Chapter I: The King is Dead...

In truth Alastor had never seen a dead body before, not even during his father’s funeral procession some odd years ago, but now three were laid out in front of him. The royal carcasses of the king, the queen and the young prince all lay motionless on their soft scarlet velvet beds. Their caskets were a matching set of polished marble, snow white with specks of obsidian and veins of bright yellow gold woven into the stone. Adornments of rose gold vines with silver leaves and flowers of beaten copper wrapped around the coffins as if the slender fingers of the goddess Demeter herself were claiming them as her own. The lids of the sarcophagi were made of a clear quartz, finer than any glass Alastor had seen and unclouded as still water; embossed in the center was the sixteen-pointed star of Vergina, the sigil of the long standing Macedonian monarchy.
            Queen Persephone VIII wore a thin circlet of white gold inlaid with gems of blue and green that wrapped around her head in an orderly pattern. Much like her son and husband, a polished silver obol stamped with the face of some late king was placed gently atop her tongue to secure her safe passage across the river Styx, a bribe for the ferryman Charon. Her once beautiful and luscious locks of hazel were now an unkempt mess; not even the most skilled of morticians in all of New Hellas could properly capture the beauty she once possessed in life. A golden gorget wrapped tightly around her neck, a painfully obvious attempt to cover up the unsettling gash that the assassin’s blade had left her. The bright blood red velour that had complimented her so greatly in life was an unsettling contrast with the now pale and dull face of the once dear queen. She was a good queen, Alastor found himself thinking, a little spoiled but I dared not say that to her face… nor the king’s for that matter. Regardless, she was a good ruler, a kind woman, not only to me but her realm, she did not deserve this… nobody did. Daughter of a rich lord on the island colonies of New Naxos, rumors of her beauty reached far and across the continents of New Hellas like the tendrils of a vicious kraken before finally reaching the king’s ears. However, as Alastor looked upon her now decrepit face he could safely dispel those rumors.
            Prince Alexander XVI was clothed in a thin ghastly white robe that covered the entirety of his body like a thin blanket of newly formed snow on the first winter’s day. His crown was a thin circlet, just like his mother’s, but instead it was made of beaten gold and faceted with a myriad of tiny swords. The crown had given off the impression as if an endless war were raging around the thin band of gold itself. The crown rested atop his crossed hands instead of his head as was the norm. The crown had been made too big for the prince’s royal head with the thought that he would grow into it. ‘Stupid crown.’ the little prince would always blurt out, ‘The barbs tangle my hair!’, ‘It hurts when I put it on!’ he would always confide to Alastor when nobody was around. But that was when the prince had been so young and so full of life. Gods, that already felt like ages ago. The little prince had been a tad spoiled, learned it from his mother Alastor supposed, but he had loved the prince as if he were his own ilk, it was hard not to; a kindly spirited child, in life he had an insatiable curiosity and a genuine empathy for his subjects, a trait none too common in his royal lineage. His corpse was the hardest to look at, it was easy to forget he was a boy no older than seven when his face had already looked so gaunt and full of distress.
            King Alexander XV’s bright gold crown imitated the harshness of a blazing fire, encrusted with jewels of orange and yellow, it wrapped around his silvering brown hair until ultimately meeting the polished gold star of Vergina in the center. The body was bigger than Alastor had remembered, whether from over indulging or posthumous bloating he could not say.      The king had always been a jolly man in his prime, he was known as Alexander the Good by many of the common folk. Under the advice of his advisor of domestic affairs, the king had sent out reforms to aid the poor, whether out of genuine interest or to win the favour of the masses Alastor could never truly decipher. Regardless of his intent, the realm had enjoyed a dozen years of peace as it recovered from a disastrous reign from his father before him. Unfortunately, he had not solved every problem as much of New Hellas remained decrepit, the lands plagued with famine and strife, nor was he a perfect king, easily prone to fits of rage and poor decision making, despite all that he was still the best New Hellas had for nearly half a century.
