Caleb greeted us as we exited the armory. Bernie waved to him then jumped out the open window, running along the castle walls with spiderclimb.

“Ah, so you found Redeemer!” he said. “A fine sword, though the +3 bonus is a little shabby compared to— well, it’s a fine sword. Ah! And a bag of holding. Very interesting.”

“Thank you for your gifts,” I said. Rachel agreed.

“I like to give them, though I usually let you pick on your own. Being in the room when people put their hands on my things makes my skin crawl.”

“Oh,” I said, “I didn’t know.”

Caleb slapped me on the back.

“Nonsense! Can’t be the Prophesied Heroes without the firepower to back it up. Is that my wife’s bow?”

“This one?” I said holding up Provoker.

“It’s for children,” he said.

“I mean, I only have a 12 strength.”

“Ah. Then it’s perfect!”

Cal stood there waiting. It became obvious he was waiting for something. Why was he here in the first place?

My first thought became that this was all a ploy to get close to Caleb, get close to the king. Maybe Cal was part of the spies. Maybe we’d brought him close to the exact person he wanted to be close to.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb began, “my personal armory cannot afford to arm all that deserve it. Did you visit the armorer downstairs? He's considered by many the finest bowmaker on the continent, and we have many finely crafted elven longbows.”

“I don’t want your shit,” Cal said.

The guards hands went to their swords. Caleb held a hand up.

“I am not sure I heard you, son. You want to run that by me again?”

“I’m sorry,” Cal stammered. “I didn’t mean. Ugh. I’ve gone over this conversation so many times in my head, and this isn’t working the way I want.”

“Be out with it.”

“My friends call me Cal, but my mother named me Caleb.”

“Not so uncommon a name these days,” the king said.

“Not so common 28 years ago,” Cal said. “She named me after my father.”

King Caleb’s eyes narrowed.

Cal shrugged.

“You are my father.”

King Caleb laughed nervously.

“It’s true,” Cal said.

“You make a jest,” the King said. “You two,” he pointed to the guards. “Lock the armory and leave. There is no danger to me in my own home.”

The guards did as they were told. Soon, it was just me, Rachel, Braelyn, Caleb, and Cal.

Caleb turned to me.

“Did you know about this?”

“I had no idea,” I said.

“It makes sense, now,” Rachel offered. “But I also was in the dark.”

“You are not the first boy to come to me with stories like this,” Caleb said, suddenly very serious, and stepping closer to the Ranger. “But I do not find them funny.”

“I don’t think it very funny either,” Cal said.

Power and violence coiled in the king. I worried, for a moment, he would lash out at the Ranger. If he did, I wasn’t sure what I’d do. I liked Cal, but he wasn’t a king. And if I had to choose who I trusted more to get us out of here…

“Who is your mother?” the king asked, cooling. He was suddenly softer, but still regal and businesslike.

“Aeliana, of the Afon-Alum. She was a ranger. She said you only stayed a week.”

Braelyn typed in her slate, furiously.

“I remember her,” Caleb said, jaw slack with surprise. He rubbed his salt and pepper beard. “She was beautiful.”

“Aye,” Cal said, “was. Goblin attack at the bridge. She fought them off, but succumbed to poison.”

“I am sorry.”

“I was just 14 when that happened. And every week I returned, crossed the bridge where she died just to catch a glimpse of you.”

“The Kingswood is too dangerous for me…” Suddenly the King’s eyes were far away, to another time. Then, he refocused on Cal. “Sit and talk. I make no promises to believe you. Though I find no flaw in your tale just yet. And you must know that this accusation holds danger for the both of us. Braelyn?”

“Your majesty.”

“Get us a bottle of wine, and clear your schedule. I’ll need records of our conversation.”

“Of course,” she said.

“I don’t want your wine,” Cal said.

“Oh it’s not for you,” the king said. “If even half of what you say is true, I’ll need a drink.”

Rachel and I followed Braelyn down the steps.

“You think it could be true?” Rachel asked her.

“You are not to speak of this to anyone, but Bernadette.”

