"She was poisoned!" The doctor declared loudly.

The courtyard fell into silence...

"Whooosh" the king appeared in front of Sophies body and yelled:

"WHO? WHO POISONED HER? BRING ME EVERYONE WHO HAD CONTACT WITH HER WITHIN THE LAST 12 HOURS!"

Men in silver armour stormed out from the castle after the king's order and begun rounding people up.

Within moments there were 23 people lined up before the king, each bowing as low as they possibly could.

The king looked at the knights and asked,

"Is this everyone?"

"Yes, your majesty!" the knights replied in unison.

The king glanced at his son, Lief who was in a daze.

--

Lief was extremely confused at this moment, thousands of thoughts whizzed through his mind.

'Why would someone kill Sophie? I hadn't spent much time with her but I have been around her long enough to know she wasn't a bad person...'

Lief simply couldn't wrap his head around the agenda of the killer. Why?

Lief heard his father giving orders whilst he was thinking. The king also started using a spell called "Seeker" this was quite an uncommon spell, it was often thought of as a spell that would follow someone but in reality in searched through people's memory.

The spell isn't passed around much and is banned in several kingdoms as there is a 1/1000 chance of an error where the spell will actually reverse the brains age. This results in a grown man/woman with the brain of a child.

The king patiently placed his hand on each of the 23 people's heads. There were 18 women and only 5 men.

After several minutes, the king finally passed the 22nd person. There was only one left. A woman, she seemed to be around 30 years old, she had only been around Sophie for a moment.

She had only passed her on the street yet she was still brought in front of the king today. Who would have thought that something as simple as waving would bring her into such a dangerous situation?

The king placed his hand on his blade that was on his right hip as he placed his hand on her head. He couldn't have her running away after he found out she was the killer, could he?

However, shock flashed through the king's eyes. Hadn't this woman poisoned Sophie either?

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Are you sure this is everyone that had been in contact with Sophie?" The king asked one of the knights.

"Yes sir, we are one hundred percent on this. The only other people that have been near Sophie was you and Lief." The knight replied whilst on one knee.

"I don't understand..." The king muttered.

--

At this moment Lief was staring off into space whilst thinking about what happened.

*Tap*

Lief felt someone tap his shoulder so he turned around. However, as he turned around the priest was pale with his eyes wide and staggering back yelling "DEMON!"

Everyone in the courtyard immediately looked at the priest as if he had gone mad. The prince, a demon? Hardly.

Lief also looked at the priest as if he was mad, but then he felt the wind on his bare shoulder.

Glancing at his shoulder he saw that the suit he was wearing now had a hole the size of a hand!

His eyes drifted back towards the priest hand that had touched his shoulder to Liefs astonishment, the old man's hand was turning black and cracking!

The old Preist shrieked whilst waving his arm around and yelling "Demon! demon! Hellspawn!"

It was spreading, the old priest's skin was starting to turn into what looked like charcoal!

It started spreading slow but the speed was picking up, everyone watched in terror as it happened.

The disease spread up his arm and even into his white gown! His clothing barely lasted a second before it turned into dust.

Revealing the old man's body, not one person glanced at his body, though, everyone was watching the disease pick up in speed and spread to his torso, legs and finally his head.

The man's arm didn't last through this process, no, it cracked into little pieces before falling onto the floor and shattering into tiny pieces, fading along with the wind.

It hardly took 20 seconds before the man's body completely cracked into tiny little pieces.

Everyone in the audience, the noble's, the knights, Liefs friends and even Lief's sister took several steps back.

The king was the only one to step forward,

"Son... What did you do to Priest Jefferson?"

Lief stared blankly at the charcoal like corpse on the floor before replying " I... I didn't do anything... He patted me on the shoulder before, before this happened..."

"Son, for right now please make your way towards the hospital, it may not have been Sophie who was poisoned, it may have been you..."

The king whispered to Lief before facing the audience and speaking with a heavy voice

.

"Please don't worry. We will find the one responsible, please stay behind so that we can check what you have done in the past week. Failure to stay behind will result in death, no excuses.

Lief nodded to his father before moving towards the edge of the stage.

However, before Lief took his second step he felt a crushing pain in his chest and collapsed to the ground groaning in pain!

The king rushed towards Lief before stopping several steps away from him and asking seriously "Is the poison acting up?"

Lief opened his mouth to say something but as he did the pain amplified by many times! "AARGH" Lief cried out in agony, clutching his chest in pain before finally passing out.

As Lief yelled everyone saw a strange black mist pour out of his mouth and soar into the sky.

Everyone cried out in horror as they saw a piece of the mist rush towards them, however, no one could outrun the mist.

Men, women, children, cats, dogs anything breathing ended up being a host to whatever the mist was.

10 seconds later...

*Thud, thud, thud" The king must have heard hundreds, if not thousands of those same sounds. People truly dropped like flies.

The animals went first, they went without much noise.

The children second, they went with painful screams, they echoed throughout the city.

The women followed the children, some cried, some screamed and others silently sobbed to themselves.

The men went last, some lined up their families and lay next to them, some went screaming and some even went drinking believe it or not.

The king watched his city die, he held his dying daughter as he watched all his friends die.

He felt truly useless, he couldn't save anyone. He couldn't save his daughter or even himself.

In his final moments, he lay next to his daughter, hand in hand and asked himself...

"Was I a good King?"