his thumb and middle fingers. “You should know as well as anyone that ‘They’re hiding things’ is not a good enough reason to break into someone’s home,” Roland spoke into his desk. “Say someone’s mother was hiding a wart beneath heavy makeup, does that constitute a crime?”

“But they’re obviously guilty!” Franco said emphatically.

“Who?” Roland said, still facing his desk. “Who is obviously guilty?”

“The Reinbahms,” Franco said.

Roland’s eyes widened as he recalled the young man standing beside the imposter. Toren Reinbahm. Roland raised his head and flipped through the stack of papers on his desk and found the Reinbahms, near the bottom of the list, on account of their mediocre power and distinct lack of attempts at his throne. Until now.

The boy was a wizard talented in both illusion and enchantment, making him a fearsome tool in the world of politics, where appearance often mattered more than substance. And he was standing right beside the girl.

“The boy, you killed him, right?” Roland asked as he studied the paper.

“Absolutely, your majesty,” Franco said, “The boy attempted an untested spell, and it backfired. I merely threw my body in front of his spell and his path of retreat in an act of selfless-.”

“Shut up,” Roland said, and Franco stiffened.

Roland relaxed his shoulders and leaned back into his chair, blessing his good fortune that the idiot had managed to stumble upon. “Do you have the warrant with you, Franco?”

“Here, your majesty.” Franco said, retrieving a case from his belt, inside was a rolled sheet of vellum dictating the limits of Franco’s search of the Reinbahm property. The scroll’s date had been left intentionally blank, and there was no signature or seal at the bottom, as it had gone unapproved by the court.

Roland took it from Franco’s hand and studied it carefully. The terms of the search were criminally broad, allowing Franco access to the entire Reinbahm estate as well as their private records. That kind of information could be used to damn the Reinbahms had they a single weakness, which all nobles did.

Roland found himself grinning. He dipped his quill in ink and began filling out the date that the search would take place. “I want you to bring anything out of the ordinary you find to me, is that clear?” he said, catching Franco’s eye before he began to sign the document.

“You have my word, your majesty,” Franco said, bowing deeply.

Roland signed the vellum, then put his seal on it before handing it back. “Wait,” Roland said, holding his hand after Franco received the warrant. “I set the search to take place in three days time, and now I’m going to issue you a writ to borrow extra manpower.” Franco looked a bit uncomfortable, as this could be seen as an attack by the King on a minor noble house.

“Take this seriously, as if your life depended on it,” Roland said, handing the Inquisitor the writ.

Franco paled, then bowed. “Yes, your majesty.”

Roland watched Franco leave, then leaned back in his chair, a weight lifted from his shoulders. He’d been stuck in a mire when the simpleton had walked through the door, carrying inspiration with a petty grudge. Roland closed his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and then set back to work prioritizing his enemies.

Roland was fairly confident that the Reinbahms were behind this, but it never hurt to be thorough.

Toren Reinbahm sat in the bookshop, his leg up on an ottoman as he waited for his brother to arrive. The smell of books permeated the air, relaxing him as he flipped through the pages of the story of the great wizard Castavelle De’noir, or the Black Wizard as he was more commonly called.

Born in a slum and clawed his way up to being a king, by all accounts. Nobles had long since encouraged the idea of advancing one’s station in life. After all, a fairy tale such as Castavelle’s was highly marketable, however little it did to change reality.

Toren thought of it in some ways like a man waving a tasty strip of meat just out of a dog’s reach to see how high it would jump for his amusement. On the other hand, if the dog got the meat, it would turn into a human… and that’s where Toren’s metaphor broke down.

The ringing of the bell attached to the door caught Toren’s attention, and he saw his brother’s dark shoes underneath the shelf obscuring his view. The telltale ring of silver sounded, and Lyle came around the corner, his face breaking into a smile when he saw Toren.

“Good afternoon sir, I missed you last week,” Lyle said. “Was there some problem at home?”

“Nosy much?” Toren asked, setting his book down as Lyle climbed up and into the plush recliner beside Toren’s. “But, it makes a good story, so I’ll tell you.”

At the word ‘story’, Lyle’s eyes lit up, and he settled into the chair giving Toren his full attention.

“To tell the story right, we have to go into some background,” Toren said. “I have a friend, who, for the sake of protecting his identity, let’s call him Oliver. Now Oliver likes women, perhaps a little too much.”

“He tends to romance more of them at any one time than he should,” Toren said. “And sometimes these women get fairly angry that his attention is divided between them. Now the reactions you get to this philandering fill a very large spectrum, but for the most part, it’s not good.”

