Kai walked tentatively into the bakery. To him, it felt like he still wore his armor, but as he looked down at himself, he saw the robes of a Chi scholar that matched those of the dead man outside. His name was Daehyum and other than his job, Draya, and Gromphy had been able to decipher little more about the man. In addition to eating his face off, Snowy had also severed Daehyum’s vocal cords, so all of Gromphy’s efforts to recreate the dead man’s voice had been fruitless. Instead, they gave him a typical Chi accent and told him to speak in harsh whispers.
The knight also knew he had to refrain from his typical Madrian speech patterns, like saying, “Si Senior” or “Que Pasa.” No one from Chi Ten would speak that way. Draya had managed to incorporate his magical headband into his outfit, disguising it as a style of hat she had seen other Chi men wear. Daeyhum had not worn one, and they hoped that wouldn’t matter. Gromphy had also fashioned a magical medallion that hung around Kai’s neck, allowing Jace to eavesdrop on the upcoming conversation. None of them were experts in Chi jewelry patterns and hoped the object wouldn’t stand out.
Jace had listened to the two eunuchs while they had walked on the cobblestone street and told Kai their names. Shinto was the taller one, with a calm demeanor and curious eyes. When Kai lied in the next few moments, Shinto was the one he was going to need to convince. Chong, the second eunuch, was shorter and looked like a fighter. Hopefully, things wouldn’t come to blows as Kai was forced to hide all his weapons in his inventory.
“You’re late, Nam Daehyum,” Shinto said, stepping out of the kitchen as Kai entered the bakery’s front room. Kai smiled, not knowing if these men had ever met before. The fact that the eunuch knew his name confirmed the disguise worked.
“Would you have preferred I was followed, Shinto?” Kai responded, stopping a safe distance from the tall man.
“Why would you be?” Chong said, stepping out from a storeroom behind the knight. “Did you do something to raise suspicion?”
“No more than a Chi scholar walking the dark streets of Barcelio should generate, which isn’t nothing.”
“Enough of this banter,” Shinto said. “You have the potions we asked for?” The man produced a bag of coins. He walked forward and set it on the counter where customers made their purchases during operational hours.
Kai reached into his cloak and presented the poison and antidote. “You are making a mistake,” he said. “This won’t work.”
“Now is not the time to change the plan,” Chong said gruffly, forcing Kai to turn toward the man, wary of an attack. “It is too late. We must act now. Put the vials on the counter and collect your payment.”
“The queen will not escape suspicion,” Kai said, though he walked forward and exchanged items, storing the coins in his cloak. He watched Shinto retrieve the potions once the knight withdrew. The eunuch then took a frosted pastry and slipped it into a paper bag with the antidote. Kai nodded in understanding. He had wondered how they would get the poison past the king’s cupbearer. Enrique was known for his addiction to sweetbreads for breakfast. If they put the antidote in the pastry, then the cupbearer would be immune to the poison when he later tasted it in the king’s wine.
“If you must move up the date,” Kai said, “not taking advantage of the Dragon Festival tomorrow is foolish.”
“I said, now is not the time to . . .” Chong started again.
“No, wait,” Shinto said. He had just stored his newly acquired items in his inventory and rolled his eyes back to look at Kai curiously. “What do you mean by that?”
Kai knew he had him and flexed mana into his headband. “You know that Queen Vashti will be the prime suspect once the king is poisoned.”
“We will hide the antidote in the cupbearer’s room,” Shinto replied. “You know the plan. There are risks, but we have no other choice.”
“But you do, sen . . . uh, you see,” Kai stuttered, almost saying “senior.”
Chong began to object, but Shinto silenced him with a raised hand. “No,” he said plainly. “I don’t see. What does the Dragon Festival have to do with this?”
“First of all,” Kai said, “during holidays and festivals, King Asurous prefers to drink tequila, a Madrian drink you will not have access to. It might be a day or two until the king has wine. If he is truly as taken with this new foreign woman as you say, you and the queen might be out of his graces sooner than you think, and killing him at a later date only puts his son in charge.”
The information about the king’s drinking habits was factual, and any scrying the taller eunuch might be doing to detect deception wouldn’t work. Shinto frowned at this revelation, and Kai continued.
“Second, the king and queen will attend the parade tomorrow morning, appearing together in public for the first time in a while and likely the last time ever. Attacking the king while the queen sits beside him is a perfect way to throw suspicion away from her.”
Now, Shinto laughed. “And how would we do that? We, Chi, are not gifted archers, and the king will have a dozen guards surrounding him with another hundred ready to respond at a moment’s notice. Our Ninjato assassins wouldn’t be able to get close. No hostile will be able to get within 500 feet of the king.”
