Fakualle was not crying yet her voice was already breaking. She stood at the window with her arms crossed tight over her chest, staring at the dark harbor below.
Kiarran sat on the edge of the bed with his elbow on his knees, in his formal coat.
"We should send a convoy."
"Fakualle."
"They need aid, Kiarran. Food, medicine, soldiers even! We don't even know the full scope of what happened yet, there could be civilians who got caught in the massacre's crossfire!"
"You said it yourself, we don't know anything yet. That's precisely the problem, if we send a convoy into a situation we don't understand we might risk our own people."
"They're dead, Kiarran. The entire court, a hundred and fifty people."
"I know that."
"Then why don't you act like it!?"
She raised her voice at the king, a small tear came out from her eye, dripping to her cheek, turning back to the window.
"I keep thinking about the buffet."
Kiarran looked up.
"A month ago, they invited us. I thought the timing was poor, we had the Kamidralian central church arriving that same week, and I thought there would be other visits, another occasion..."
"And what if the massacre were to have happened earlier? Us among the dead bodies."
"Don't."
He stood, crossing the room and standing beside her at the window.
"I grieve him, you know I do. I've known Vharun since we were young men, I set the first fishing trade deal with him. But I can't let grief drive the decisions we make tonight."
"Then what do you think we should do?"
"We send a scavenging mission. A small one, not more than fifteen knights. They can assess the damage, look for survivors, and report back."
"Survivors... Do you think there are any?"
"No." he admitted. "But I think we need to be seen looking. And if by some miracle there is anyone left alive in that ruin, we want to be the ones who found them."
Fakualle was quiet for a moment.
"The prince..."
"Yes."
"He was there during the massacre, right? He was so young, Kiarran. I only met him twice years ago, and he barely said a work, that poor isolated boy, I always meant to suggest to Vharon that he let him come stay with us for a season, let him see something of the world outside of the castle. He deserved better than to be a victim of a massacre."
Kiarran put a hand on her shoulder. "The scavenging mission leaves before dawn, I'll give the order tonight."
"What about the convoy?"
"If the mission finds something worth sending a convoy to, we'll send one. I promise you that."
Fakualle didn't get everything she wanted, but it was close. She reached up and put her hand over his.
- - -
Seven men and two women around the long table. A cartographer's map of the continent had been unrolled across the center of the table and pinned at the corners.
"We need to establish what we actually know before we start theorizing. What do we know?"
General Nuihin had spoken first.
Lord Sukkin, the king chief's minister, folded his hands on the table. He was the oldest in the room.
"We know the mark went dull at approximately the twentieth hour. We know it happened in seconds... the guards watching the pedestal didn't describe flickering or a gradual dimming. We know the castle is burning as we speak. Our nearest border scouts confirmed the smoke on the horizon."
"That's it?" asked Lady Zhapri, the trade minister.
"That's what we can confirm."
"Then let's talk about who."
"Githam...?"
It was always the Githam. They were Geortaria's southern neighbor, a partially recognized institution of Undeb Dehulm which held some sort of power, despite the country being a puppet state of Geortaria.
"I must say, they have motives to do such a thing." said Lord Giudon, the youngest minister at the table. "The power Geortaria was exerted over the Undebians... The Githam committee would greatly benefit from throwing Geortaria into chaos."
"The Githam would benefit from a stable Geortaria. Democracy and negotiations. They don't benefit from burning the castle to ash."
"What if they intend to replace the castle with their own?"
"A puppet ruler."
"Githam destabilizes Geortaria, removing the current line entirely, then backs a claimant of their choosing. Someone with no history or loyalty. Then they can turn Undeb Dehulm into an independent nation, with their own resources, royalty, and regain access to the historically Geortarian Yatara mountain range."
"How, though?"
"I'm sorry?"
"How did they do it? A hundred and fifty people. The castle guard alone numbers forty on a quiet day. You're describing an operation that killed every single person inside those walls in... minutes. That's some sort of military incursion."
"What if the massacre came from the inside?"
Every head turned to Lady Iazer.
She was the intelligence minister, she had said almost nothing until now.
"No forced entry reported. No siege weapons or evidence of an army. Whatever happened must have begun from inside that castle."
The throne room was the obvious answer, and most of the table accepted it. If you wanted to decapitate a royal court, you started with the king. Remove him and the chain of command collapses.
They suggested a coordinated attack. Multiple actors moving simultaneously through the castle. Servants were the prime suspect, multiple of them. As they needed to know the layout, guard rotations and schedules.
A conspiracy within the court. Geortaria's internal politics have never been entirely smooth, but there were rumors last year about factional disagreements.
"If the king died first, it was targeted. But if he died last, someone wanted him to watch, at that point its mere cruelty."
"What about the cooking staff?"
"The initial reports mentioned the fire is believed to have started in or near the kitchens. If the cooking staff were killed... Just why? They're no threat. They have no weapons. Perhaps they couldn't afford witnesses of any kind, or... Or they weren't thinking strategically at all."
A frenzy of sorts.
Hundred and fifty people in ten minutes were the scouts' estimates.
"Poison in the water supply."
"Doesn't explain the fire."
"A fast-acting compound, something we haven't encountered."
"One that selectively kills every person inside a castle while leaving the building standing long enough to then catch fire."
"Then what? You're saying one person, or even a small group, killed a hundred and fifty people including about forty trained guards in ten minutes and walked out? Not possible."
"And yet, it apparently is."
"Myrn."
It was Lord Sukkin who said it.
The room stopped. The quills hovered above the paper without touching it. People looked up from the map with an expression of alarm and discomfort. Even those who weren't superstitious by any measure went still.
Sukkin cleared his throat and pressed on. "I'm not suggesting folklore or store. But a possible framework for the how it was done, since we've exhausted every conventional answer."
"Myrn barely exists." Lady Zhapri said carefully, clearing her throat and taking a gulp of air. "One in a million, if that. Those who have it can barely bend spoons or light a candle with it."
"Known Myrn is parlor nonsense. I'm not describing the one we know. Something at the far end of the scale."
"A hundred and fifty people in ten minutes without an army and no weapons we can account for or a logical entry point. What else fits?"
Nobody answered. The silence was of people aware of the dark outside the council chamber windows.
Lazy Iazer spoke. "If we accept that premise, and I'm not saying we do, we're describing a Myrn output so far beyond anything documented that it may as well be a different phenomenon entirely. Whoever this person is, if that's what they are, they wouldn't just be a Myrn user."
"Something we don't have a name for."
The council reached one conclusion.
They did not know who.
They did not know why.
They did not know where it started or how it was done.
In the hallway outside, a knight who had been standing guard all night quietly turned and went to wake the princess.