Lyle sat beside him, nodding as Toren expounded on the dangers of playing with women’s feelings. “So last week, the day before I was going to take my weekly break from the pressure of succession, I was spending some time with Oliver and our other friends, knocking back a few rounds at his place…”

“Sounds stressfull,” Lyle said, nodding sagely.

“Shaddap,” Toren said, continuing on. “We were knocking back some drinks when his butler informed us that we had a guest, and it was a lady at that. Well, we weren’t exactly in the best condition to entertain a lady. Not a single one of us was fully dressed, and there were bottles scattered all over the tables, mixed with sharp glass pieces from a chess game that one of our friends had broken rather than lose. Todd was unconscious, and there was food all over the floor.”

Lyle giggled, imagining the disarray.

“So we leapt to our feet and stuffed Todd under the couch, putting on whatever clothes we had at hand while the butler ran through the room, accepting trash and glass that we were scooping up with our bare hands in our haste. In a matter of moments, the room was nearly acceptable, with an insensate Todd hidden under the furniture.” Toren continued, pantomiming the desperate rush to clean before the noble lady entered the room.

“What did she say?” Lyle asked, beaming

“Not much, she just glanced down at Oliver’s tights and handed him a basket of cookies, saying ‘I made these for you’, before she turned and ran away, blushing.”

“Why was she blushing?” Lyle asked. “Because she was embarrassed to give him the basket?”

“That wasn’t it, as we discovered later,” Toren said, pointing down at his pants. “We were in such a hurry to dress that the two of us had traded tights, and my legs and waist are quite a bit thinner than Oliver’s.”

Lyle frowned. “And?”

“And, she saw everything. Those pants were so tight she could make out every detail of Oliver’s hairy cock, hanging down his leg.” Toren said, taking a sip of the water beside him.

Lyle guffawed. “and I suppose yours fell off,”

Toren clicked his tongue. “Not until she was out of eyeshot unfortunately, or I may have been able to make her forget all about Oliver.”

“Sure,” Lyle said with a smirk. “But I don’t see how that stopped you from coming to the library last week.”

Toren tilted his head and regarded Lyle seriously. “You remember what I said about not pissing off women?” he asked. Lyle nodded seriously. “Well as it turned out, she had discovered Oliver’s past-time activities, and left a note at the bottom of the basket, only uncovered once he and I had eaten most of the cookies.”

“It said,” Tor said raising his hand dramatically “I hope you die, you cheating fuckwit, these cookies contain every ounce of my hate, and a fair amount of poison to wash it down.”

“How are you still okay then?” Lyle asked.

Toren shrugged. “She was a young girl, and an amateur poisoner at best, Oliver and I merely spend the next day puking and shitting non-stop. I expect she mishandled the dosage.”

“So that’s why you didn’t come. You were shitting for a whole day?” Lyle asked, his brow raised.

“In essence,” Toren said, recalling the bad shellfish Oliver had fed him last week. He had embellished the story somewhat, to teach and amuse Lyle. “But it sounds so crass when you say it like that. say I was indisposed or some such.”

“You said shitting all day first,” Lyle pointed out.

“I’m an adult,” Toren said, placing a hand on his chest. “I’m allowed.”

“Hmph,” Lyle said, shifting in his seat to bring his book up. “Maybe if you were a paragon of virility, you could have shrugged off the poison and showed up anyway.”

“Hah, maybe,” Toren said, grinning. Toren settled back in his seat and brought his own book up, before the words settled in. he had never said those words in that combination to his brother.

“Say, Lyle, where did you get ‘Paragon of Virility’ from? Toren said with an amiable grin disguising the sinking feeling in his stomach. “It’s pretty funny.”

“Some new girl at our house,” Lyle said distractedly as he found his place in the book.

Toren set his book aside, and stood. “Lyle, I’m sorry to abandon you like this, but some urgent business that I had forgotten about has reared its ugly head.

Lyle glanced up at Toren, then back down to his book, before shrugging. “I’ll be fine by myself, go on ahead, but you owe me another story, Michael.”

“I told you one today, didn’t I?” Toren said, faking affront.

“One for last week, one for next week,” Lyle said, leveling a finger at him and scowling. “You’re behind on your rent.” Lyle made his voice raspy, mimicking an old, miserly landlord.

“Two next week, you have my word,” Toren said, bowing as he excused himself. The Reinbahm family guard standing outside the library made a lot more sense now, apparently, Toren’s father was aiming for the throne. Toren passed him by with a brief nod of acknowledgement, his feet turning toward his home in the slums.

He had to do something about this. Toren thought to himself as he walked. Squirrel had been thrown into the pit of vipers that was his family, and the King seemed to want her dead. His father was playing with fire. Toren had a kernel of a plan, but it would need some new clothes.

Toren jingled the money in his pocket, left over from what he’d gotten out of Franco, and turned his feet toward the tailor.