Chapter 248 - Seeds Of Suspicion

Emelie slid sideways out of her seat and sat next to Kurt, prompting Kenneth to sit opposite them. His sharp, military gaze locked onto the two young people across from him.

Cindy hurried over while holding a notepad. "Welcome! What can I get for you, sir?"

Without breaking eye contact with them, Kenneth spoke in a low, gravelly tone. "Black coffee."

"C-Coming right up," Cindy nodded, sensing the intense aura radiating from the man, and quickly backed away toward the kitchen.

Once she was out of earshot, Kenneth rested his forearms on the table, leaning forward. "You asked to see me, Rossana. Speak. And it had better be worth my time."

"Straight to business, huh? Sure. First, let’s talk about what Princess Faye and I discussed inside her carriage the day you guys picked me up."

"Go on."

"She asked me to take on a personal request. What’s the request, you ask? She wants me to find – and potentially eliminate – the person responsible for the assassination of her mother, Queen Caroline Dorothy, nearly twenty years ago."

Kenneth’s brow furrowed as a genuine flash of confusion crossed his serious face. "She asked you? To investigate a cold case two decades old? Why in the world would Her Highness seek out someone like you for such a matter?"

Emelie took up the mantle of answering his question.

"There are several explanations on the surface, Vice-Captain. First, the official royal investigators abandoned the case after every trail went cold. Maybe she’s still seeking a sense of closure.

"Second, Kurt’s recent achievements – specifically his tracking and elimination of the zealots – has earned him quite the reputation, especially among the Prefects.

"Third, as an outsider with no political ties to the royal court, he represents a neutral party who cannot be bribed or influenced by rival noble factions. Or those who don’t want the answers to come to light..."

As Kenneth listened, his expression grew more guarded with every word.

"Even if all of that is true, it still makes no sense for Her Highness to bypass the Royal Guard’s internal intelligence unit to–"

"None of what I just said is the real reason. Or could possibly be the reason." Emelie interrupted.

"... Then what is?"

"The real reason she asked me to investigate her mother’s death..." Kurt continued. "Is because she wants to kill me, Kenneth. She’s terrified of me. She’s terrified of what I’ll discover if I keep digging into the Cult."

"And what is it you think you’ll discover?" Kenneth asked, his voice dropping into a dangerous, warning pitch.

Kurt looked him dead in the eye. "She’s scared I’ll discover that the person who orchestrated the raid on the palace – the one who truly killed the late Queen – was Princess Faye herself."

"....."

Kenneth’s face flushed red with outrage. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he prepared to yell or drag Kurt by his throat–

Kurt held up his hand, cutting him off before he could speak.

"More specifically, Vice-Captain: Princess Faye is a high-ranking operative of the Cult. Although the late Queen did not die by her hands, she personally led and facilitated the raid that took her mother’s life."

Silence gripped the booth once more.

Then, unexpectedly, Kenneth lowered his head. He placed a hand over his face, his shoulders shaking subtly as he began to laugh. It was a soft chuckle that echoed quietly in his throat.

Kurt and Emelie exchanged a brief glance at each other, patiently waiting for the Royal Guard to finish.

At that moment, Cindy awkwardly walked up to the table and carefully set down his cup of black coffee. She looked between the laughing guard and the pair across from him, swallowing hard. "U-Um... do you need anything else?"

"We’re fine, Cindy. Thank you," Kurt replied.

"O-Okay. I’ll be at the front counter if you need me."

Kenneth finally stopped laughing. He dragged his hand down his face, picked up his coffee mug, and took a slow sip. When he set the mug back down, all trace of amusement was gone, replaced by an even more terrifying seriousness.

"Do you two have any idea what you are saying?" His voice trembled with contained, furious anger. "Accusing the First Princess of high treason and matricide?"

"I know exactly what I’m saying." Kurt stated plainly.

"Repeat it. Put it in simpler terms so there is zero misunderstanding on my end."

"Faye Dorothy is the cultist mastermind who orchestrated the death of the late Queen."

BANG!

Kenneth slammed his fist onto the table. The entire booth rattled, sending his mug slanting sideways as dark black coffee splashed violently across the wood and onto the napkins.

"Just who the hell do you think you are?!" Kenneth hissed softly, though his eyes burned with fury. "Coming into my city, making absurd, baseless claims against the royal family?!"

