The Lost Heirs Vendetta

Chapter 20: Makeshift War Room

The next day, we all stood around a square table in the center of my room. Brock was to my left, Bri to my right and Darian was across from me. On the table was a layout of the palace. Every room and little-known servant passageway, every entrance and exit were all marked. Our royal secret passageways were not marked.

"I just don't get it," Brock says, "how could someone get into the palace? All the entrances are guarded with ten guards and even before the first assassination attempt, there were still enough. You would either have to know every single guard's shifts extremely well and time it perfectly right or have someone of high power to get you in through one of the entrances without the guards questioning it."

We all nodded in agreement, equally as confused as he.

"Is it possible that someone could get in through the windows?" Darian said from across the table.

Brock considered his question for a moment, "Impossible. All the windows are too high up. The lowest one to the ground is thirty feet high."

From the look on Darians face, I could still see that he disagreed with Brock's analysis, but he said nothing in return. I could see him contemplating the idea in his head though.

"Is it possible for someone to dress up as a maid or servant and sneak in through the maid's passageways?" I asked.

"Maybe," Brock said, not looking a little bit more stressed than before. "The girl who poisoned Breya's cup was a maid so that is a possibility. But, I don't think she infiltrated the castle from the outside anyway. I think someone hired her from the inside."

"Who would want to hire someone like her to poison Breya's cup? And why Breya?" Bri said. She brought up a good point. Why was Breya the target?

We've all been trying to figure out the same couple questions for quite some time now. I honestly can't come up with anyone who may gain anything from having Breya and Brock. Breya never really got into any conflicts, she was always so quiet at dinners and meetings. It's hard to imagine that anyone would want her dead.

But then, my words to Clifton from yesterday hit me. Maybe they did really only kill Breya to frazzle us and make us feel weak and unprotected.

"I don't think there was any strategic reasoning behind Breya's death," I said.

"What do you mean?" Darian asked. All eyes were on me now.

"I can't think of anyone who would benefit from killing Breya. I think whoever did it, did it to distract us. To keep our minds from focusing on the real problem."

"But what bigger problem?" Brock questioned. "What could need our attention more than trying to find our sister's killer?"

"I don't know."

Brock sighed before he said, "Right now, the only thing we need to focus on is figuring out who the man behind all of this is."

"Or woman," I said. "Remember that maid said that a woman hired her."

"We don't know that for certain," Brock retorted, "for all we know, she could have been lying."

I nodded and everyone, once again, fell into silence around the table.

"What if I went down into the dungeons and asked her about it? I mean, if she's even still alive down there."

I looked at everyone's faces and found disapproval from Brock and nothing but pure shock or surprise from Darian and Bri. It looked like Brock was going to say something, but Bri beat him to it.

"Aleah, it's not safe down there. Those people are locked up for a reason."

Brock nodded and said, "And the chances of you being permitted inside are extremely low. I'm not even permitted unless I have direct approval from Father."