            He was dressed in his favourite gown of beautiful purple with threads of gold, underneath he wore his traditional set of leather and linen armor accented with pieces of gilded steel. His chest boasted a fierce visage of a proud lion whose mane radiated like unruly snakes trying desperately to wrap around the king’s body. On his shoulder rested a lion’s pelt with a coat of beautiful tan with patches of white that draped over the left side of his body. Clutched under his jewel encrusted fingers was the most prized of his possessions, Rising Dawn, the ancestral sword of the Macedonian monarchy.
            Legends attribute the creation of the blade to King Hephius II some seven hundred years ago, a valiant tale of how a lone king fashioned a mythical blade to defend his kingdom from the escaped Hesperian dragon, a foul beast with a hundred heads. Its hand and a half grip was wrapped in a thick layer of brown leather that reached down to the lion’s-head pommel. Its cross-guard was half a gilded Vergina star, the weapon’s namesake originating from the way the cross-guard would replicate the image of a rising sun. The blade itself was a bright sanguine red, looking as if it were just recently plunged into an unsuspecting victim. Alastor knew little of smithing but he was told the blood red sheen of the blade was due to the rare, nigh extinct, metal used to forge it, aptly named ichorite or more commonly known as blood metal. The blade’s surface was very porous Alastor noted, every orifice so fine that it was a detail that was almost unnoticeable unless examined very closely. The sword was often rumored by common folk and noble men alike to have never touched the surface of a whetstone since its creation but that was an absurd claim as its edges were sharper than any he had seen. Ridiculous stories often surrounded artifacts of legend. Despite the finely ornate hilt of the sword, it was inarguable the true beauty of the weapon came from its rubicund blade. The warm scarlet blade radiated the whole coffin, almost bringing to life the corpse of the dead king, almost.
            “Beautiful is it not?” Alastor had been so entranced by the blade that the voice accompanied by the heavy footsteps had caught him off guard. Looks as if this empty throne room was not as empty as I thought.
            He was not a tall man, then again neither was his father, but at the same time he was not a short man by any means. He stood around the same height as Alastor, but his stature was strong and firm, giving off the impression he stood much taller than he actually did. His face was strong and had a sense of fierceness to it, a nose with a high bridge and an uneven lip that gave him a perpetual snarl. Set widely apart were his deep blue eyes that shared a gaze of regality and judgment to it. His hair was a curly mess of dark brown with shades of auburn, not too unlike his father’s likeness but he was more a spitting image of his ancestor, Alexander the Great, or at least how the painters and sculptors of old would let on. He was clad in his battle armaments, what battle do you have to fight in the throne room? Alastor wondered. His cuirass was coated in a sleek black enamel, embossed with spears, finely decorated with twisting vines. In the center was the royal star, its fine gold plating absorbed any and all light of the dimly lit throne room, giving off the impression, if only for a second, that it was a real star. His arms were draped in a delicate silvery mail that flowed down his ebony to lobster gauntlet on his right and a golden plated gauntlet with the pale ivory face of medusa as furbelow on his left, his aegis. Over it all he wore a regal purple cloak that wrapped around his shoulders and down his left arm, once again proudly bearing the sigil of his royal heritage. He wore no bright colored jewels, his chest plate black as dusk, but his armor still had a sort of ostentatiousness to it. “Prince Philip,” he had been so distracted by the prince’s garbs that he had almost forgotten his courtesies, “King Philip now I suppose.”
            “Please, no talk of kingship, not while my father’s body rests in front of me.” he casually strode forward, his steel boots still making a raucous as he approached, “Besides, I am still no king, not until my coronation at least.”
            “Yes, I apologize, how could I let that slip my mind.” He looked at the crystal coffins and looked back at the young prince, “New Hellas has lost a great king and you a noble father, the whole world weeps at its loss.” 
