Freebie: Avalon - The Fallen King: Chapter 4

Chapter Four -

The sounds of heavy foot traffic echoed through the halls of the Elysium Palace, home to the High Royals of Avalon and their staff. On any given day, the sound of footsteps wouldn’t be out of the ordinary, but this was not an ordinary day and the rushing footsteps had a frantic, panicky air about them. To a casual observer, they would probably guess something might be extremely wrong. And they would be correct.

Something was wrong.

Palace aides from the highest-ranking advisor to the cleaning staff were milling about, trying to understand what caused all the commotion. Some whispered theories to each other while others cried. One awful truth was clear to everyone though.

The First King of Avalon was dead.

In Micah’s bed chamber, only close family members were allowed to be present. His daughter, Princess Alice Pantheon, was sobbing harshly as she held her father’s cold, pallid hand. Surrounding the bed was the First King’s mother, former Queen Samara Pantheon and her husband, former King Kunal Pantheon. Queen Samara looked down at the body of her son with watery eyes, trying so hard to keep herself collected when all she wanted to do was wail like her granddaughter. Her husband looked just as shocked and horrified by this sudden development as the others. Micah and him had always gotten along so well in their relationship as step-son and step-father. Although he did not overtly show how devastated he was, most there could still read his pain as easily as a book.

Micah’s siblings looked on as well.

The eldest, King Edrick Pantheon, stood next to their mother, trying to offer what little comfort he could. His wild, graying hair stuck up every which way, as if he had just gotten out of bed. The more likely possibility, however, was that he had come straight to his brother’s bedchambers from his personal study and laboratory.

Crying quietly to herself, and blotting her eyes every few seconds with a fine, silken handkerchief was Queen Asari, Samara’s only daughter. Her sweet, gentle face looked so overcome with grief and loss that others became concerned for her.

King Harlan, who was actually the son of Samara’s husband but legally adopted into House Pantheon, held his sister close in as comforting an embrace as he could.

The youngest sibling, King Winston, stood at the foot of the bed, his eyes hard and filled with barely controlled rage.

“What is this?” Winston asked. “Is this another of his jokes? Wake up! This isn’t funny.”

He actually reached out and started to shake Micah’s corpse but only succeeded in causing an uproar.

“Don’t you dare touch him,” Alice shouted. The veins in her lower arms started to glow with light as magical energy channeled through her. Fluttering several feet above her head, they all caught sight of Hydrick, her familiar. He was an exceptionally beautiful thunderbird made of light blue and gold feathers. His eyes flared with energy and glared at Winston as if he wanted to rip his face to shreds.

“Please, Brother,” Asari begged. “Do not add more misery to this tragedy. I have already confirmed this is not some kind of elaborate prank. Our brother is truly dead. He is gone.”

Winston took a step back as if she just struck him. His eyes widened and the hard edges to his face softened. Tears started to fill his eyes and they fell a second later. The half-dozen or so scars he sported seemed to go several shades darker, giving him a patchwork look.

Alice went back to ignoring everyone as she succumbed to her grief. Cries and sobs wracked her body. They were loud and clearly heard by everyone in the grandly appointed bedroom of the First King of Avalon. She rested her head on her father’s chest, hugging him close as if she might be able to bring him back to life.

“Please,” they all heard her whisper. “Please wake up.”

Micah’s eyes stayed closed. His skin had even turned a pallid, disquieting gray.

“Sweetheart,” Queen Samara said, moving toward her granddaughter. “Please come here. Let Asari examine your father.”

She hated herself for even saying the words out loud but someone had to. They had a duty to the people of Avalon to understand how and why their First King was dead. If this was murder, then they needed to find the culprit immediately and execute them.

Publicly. In Avalon’s thousand-year history, nothing like this had ever happened. A king, especially a king as powerful as Micah, should not just die like this. So…unceremoniously.

Eventually, Samara was able to convince Alice to let Asari take a look at the body. As a Pantheon and Queen of Avalon, she had the ability to command vast amounts of magic and although skilled in each of the five magical disciplines, her specialty was healing. Among all the healers in Avalon, Asari was the most gifted. Samara looked at her daughter and gave her a small nod.

Asari took a step closer to the bed and held out her hands about a foot above her brother’s corpse. She closed her eyes and breathed steadily.

“This is a useless waste of our time,” Edrick muttered to Harlan.

“We need to know,” Harlan responded, flashing dark eyes at his older brother.

“Of course he’s been murdered,” Edrick snarled.

