The Assassin and the King - SOTUS

The Keys

Mar POV

I need to talk to someone, why was Prae busy these days? It was still hard for me to talk to Maprang, I didn't want to ask for her help and hear her tell me I should have known better. But I needed someone.

I can hear Seri crying as I make my way towards Prae's rooms, it was unusual nowadays, she seemed to have settled down. My hands shake, my head spins when she stops. My feet move on their own and I run, babies don't stop crying that way, they don't just stop.

"What are you doing?" I shout.

The woman near the small swing in the garden was a stranger, not the nurse I was used to seeing with Fon or Seri. She was leaning over, something in her hand, hiding it when she saw me.

"I was..."

"Move away from her."

I walk towards Seri, checking the baby but she is too still. My fingers shake as I move them under her small nose, taking a relieved breath when I feel her breathe on my finger.

"What did you do?" I ask the stranger.

"Nothing...she is sleeping..."

"What did you hide?"

"I was just..."

"GUARDS"

"Its best if you stay quiet." She grabs my wrist. "I have orders..."

I push her away, a flurry of footsteps and voices fill the air but I check the baby again, she still isn't moving. I pick her up gently, she makes no noise. Oh heavens, please...no.

"Healer." Someone grabs my arm and pulls. "Now Mar."

I follow Maprang in a daze, clutching the baby.

I think someone is talking to me but I feel numb. I watch Fon talk to the Head Healer, as she clutches her baby close, she arrived moments after us. The little girl lets out a loud wail and everyone in the room breathes a sigh of relief.

"It was to make her sleep. Mar."

I turn to see Maprang standing beside me, was she the one talking to me before too?

"She is okay." She tells me gently. "Understand?"

I nod but look back at the mother and daughter, Fon is singing her a song, I think it's a lullaby. I didn't know this one, but a very old one comes to mind that my grandmother used to sing to me. I missed her, I wish...and it all fits together.

The words embroidered on the handkerchief, they are from that lullaby. My grandmother's old broken music box played the tune, was it somehow a key to something?

~~~~~~~~~~

Pridi POV

"You are sure?"

I ask Wayo as he and Nai examine the book again.

"Yes sir." Wayo turns the book.

"That would be...stupid." Nai isn't convinced. "You don't hide a key, with a lock."

"Why not? If you had no time or other options." Wayo answers. "If you need both to be safe and both to be found."

"The wrong people can find it." Nai replies.

"True." Way nods. "But, in desperate times you have to try."

The book looked ordinary, a soft leather-bound journal with blank pages you could find at any bookstore. Wayo takes the small dagger and slowly begins to cut the spine of the book, the binding begins to separate little by little. Wayo stops when he hears a ting, metal hitting metal.