A Paladin's Duty

Her name was Sarah Vos Grenig and she was a paladin. Most specifically, she was a Captain of the Order, a high and mighty rank indeed for someone as young as her. She was in charge of the palace's defences, and was the overall commander of its compliment of paladins. For anyone, this would have been a massive show of trust on the part of the Order, but for her specifically it stood out even more.

Because she was also a princess, the second eldest child of the royal line, and the palace was her home. This was where her family dwelt, where she had grown up. The palace was the site of many of her formative memories ranging from the first time she had walked on her own to the first time she had held a sword.

She was sworn to protect it and everyone who dwelt within it, even if that cost her life and her soul. And _this _was relevant because someone was attacking it. Noble Lords and Ladies were dying in the night. It had started with Lord Roujin - the very name made her sick, but he had still been murdered. At first they had not been too sure. There was no sign of **** on his body, and it was as if his heart had simply given out. No likely, given his youth and strength, but far from impossible. Sometimes, it did just happen. Someone was born with a small flaw or nick in their heart and lived for many years before it eventually ruptured and they died. It wasn't likely, but it could happen.

But Sarah had been suspicious from the first moment. As soon as she had seen the body. It was the look in his eyes. They were wide and staring, unseeing. Somehow though, they seemed to convey terror and fear. Not general terror, but specific terror. Like he had been looking at the person who was killing him. It was just a hunch, just intuition. But Sarah had long ago learned to trust her intuition. Something was wrong and she knew it.

When the others started to die, that simply confirmed that she was right. The pattern was plain to see if you had the brains for it. They were people who had been associated with Roujin. Those who had shared or enabled his crimes, and they did not die like he did. They died in different ways. Accidents, vanishings, some simply went to bed and were never seen again. Even so, no one was able to establish foul play, and there was no evidence to go off. She'd brought in a court wizard in case someone had used magic - rare, but not unheard of when it came to killings - but he had shaken his head and told her that there was no magic that he could detect.

It was an impossibility. Someone was killing without being seen, leaving no evidence and no trace, but magic was not being used. Sarah had gone through several sleepless nights trying to get to the bottom of it and nothing had come up.

What was she going to do now? Almost all avenues of potential had been used up. If there was no evidence, and no way to find out who was doing it, the best they could do was to guard those who were likely to be the next targets and hope that the enemy made a mistake. So far, they had not.

It didn't sit well with Sarah to simply stand and wait for someone else to die, so she started to try and piece a solution together. She looked for anything and everything out of the usual, but found little that really helped her.

The palace had a morgue tucked away near the basement, a place which was needed in a building as busy and full as the palace, but which did not often get acknowledged. Sometimes, people died and needed to be put somewhere. The morgue was cold, buried below the earth and made of solid stone. There, the bodies lay on hard slabs of rock, their skin pale and eyes unseeing. Sarah spent time there, peering into the silent faces of the dead. Wishing she had the power to compel them to speak their secrets. Somewhere, there was a clue which would **** all of this to make sense.

She just had to find it.