“I know a sorceress who can throw a fireball 600 feet,” Kai said, trying to sound confident. When Jace had said Draya could do this, it sounded impossible to him. Still, he wasn’t an expert in magic, so it might be possible. The Chi were experts in magic, especially fire magic.
Shinto laughed even harder. “Are you a scholar or a jester? No mage in our land can cast such a spell. You speak of an actual dragon, not a sorceress.”
Kai smiled. Shinto wasn’t wrong.
“And besides,” Chong added. “If your goal is to throw suspicion away from the queen and the Chi, using fire to kill the king during the Dragon Festival will paint us as the only possible culprits.”
Kai shook his head. “But you just said such a spell is impossible for a Chi mage. My sorceress is from Jerisalam. Using fire to kill the king would be foolish for the Chi to do. We are not fools. After a moment of consideration, the Madrians will realize this. Not only is the attack impossible for a Chi to accomplish, but the use of fire is better proof that someone is trying to frame us. If the Madrians truly thought we were trying to kill their king, what would happen?”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“War,” Shinto said. The look on his face let Kai know he understood and agreed with everything the knight said. “War that would decimate both countries.”
“And who would stand to benefit from such a war?”
“The Jerisalam and other conquered people of this land,” Chong said, an answer so obvious even he understood it.
“We can double-cross the sorceress,” Kai continued, laying on the lies thick now, but Shinto was no longer checking the truthfulness of his statements. “I promised her payment only after the deed was done. She will seek me out, and we will grab her. Once she is identified as the assassin and her motivations are made clear, the queen can rise up and promise vengeance against the Jerisalam people. With the aid of the Chi warriors, we will crush the remaining tribes, and, in the process, we will fill this land with our military.”
Shinto smiled. “We will conquer Madria without killing a single one of their people.”
Now Kai laughed in spite of the insidious plan Jace had concocted against his own people. “No, there will be Madrian death. In the war against the lesser people of this land, their prominent generals will die. Our Ninjato will ensure that. So that when the war is over, our Chi commanders will be forced to take over prominent roles in securing this land. And, yes, we will conquer it with the full support of the people and without anyone knowing our true intentions.”
Shinto’s frown turned into an evil grin and was then tempered by a dose of reality. “It all sounds too easy and still relies on a magical spell I do not think is possible. Plus, how will the queen be able to organize this type of response if she is lying beside her husband as a charred corpse? Any fireball powerful enough to travel that far will incinerate everyone around the king.”
Kai nodded and produced a ring from the pouch on her belt. “Then have our queen wear this.” He flicked the jewelry through the air, and the nimble eunuch caught it. Shinto inspected the object, and his eyes widened in amazement. Kai’s lack of magical knowledge hadn’t allowed him to analyze the ring properly, but he trusted Jace’s crafter to have made something powerful.
“If you still doubt this plan,” Kai continued, “I will be sure to note your descent when our emperor wishes to honor the architects of his conquest.”
“It’s not that,” Shinto started quickly, storing the ring in his cloak but not being able to think of anything else.
“Won’t the fact that she is wearing a protection ring throw suspicion at her anyway?” Chong asked as Shinto struggled to find new objections to the alternative plan.
“She will be attending a celebration of fire,” Kai said bluntly. “I’ll be shocked if she is the only one wearing protection.”
It looked like Chong wanted to argue further, and Kai held up his hand to stop him. “Continue with your poison plot as a backup. It might rain tomorrow, and the parade is postponed a day. The winds might not be right for the spell. The king might be ill overnight and not attend the festival. But inform the queen of this alternate plan and insist she wears the ring. Then, when her husband and all his close officials die in a terrific fire blast, she will know what to do.”
Without entertaining more questions, Kai spun around and walked out of the bakery.
----------------------------------------
Esther hid in the shadows as she watched Jace and the rest of his group approach. She waited in the middle of a large park filled with trees, ponds, walkways, and benches. During the day, the space provided a serene atmosphere in Barcelio, where you could relax and remove yourself from the city’s hustle and bustle. At night, the trees and bushes offered ample opportunities for even a novice rogue to hide undetected. Esther was invisible. Gracie had told the rogue to go here, and she waited until her leader was almost on top of her position before revealing herself, ensuring the group wasn’t followed.
“Nice to see you again,” Esther said, stepping out of the shadows onto the moonlit path as if she had stepped out of a dimensional door.
“Aye!” Draya screamed, a flame jumping to her hand and nearly lancing out at her friend. She stopped the spell just in time.