“Got it,” I said.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Sure,” Rachel said.

“I think it is plausible. The king was a man in his twenties when he arrived here, and elven women are considered very beautiful to other folk. Would he be so careful in his early days as a hero?”

“Huh,” I said.

“We will speak of this later, when I can guarantee less ears,” Braelyn said.

We parted ways at the bottom floor.

Rachel filled me in on my goals for the day, which were: get info on who amongst the staff could potentially be blackmailed or bought off. I was to search for anyone that complained of large debts, that maybe didn’t complain much anymore, or anyone that had suddenly found themselves with a sudden windfall. I could also keep an eye out for anyone that had joined the staff recently, but since Caleb had been an enemy of so many for so long, they could have been embedded a very long time ago.

Bernadette’s current working theory of the situation was that the Throne of Light wanted to scuttle the recent peace talks between the Kingswood and Caleb. The timing pointed to Throne agents, and the method, poison, excluded the Orcs or Goblins. Caleb’s old enemies hadn’t made a move on him in decades, and considered such methods beneath them.

Before we parted ways, I asked Rachel who had been the target of these attacks.

“Well,” she said, taking a bite of cheese as we walked, “only two people at the castle got got so far. The first was an advisor to the king, Randilion the Bard, drank from a poisoned bottle of wine that killed him before anybody could figure out what kind of poison. The second,” here she looked around to see if anyone was watching, “the second was a wife of one of the Princes, Harmony — human girl, daughter of a local noble, only eighteen. Because of the previous poisoning, they were able to get her an antidote. She’s been in a coma for weeks now.”

“Shoot.”

“Yeah,” Rachel continued, taking an even bigger bite and talking as she chewed, “it’s a freaking tragedy. Pellas, Caleb’s middle son, is on his way now. It was a love match. Apparently they were the talk of the city.”

“If they were so loved, why isn’t anyone talking about it?”

“Hardly anyone knows. They’re even keeping it from her parents.”

“Shit.”

“Can’t Caleb just heal it?”

“He didn’t pick that spell on level up.”

“Shit” I cursed again.

Based on what I was told the coma must be from the damage the poison did, and not the poison itself. Healing that kind of damage probably needed fifth level spells, which I was a long way away from.

A eighteen year-old shouldn’t have been dragged into all this. Not that assassinations were fair.

“Hey,” Rachel said, “before we split, you got to promise to start looping me in.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, no more of this ‘shooting from the hip’ thing with Bernadette.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Run your shit by me before you try something like that again.”

“It worked out though.”

Rachel put her hands on her hips, and gave me a pointed look.

“Alright, alright, I’ll try not to shoot from the hip.”

“And you’ll come to me with your plans for the date?”

“What plans?”

“Oh my god, you absolute id—”

“I’m kidding!” I said, holding up my hands to shield myself from a playful punch.

Rachel put her fist away, and wrapped me in a hug.

“Hey, whatever happens this week, I got your back.”

Not sure where that came from. But I hugged her back, and soon we were waving our goodbyes.

I deposited most of my gear in my room, except for my new sword. I gave it a twirl and a swing. It felt good — really good — much like the mithril sword I’d used during that fight at the bar. It assured me of my choices in the armory.

I made sure to dress well, strapped my sword to my waist, and headed out to the tavern I was told had the most people from the castle.

The Chipped Spade wasn’t necessarily the closest tavern to the castle, that would be the Blue Mug, but it was the one where the guards frequented, not the tourists and new hires. I could have gone to the latter, and maybe I would, but I was betting on scoring the best info from the old timers.

The sun still hung high when I set out, but had moved right behind the tallest spire of the castle, casting a large skinny shadow that draped the street in chill darkness. Fallen snow from the night before still lingered in the dark places, in corners, and under the eaves.

Winter’d arrived in earnest, but the warm ocean kept the worst of it from Swordfall. For now.

Tavern owner was a man named Boris, fairly young, who must have inherited it, because it was an old place. He’d slick back, black hair and a severe expression. Mostly lit by the hearthfire at the end of the great hall, and by lamps on the tables, it revealed itself as a big place, with plenty of darkness to get lost in.