Kurt casually looked down at the puddle of spilled coffee, his expression entirely unfazed. "It’s funny... I really didn’t take you for the emotional outburst type, Vice-Captain."

"Do not play games with me, boy. Right now, I have half a mind to drag you out of this seat by your collar, throw you in chains, and take you straight to Princess Faye so you can repeat those exact words to her face!"

"We are being dead serious about this, Vice-Captain," Emelie stated.

"Then give me proof! Show me a single scrap of concrete evidence!"

In perfect unison, both Kurt and Emelie raised their right hands and pointed their fingers directly at Kenneth’s chest.

Kenneth paused. He looked down at their pointed fingers, then instinctively looked over his shoulders to see if someone was standing behind him. Seeing no one there, he pointed a confused finger back at himself.

"Me?"

They both nodded together.

"How the hell am I proof?!"

"It’s not that you are the proof," Kurt clarified calmly. "It’s that you are going to gather the proof for us. We need you to act as our inside man within the royal palace."

"Ha! You are insane. Absolutely out of your mind. How did you even come to the absurd conclusion that Her Highness is part of the cult in the first place?!"

Kurt improvised, spinning a pre-fabricated, seamless lie.

"Before Tobias died, he admitted that he was part of the group that assassinated the Queen twenty years ago. And he also stated that the person who led them through the palace’s secret entrance back then, is still very much alive inside the inner royal court."

Emelie seamlessly added onto the fabrication without missing a beat. "He also left us with a warning, Vice-Captain. He said: ’Eldoria will soon fall to ruin by the hands of its neglected daughter.’"

"Think about it." Kurt pointed a finger to his head. "Who would be considered the ’mother’ of Eldoria? The late Queen, right? Well then... who better fits the description of her ’neglected daughter’? I’m sure you know of her background. I personally just learnt about it recently."

Kenneth sat back, trying to process all this information behind a scowl. "You are reaching way too far with a wild guess like that."

"Am I?" Kurt countered. "Because to me, it sounds like he was talking about one specific person. The fact that Faye suddenly approached me – asking me to investigate a case that has been cold for two decades – only tells me she is trying to divert suspicion away from herself.

"She wants to control my investigation, lead me away from the truth, and most likely eliminate me the moment I become a threat. Either way... she has her sights set on me now."

Kenneth stared at the spilled coffee on the table with a deeply troubled expression. The conflict in his eyes was palpable. His duty to the royal family clashed violently with his instinctual knowledge of how deeply corrupted the capital’s political underbelly is.

"Look, Kenneth," Kurt said softly. "We aren’t asking you to stand at the forefront of this battle or draw your sword against her. Just go to work as usual. Do your duty. But keep your eyes open. Keep an eye on her movement, how she acts, and her off-record meetings.

"I promise you... you are bound to find something. And when you do, your eyes will open. You’ll realize that the conversation we are having right now could not only save my life... but potentially King Maxwell’s as well. Because who knows what that cultist truly meant when he spoke of Eldoria falling to ruin."

For a long moment, Kenneth sat motionless as an internal struggle raged behind his dark eyes.

Finally, he stood up from the table and turned his back to them.

"I don’t trust either of you. And because I don’t trust you... I will be keeping a watchful, relentless eye on both of you. And... on Princess Faye. To prove to you that she is not who you think she is."

Kenneth took a step toward when Kurt called to him.

"Kenneth."

He stopped, pausing over his shoulder without turning around.

"Watch out for the personal Royal Guards she keeps directly around her. They could very well be in on all of this too."

Kenneth’s brows furrowed tightly. He let out a sharp, audible click of his tongue and walked straight toward the front counter.

He pulled out a small pouch of silver coins from his Personal Tag, dropping a ridiculously large stack onto the counter in front of a startled Cindy. "For the coffee. And for the mess on the table."

Ding ding

The bell chimed overhead as Vice-Captain Kenneth pushed open the door and stepped out into the waking morning street.

Kurt and Emelie simultaneously slumped back against the soft leather seat and let out exhausted sighs.

Slowly, they turned their heads to look at each other across the booth and shot lazily smiles.

"Well... that went... good, right?" Emelie asked.

"Meh. It went about as good as could be expected."