“Is there anything you aren’t scared of?” Esther asked.
“Yes,” Draya snapped back between deep breaths, trying to get her heart rate back under control. “Nice people who wave hello from a distance.”
“What’s the fun in that?” Esther chuckled.
“Enough,” Jace said. “We don’t have much time. I don’t want to be seen out here talking with you, and we have much to prepare for. Where is Psycho?”
Esther shrugged. “Probably still standing guard outside the king’s bedchamber.”
“And the king?” Jace asked.
“Out like a lamp,” Esther replied. “He won’t wake up until morning.”
“Thou plied thy whorish vocation copiously then?” Gromphy asked.
“I’ll ply you,” Esther bit back, not entirely sure of the insult she had received or repaid.
“Enough,” Jace repeated. “You’re like schoolchildren.” He looked down at Gromphy. “Give me the arrows.” The goblin handed over the items he had crafted while Kai had been in the bakery. Dozens of arrows sat in a magical quiver. “Give these to Psycho,” he told Esther as he handed the projectiles to her. “He’ll be able to tell what they do. He’s to entertain the crowd while he tries to spy out the snipers you told us about. You said they will be shooting both the king and queen. Psycho needs to make sure that doesn’t happen. Once he finds the archers and marks them, Kai, Snowy, and I will arrest them.”
“So we are going to try and save the queen?” Esther asked, taking the arrows and storing them in her inventory. “Even though she is evil and trying to kill the king?”
“They are both evil,” Jace said, earning a sideways look from Kai. The knight was still loyal to King Azurous but couldn’t deny the shaman’s claim. “We are going to try and stop both assassination attempts,” Jace continued. “We need to stop them yet expose them at the same time. Hopefully, once both plots are out in the open, we can reconcile some kind of peace.”
Draya shook her head. “You mean once husband and wife both realize they want to kill each other, they will kiss and make up?”
Jace ignored the sarcasm. “No, I mean they might part ways peaceably and prevent a war that will destroy both countries.”
“So how does Queen Vashti plan to murder her husband?” Esther asked. “Poison?”
“Originally, yes,” Jace said.
“How cliché,” the rogue sighed.
“I’m sorry you’re disappointed in her murderous creativity,” Jace said. “We’ve convinced the Chi to broaden their horizons, and they are hiring Draya to throw a fireball at the king.”
“Wait,” Draya said. “They’re hiring me? I didn’t know I was getting paid.”
“Here you go,” Kai said, handing over the coins Shinto had given him. The knight wanted nothing to do with the blood money.
Draya had the bag of money in her hand for about a second before Gromphy reached up and snatched it. “I’ll take that,” he said, hiding it in one of the numerous pockets in his suit coat.
“Hey!” Draya cried a little too loudly. “Give that back.”
Jace ignored them and turned to Esther. “We gave the queen’s servants a ring of fire protection. She shouldn’t need it because Draya can dial down the difficulty of her attack so anyone can pass it, but to keep up appearances, we need to pretend it can still do damage. So, even though the attack won’t hurt the king, it would be good if you acted like it could and guarded him with your shield. As party members, you and Psycho will automatically fail the roll; thus, you can take damage. I don’t know what outfit Psycho is allowed to wear as a eunuch, but he should try to wear his armor.” The elf’s dragon-scale armor prevented him from failing a death-saving throw from an elemental attack, so if Draya’s attack did more than half his health, he wouldn’t die from it.
“What if the king has a full group with him?” Esther asked.
Jace shrugged. “Then Draya can control the diameter of the blast so it only encompasses the royal couple.” He looked over at his mage to ensure she was listening and still not fighting with Gromphy. She had been but stopped now to pay attention. “Ideally, we want the blast to be as big as possible so everyone sees it, but if we have to make it small so it still appears legitimate, we will have no choice.” Draya nodded.
“And then what?” Esther asked. “You arrest Draya?”
“Temporarily,” Jace said, noticing the frown on the young woman’s face. “Until we can expose who hired her and why. After that, we can reveal the fireball was harmless, and hopefully, they let her go.”
“Hopefully?” Draya echoed.
“Do you want to make the plan?” Jace asked. Draya slinked back. “I didn’t think so. I believe the king trusts Kai Morte. If our inquisitor tells Azurous that we were always on his side and only cast the fireball to expose the Chi assassins, there is no reason they should keep you in custody.”
When Draya nodded, Jace looked around at the rest of his group, searching for any more questions. Seeing none, he nodded. “Good. Then everyone go and get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a fun day.”