Puppet-1

Jarad was sweating crazily, his throat had dried up and his heart was about to burst like a balloon, being escorted by the Royal Order had that effect on him. The worst part was the stares, all the people working in the building knew him, and some of them even knew Clair, if someone blabbed about this in front of her, then only a miracle from the Great Tibba could help him.

He feared his wife the most, she was a lovely lady, and he loved her from the bottom of his heart, but when that woman gets angry only a miracle could quell her anger. Being escorted by the Royal Knights will tarnish his reputation, but that won't affect him that much, most of the people in the office take bribes out in the open, and even with that kind of bad reputation they go by their life without any hiccups, so he will also be fine. But he will die if his wife finds out about this…

The knights also refused to talk to him, he asked them several times, where they were going. But they refused to talk, they only opened their mouth to give him instructions, nothing more. They escorted him to a carriage of the Royal Order, and then they just started moving.

Sitting in a very fancy carriage was a rather pleasant experience, but being gazes of the two grumpy-looking old Royal Knights with him was making him uncomfortable, so he decided to look outside the window, trying to calm himself.

Dont worry about it. You have not done anything wrong. So nothing would happen to you, just believe in yourself Jarad.

Seeing the routes that they were taking, he started to realize where they were heading, but it seemed highly unlikely, so he didn't think that it would be possible, after all, he was a normal clerk.

But when the carriage started entering the Royal Palace, he started panicking for real, he was not dressed right to enter the palace, he smelled his underarms, which although were not smelly they weren't good enough as well.

Soon their carriage came to a stop in front of the royal entrance of the palace, as he was about to open the door and let himself out, he was surprised to see that an old man standing outside quickly opened the door for him.

An old man in a black color butler uniform gave him a warm smile. Jarad stepped out nervously as he didn't know what to think about the situation.

The Royal Palace was gigantic, every wall of the palace was covered with either tapestries or portraits. He spotted several ornaments displayed on every corner of the hallways, some of them were also from outside Hearth Grove Island, which made them very valuable. Even the servants were dressed better than him, he on the other hand looked like someone who woke up on the side of the road.

The butler brought him to a seating area, where he was asked to wait, at that time he couldnt help but ask the butler about whom he was going to meet, and the butler with a warm smile replied. "Who else, Her Majesty itself.".

I have to meet the queen. His started pounding even faster, he could not meet her, he was not ready.

FUCK! But cursing didn't help him, he was still nervous. 

I should have never met with Adui, nor should I should have helped him. I am an idiot! I should be more careful in the future, before helping someone.

***

Charlotte looked like shit. There were dark circles around her eyes, her hair was messy, she had grown weaker in the past 2 weeks, her mood was always grumpy and cold and nothing in this world gave her happiness anymore, and how she could be happy, after all, her son was attacked two weeks ago.

A lot of men died while protecting his son, in the end, he was saved, but at what cost? In his room, his body lay, devoid of any movement, he had entered a comatose state, the worst part is that physicians and mages could not determine what had happened to his body. They do not see any sign of any injury or poison that could send a man of his power to such a state.

His body was fine, it had healed mostly, and nothing was wrong with his blood, but his eyes and body did not show any moment, and his heart still beating stronger than ever. It remains a mystery what had happened to him.

She had this anger boiling inside of her, making her lose her mind and patience, she wanted to rip out of the innards of the person who did this. But her incompetent men could not find anything regarding this attack. Even the spies keeping an eye on the dukes didn't amount to anything.

The only theory that she could come up with was that Gizelle and her mage family did this. But she couldnt say for sure, she wanted to confront them, but General Tarrain and Lord Howard suggested against it, according to them it would be unwise to attack an enemy whose power they know nothing about…

Currently, Charlotte sat in the council room with General Terrain, Lord Howard.

"So, what is this man's relation with that Adui fellow?" she asked Howard.

"Adui's childhood friend Clair is the wife of Jarad. From what I have heard, they are good friends." Howard said.

"Howard, I know that you think that you know your employee pretty well, but is there any chance that this Jarad, leaked the information about Adui to the enemy?" General Terrain asked.

"I dont think so, General. And I know that you think that I dont have a good grasp on understanding what kind of depts a person could fall to when tempted. But I know this one pretty well. He is the kind of man who gets frightened if someone just glares at him." Howard said.

"He could be faking it. Maybe he is a spy for Dukes." Charlotte said.

"Not a chance. His father was also a clerk, like him. I knew that man pretty man as well, so I dont think there is a way from which this man could be a spy." Howard.

The Queen then shifted in her place. "The thing is gentlemen, someone leaked the information about Adui and Prince to someone. The same night someone tries to kill Adui, an assassination attempt on Prince also takes place. There is someone within our ranks who is a spy, and I want to know who this person is."

General Terrain then turned towards Queen. "My Queen, there is one more thing that is peculiar about this whole situation."

"What that might be?" Queen asked.

"Adui told the prince, everything that he knew about Gizelle and her Bloodborn family. He told us everything and was happy to give us more information about her. And then someone tries to kill him. But the question is, why?"

"I dont understand what are you trying to say, General?"

"My Queen, think about it. If the enemy knew that Adui was the kind of guy, that wouldn't think twice before betraying Gizelle, then why was he alive that long? Shouldn't they have killed him long ago, and been over with all this? Yet they kept him alive. But why?"

"I didn't think about that," Howard said while nodding his head. He then continued. " He is right madame, it would have made sense to kill that man long ago. But they didn't. Can it be, we are looking at this the wrong way? Maybe the enemy didn't burn down Adui's home. Maybe he did it himself to run away?"

Charlotte could only nod, till now, they were thinking as if Adui was a victim, but what if he wasn't? What if that man was the one who leaked the information about Prince? What if that man is one of the main villains of this whole situation?

"Well think about that later, for now, call in Jarad," Charlotte commanded.