The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

The palace at night was a different creature than the palace by day.

The grand halls, so full of activity and pageantry during daylight hours, became shadowy and empty. The corridors stretched longer and seemed somehow deeper. The stones themselves seemed to hold the weight of centuries of secrets.

Isolde, wrapped in her black cloak, moved through these corridors like a ghost.

Beside her, Marta carried a shuttered lantern that provided just enough light to see the immediate path without creating a noticeable beacon that might draw attention from distant observers.

They moved slowly so as to not draw attention

If anyone saw them, they would see a noblewoman taking a late-night walk with her maid. Such things were not entirely uncommon in the palace, and aside from possible concern for propriety, no one would likely question it.

But Isolde was careful to avoid the main passages.

She led Marta through the older sections of the palace, areas that were less frequently used, where servants did not normally travel, where the risk of being seen was minimal.

They passed storage rooms filled with old tapestries and furniture that had fallen out of fashion. They passed through corridors lined with portraits of ancient kings, their eyes seeming to follow as the two women moved past. They descended staircases that were not often used, their stone worn smooth by centuries of feet that no longer walked these paths.

The air grew colder as they moved into the deeper sections of the palace.

The sounds of evening activity...distant voices, the clink of dishes being cleaned, the footsteps of servants moving about their duties, gradually faded away until there was only silence. Only the soft sound of their footsteps on stone, only the occasional creak of an ancient wooden door, only the faint whisper of Isolde’s cloak as it brushed against the floor.

They were approaching the eastern side of the palace.

This was an older section, built in the very first years of the kingdom, back when the palace had been primarily a fortress and only secondarily a seat of power. It was massive and cold and somewhat forbidding, with narrow windows and thick stone walls built to withstand siege.

Few people came to this section of the palace.

There was little reason to. The chambers here had been replaced by newer, more comfortable spaces. The passageways led mostly to dead ends or to exterior walls that had long since been sealed.

But there were places, hidden in the folds and angles of these ancient corridors, where someone could meet with another person almost completely unseen.

Isolde knew these places.

She had used them before.

Her father had made certain that she knew them.

She led Marta through the winding passages, navigating by memory and instinct, until finally, they reached the place where she needed to be.

It was a small alcove, set into the thickness of an exterior wall. Once, it had perhaps been a guard post or a storage niche. Now, it was simply an empty space....dark, cold, isolated.

”Wait here,” Isolde told her maid, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper. ”Keep the lantern low. If anyone comes, warn me.”

”Yes, my lady,” Marta said, understanding her role completely.

Isolde stepped forward, away from the light of the lantern, into the deeper darkness.

She pulled down her hood and stood quietly, waiting.

***

A man emerged from the darkness as if he had always been there, simply waiting for her to arrive before making his presence known.

The man was nondescript, neither young nor old, neither handsome nor ugly. He wore dark clothing that allowed him to blend into the shadows. His face was unremarkable, the kind of face that would be immediately forgotten by anyone who saw it.

This was precisely why he had been chosen for this work.

He bowed to Isolde....a respectful bow, the kind a servant might give to nobility, and said nothing.

”Does my father have a message for me?” Isolde asked, her voice carrying an edge of imperious demand despite the whisper-soft volume.

The man reached into his cloak and withdrew a sealed parchment. The seal bore the sigil of House Greythorne - Isolde’s father’s house.

He handed the parchment to her, his movements careful and precise.

Isolde took it, turning it over in her hands briefly, then tucking it into the folds of her cloak.

The man bowed again.

No words were exchanged. This was the way of these meetings. The less that was spoken, the less that could be heard by eavesdropping servants. The less that was known, the less that could be betrayed if one of them was captured or questioned.

Isolde turned and walked back toward the light of the lantern, where her maid waited.

The man melted back into the darkness as if he had never been there at all.

***

The journey back through the palace was quick, almost hurried now that the message had been received.

Isolde and Marta retraced their steps through the ancient corridors.

By the time they reached Isolde’s chambers, the palace around them was even quieter than it had been when they left. Most of the servants had completed their evening duties and retired.

Marta closed the door to Isolde’s chamber behind them and quietly returned to her own small room.

Isolde was alone.

She moved to the fire that burned in her private fireplace and carefully unsealed the parchment.

Her hands trembled slightly as she unfolded it.

She read the words written there, carefully, twice, allowing the meaning to sink in completely.

The letter was brief.

It contained a message from her father, delivered in his careful, precise handwriting. A message that changed everything.

It was a message about Morgana.

It was a message about why her father wanted the girl removed from the palace with such urgency.

It was a message that transformed Isolde’s jealousy into something far darker and more dangerous.

As Isolde read the final words, her expression changed.

First came bewilderment....shock at the revelation contained in the letter.

Then came anger.

Sudden, intense, burning anger.

She crushed the parchment in her fist, the fragile paper crumpling beneath her grip.

She threw it down with a scream of pure rage, a sound of fury and frustration and desperate need for action.

She paced her chamber like a caged animal, her hands clenched into fists, her pale blue eyes burning with something that looked disturbingly like madness.

The servant girl.

The girl in the stables.

The nothing nobody who had somehow captured the attention of three kings.

The girl was MORE than just a servant.

She was something else entirely.

Something that threatened not just Isolde’s future but her family’s plans.

Something that had to be eliminated.

Isolde picked up the crushed parchment again and moved to the fire.

She held it over the flames, watching as the paper began to catch.

The edges turned brown. Then black. Then the entire letter became engulfed in flame, the words disappearing into ash and smoke.

As she watched the letter burn, Isolde’s mouth twisted into something that might have been a smile.

”Morgana,” she whispered, her voice cold and deadly. ”I will rid myself of you one way or another. Even if I have to burn you alive, I will do it. And I will make them watch you burn!”

The flames consumed the last of the letter, and it was gone, leaving only ash in the fireplace.

But the fury remained.

The determination remained.

The knowledge of what needed to be done remained.

Morgana’s days in the palace were numbered.