I could feel the instinct to pull out Edge, and peer through that darkness, and I resisted it, but the feeling lingered like a bug bite on the back of my hand, itchy and ever present. I also had that tingle at the back of my head that told me I was being watched. I ignored it, and slid in at the bar, held up a hand to flag down Boris, and ordered an ale.

Next to me, was a castle guardsman with a huge gray mustache. His name was Wallace, and he loved to talk. Took me the better part of an hour to get any useful intel. Apparently, Caleb’s youngest boy — Fala, 17 — was raring to explore the continent like his older brothers, and was secretly hoarding adventuring supplies. Nobody had the heart to tell him that all of that would be for nothing without a good horse or an armed escort, and both of which were tightly controlled by the king.

Quite a bit of scuttlebutt about Uchechi, but nothing that seemed actionable to me. I think the fact that he was a black man, and a foreigner, brought more scrutiny than it was owed. The man was a newly minted father — he wasn’t gonna start trouble.

I floated around to some other tables and played cards, and lost quite a bit of money too. Not intentionally either, I just couldn’t play cards like these folk. The competition was serious.

But the money got people excited, and hopefully looser of tongue.

Nobody had anything negative to say about the king. He paid well, and even the gamblers seemed to have a steady enough income that nothing quicked my ear as suspicious. If anyone was hurting for money and vulnerable to blackmail, it wasn’t these folks.

None of them had anything bad to say about Caleb. He was well loved by this crowd.

Lieutenant Gru’ulna came up several times. He was the first orc to get very high in the king’s employ. Anytime someone wanted to gripe about him, another spoke up to defend them.

After some time I was starting to think I would get zero intel from this whole thing, when one of the people playing cards at the table, a halfling woman named Buttercress. Mentioned her work for Princess Mia.

“My whole job,” she began, “is to make sure she’s taken care of, ever more important now that the baby’s here. But she just wants to shut herself in her room doing gods know what tinkering with alchemy.”

“Yeah?” I prodded.

“Oh yes, most of it was under sheets but I spied it right away, a bunch of glassware, and beakers carted in by the carriage full. Saints know what she’s up to, but it means I can’t do a damn thing. How am I going to advance with the castle if I can’t distinguish myself?”

“Think it’ll really hold you back?” I asked.

“Ah, nah, she goes through hobbies like most nobles go through dresses. One day it's wizardly tomes, the next it’s horseback riding. She’ll move on soon. Just wished she’d hurry it up. Spending more time playing cards with you fine folk than my job, haha!”

I laughed, and filed that away. I had no idea Princess Mia was doing anything besides being a mother. But it made some amount of sense. The rich didn’t really raise their own kids.

Satisfied I’d at least found out who wasn’t the spy: I could rule out Uchechi and Grul’ulna. They both owed too much to Caleb’s safety. And probably Mia. The Princess wouldn’t have any motive to poison her own sister in law. Unless it was a mistake? Nah.

I stumbled out of the Chipped Spade, and walked down the street. Stars twinkled above, such as could be seen despite the streetlamps, and the wind carried fresh snowflakes. I pulled my jacket closer, and readjusted my sword.

A street play was just wrapping up, players taking a bow for the last time, and crew packing the backdrop into boxes one panel at a time. Even in the cold, Strife Among the Stars remained wildly popular, having retained scores of people at the end. That was the other thing the old timers had talked about: everyone was ecstatic about the last installment, Episode IX, which premiered the opening night of the new King’s Opera House. Few could afford tickets, and the lottery for the small folk could only invite so many. Several planned to watch it from the roofs of nearby taverns, hoping to catch snatches of music and lyrics on the wind.

Resigned to make the long trek back to the castle in the cold, I was stopped by a streak of light. It bounced off my chest, and I caught it before it fell too far.

“Watch where you’re —” the little spot of light started to say, then they interrupted themselves with, “hero guy!”

“Robin,” I acknowledged.

“Just the bozo I was looking for!”