“If you cannot control your tongue, it would be better you get out of this room,” Asari told him, her eyes still shut. Sitting on her shoulder and emitted a soft, pink light was Roa, her familiar. She was a tiny fairy with pale skin, bright pink hair and insect-like wings fluttering from her back. Like other familiars, Roa never left Asari’s side.

“Fine,” Edrick muttered. His own familiar, a white and brown griffin named Viltrax, was pacing irritably behind him. “But you know I’m right.”

Asari didn’t bother to respond to that and instead, went back to focusing on the task at hand. The light coming off Roa seemed to sink into their sister and as it did, the veins in her arms started to glow. Then both hands glimmered, cycling through different colors. Orange, pink, blue, green, purple, and on and on it went for several long, and frustrating minutes. The glow spread out too, encompassing Micah’s entire body like he was being cocooned. The varying colors of light, they all knew, would respond to whatever caused their brother’s death. Orange represented some type of bodily harm. Pink represented an illness. Blue meant natural causes like a heart attack or stroke. Green meant poison.

The one thing they all hoped for was that the color would not be purple. If it was purple, that would have a lot of repercussions. Purple meant the death was caused by magical means and magical means meant someone extremely powerful and dangerous had just murdered one of the world’s strongest mages.

The glow finally stopped cycling and Micah’s body became wreathed in a vibrantly purple light.

“And there you have it,” Edrick said, almost sounding pleased with himself. “Murdered.”

Alice started crying again, even harder now. She struggled to get back to her father.

“Let me go,” she wailed. “Father! Please, get up. You can’t be dead. Please!”

It was heartbreaking to watch. Samara, Kunal, Harlan, and Asari all went to Alice, trying to console her. Edrick ended up shuffling next to Winston. Although he was the youngest, Winston carried a lot more muscle. He had spent most of his adult life as Commander of Arms, leading soldiers of the Knights of the Stoic Watch-the military branch of Avalon’s forces. Over the years, he’d seen a lot of combat, fighting, and worse.

“Micah was the strongest of us,” Edrick said, looking at Winston to gauge his reaction. “Who or what could have done this to him?”

“I don’t know,” Winston said. “But make no mistake, I will find out.”

He turned and left the room, unable to see Micah like that anymore. Memories of their childhood together swam through his mind, mostly of the times Micah had been there to protect him. Growing up, it often felt like it was just the two of them. Edrick was always off tinkering with his technomantic inventions. Asari would often be wrapped in her work helping people, even at a young age. Harlan had all his friends to hang out with. Micah, however, had always made time for Winston. Seeing him dead, his body ashen and gray, hurt so much he could barely stand it.

“Are you well?” a voice asked him as soon as he left the room. It was Tor, his tall and heavily muscled familiar. Black fur covered most of his body and his legs ended in bull-like hooves. Which was fitting considering he was a minotaur. Despite his extremely intimidating physical presence, he looked down at Winston with actual concern in his bright, green eyes.

Winston tried to answer him but his voice caught in his throat as emotion continued to well up inside.

“No,” he finally managed to say. “I’m not.”

Back in the First King’s bedroom, Alice had gone almost completely silent. The others still tried comforting her but she could only stare at her father, dazed and looking as if someone might have hypnotized her.

“Go get the poor girl’s mother,” Samara said, “Get Queen Evari.”

“I’ll go find her,” Kunal said. Samara gave him a look of thanks as he left, heading for the suite of rooms belonging to Micah’s ex-wife.

“I’ll stay here,” Asari said. Then she looked at Edrick and Harlan. “You two should go and find the Royal Guardsmen and perhaps an Agent of the Vigilant Watch. We need to go over this room and look for even the tiniest bit of evidence.”

Edrick looked like he wanted to protest but Harlan threw an elbow into his brother’s gut to quiet him down. 

“Excellent idea,” Harlan said. “We’ll go right now.”

Edrick glowered up at them both. He didn’t like being commanded to do anything. In fact, Edrick rarely liked dealing with actual people at all. It was surprising he managed to stay as long as he had, although the circumstances that brought that about were not quite ideal.

He opened his mouth to say something, something of a belligerent nature no doubt, but a look from Harlan made him clamp his mouth shut again. He sighed.

“We’ll find Parthos and the Prime Guardian,” he muttered.

Edrick and Harlan turned and started to walk out of the room. They were almost to the door when Edrick stopped suddenly. He faced the others in the room again, a questioning look on his face.

“What is it?” Harlan asked.

“I just realized something,” Edrick asked. He looked at Alice specifically, a suspicion creeping into his head. “Where is Jeks?”