            “Does it my dear friend?” he had asked in an inquisitive tone, “Yes New Hellas has lost a great king and I a father,” he said as he caressed the embossed symbol on the quartz coffin with his lobstered gauntlet, “yet I find a dagger wound where his heart should be.” he slammed his armored fist into the quartz, a crash loud enough to wake the king from his eternal sleep, “You say the whole world mourns? No, I say there are those out there rejoicing as we speak and I think you know as well as I do who they are.”
            “You do not give credibility to those rumors do you my prince?” Alastor had inquired, hoping he would not hear the answer that he thought he would hear.
            “My father and his family set out on a diplomatic mission to the already restless and barbaric New Sparta and is sent back to me with a few more gashes and wounds than I last remembered them with, I would hardly call it a rumour.”
            “I understand how bad it looks,” he stared at the once youthful corpse of the late Prince Alexander, “truly I do, but we cannot jump to conclusions let alone war over…” he paused, “presumptions.”
            “Presumptions?” the prince stared coldly with his mismatched eyes of blue and green, “Is that what you call the corpses of my father and his family, presumptions?”
            “I meant no offence my prince,” he tried quickly to save his argument, “but the Spartans are a race of proud warriors who abhor cowardice above all else. If they were to be behind this great crime of regicide they would never resort to such a craven weapon as an assassin’s blade to do their bidding.” In that moment the prince had become taller by a foot, his crooked lips forming the beginnings of a genuine snarl, the star on his chest seem to radiate with more fury than grace.
            “We can talk about matters of daggers and regicide in the grand council, but not here, not in front of my father’s corpse.”
            “Forgive me Prince Philip, I never meant to offend.” I am your advisor, what other purpose do I have but to advise? “Would you like to mourn the dead in solitude? Surely that is why you have come?” He had been looking for any excuse to leave the throne room.
            “No, I have already said my prayers and paid my respects.” The prince’s anger seemed to subside but some of it unmistakeably still lingered.
            “And what of his lady wife and your brother?”
            “Half-brother,” he said in a snap, his anger quick to rise again, “as for the women, I held no love for that b***h, no blood relation, I do not owe her anything.” In the heat of the moment Alastor had forgotten Prince Philip had been born of King Alexander XVI’s first marriage to Queen Adrastea II who had died shortly after his birth.
            “Again, my apologies, I seem to forget myself.” If not, then for what reason did you come? The prince seemed to be able to read the confusion on his face.
            “You may be asking why I am here. Well I have come to admire the blade, like I said beautiful is it not?” The blade? What queer answer was that?
            “It is an absolutely stunning piece, befit of such a noble and powerful lineage such as yours.”
            “Yes my family’s most prize possession. Half a dozen civil wars have been fought, brothers against brother, for claimant over this scarlet blade, for mere metal and for what a handle of gold? Yet, looking upon it now I cannot deny its… alluring aura… I remember as a child I snuck it away when my father had not been looking, my father turned the entire city upside down looking for this damn thing.” He chuckled, his dimples emerging as he slipped a sly smile, “In three months’ time, after they have taken my father to the burial crypts of Macedonia, it will be returned to me but not before I will already have been crowned king. Which leads me to the other reason I am here. You.”
            “Me?” that had taken his aback.
            “Yes you, my newly inherited confidant. The first grand council meeting of my reign will begin at noon, on the morrow of my coronation. You have served my father well, treat me with half the wisdom you gave to him and my reign will be a prosperous one.” He broke his gaze with the sword to look up at Alastor, “I won’t lie to you, I sense rot in my kingdom, rot only continues with my father’s death but where it ends I cannot say. Dear Alexander rolls around in his grave wondering what happened to his kingdom.” Alastor was already lost in the prince’s cryptic message. “Pray tell me, what does one do with rot? Say in a man’s leg or on the surface of an otherwise perfect apple?”
            “You cut it out?” he said, unsure of his answer.
            “You cut it out.” The prince repeated. His sly smile unsettled him and the prince’s hand on his shoulder did little to give more reassurance. As the prince walked away, boots still clanging on the marble floors, Alastor could not help but feel uneasy with the odd message the prince had delivered to him, but perhaps he was looking into it too much.