~UNITY~

Queen Xenia, my mum, died today. I walked down the stairs to find her lying at the bottom, a gash on her
forehead. She’s with the forensic pathologist right now. It’s the death of the monarch of our country, of course, they’re
going to want to know how it happened. I guess I’m King Thyre now, not Prince Thyre anymore, which is insane to
think about. Mother just turned 57, I thought she’d be here longer, rule longer before handing the title off to me.

“Prince, sorry King Thyre? There’s something I think you’d want to know,” a man says to me, a bright blue
surgical mask covering his features, with striking cerulean eyes peeking over the top. I follow him into the room to find
my mum lying on the table in the center of the room, blood dried on her forehead, pale skin and soulless eyes. She
looks like, like, I don’t even know. She just doesn’t look like my mum. I look up at the pathologist, who’s rifling through
a stack of papers. “Your mother was poisoned,” he states, void of emotion as if it’s a normal thing to say. I mean, for
him it probably is, considering his career.
“How?”, is the only thing I could say. Everyone loved my mum, ‘Queen Xenia has the kindest soul’, and ‘her
only care is the people’, is what they all say.
“Thallium poisoning. It’s been running through her veins for seven days, possibly ingested. She died three
hours before you found her.” Seven days. She’s been dying for seven days and I hadn’t even noticed. What kind of a
son am I? How did she even die? Did she suffer? Was it painless? How am I supposed to be okay after this?
“Thank you for telling me, but I should be going now if that’s alright.” The man gives me a nod in response and
I turn towards the door.
“Oh hold on, before you leave, I called a detective over to your manor to help with your case, Dolion Xavier,
he’s said to be one of the greatest detectives in the region. He’ll be there in about an hour.” I nod and thank him
before leaving the room, hearing the click of the door behind me.

The car ride home is a long one, the skies murky and sombre as if Mother Nature knows she lost her most
extraordinary child. Something hasn’t sat well with me since I left the forensics lab. Something about the man I met
seemed fairly familiar, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. I hear the click of the door opening and I’m led into the
house.
“Please do not bother me until Mr. Xavier arrives,” I instruct the servants by the door before heading up the
stairs to the study, the stairs creaking with every step. Sitting down at the dark oak table, I pull out a leather journal
from underneath a stack of papers in the bottom drawer. Grabbing a pen from the cup atop the desk, I start to write.

20th September 2034

Imagine how hard it is to see your mother, the woman who raised you, at her most vulnerable. I never thought
that after I attended dad’s funeral, I’d find something that haunts me even more. Dad and I were never close, not like
mum and I. Why would somebody want to kill my…sublime mother?
Thank god it wasn’t me though! I mean, if I died, mum eventually would have too, and there would’ve been no
heirs to rule. We all know that my father was her only love.
And, why –

The door smacked against the wall, a sheepish young boy standing behind it. “Sorry about that. I was just sent
to inform you that Mr. Xavier has come. I didn’t mean to startle you,” the boy tells me with a soft voice. I wave him
away, shoving the book into a drawer, a thud echoing as it hits the wood. I push my chair back, the wood screeching
against the hardwood floor, and walk down the stairs to find Mr. Xavier.
“King Thyre!”, the man exclaimed. “Great to meet you, not great circumstances, but great nonetheless. I’m
Dolion Xavier, but you can just call me Dolion,” he continued, grabbing my hand, and shaking vigorously. Nyx had
ebony, black hair, twisted into a quiff, and striking deep blue eyes. Something must be going on with me today. He
looks familiar as well.
 “Pleased to meet you as well Mister Xa- Dolion, sorry. Come, follow me to the study,” I tell him, turning back to
walk up the stairs again. The both of us sit across from each other at the desk in the center of the room.
Pulling a notepad and pen from his pocket, I watch as Dolion writes across the top of the page, ‘Queen Xenia’s
Murder’, which is still crazy to think about.
“So, the poison entered, seven days ago?”. I nod my head and let him continue. “Alright, so then I need a list of
everyone who was in the manor that day.
“Well, there was group A of the chefs, the cleaning maids, and my assistant, I’ll tell you the names in a minute,
and oh! The chamberlain! Mother’s chamberlain quit just 6 days ago! He had dark, silky hair, and…striking deep, blue
cerulean eyes.” My eyes widen with realization. How could I have been so blind? They all–
“Is everything okay, Your Majesty?”, the man across the desk asks. Is he even named ‘Dolion Xavier’? Next,
I’m going to find out his name is Nyx or something like that.
“Yes, everything is alright, don’t you worry. I’m just trying to remember what the chamberlain looked like. I
suspect he’s the one who poisoned my mother,” I announce. I watch as he squirms in his seat, eyes wide.
“Um, yes, well um, I’ll let you just sleep on it,” he tells me, pulling back his chair. I escort him out of the manor,
making sure he’s long gone before I race back up the stairs.

The Chamberlain, the man from the lab, ‘Dolion Xavier’, what do they all have in common? Their eyes. They
all have the same piercing, blue, cerulean eyes.
I think Mr. Xavier killed my mother. The only question that remains is why? Did he do it for himself, or is he
working for somebody else?

I couldn’t bring myself to do anything. I just sat there, watching the door, waiting to see if he’ll come back for
me, or if he’s run off. I begin to drift off, after hours upon hours of staring.

I wake in a dark room, my eyes fluttering open as I look around. My head aches, I notice, trying to pull my arms
up to rub my eyes, and I realize, I’m tied to the chair, and I’m not in my study anymore. I tug, and I tug, but to no avail.
I can’t stand, I can’t move, and I can barely see.
A silhouette starts to move towards me, a sinister grin on the man’s face. I know that man. It’s the man I’ve
feared would come back to me after he so abruptly left all those hours ago.
“Dolion Xavier. It was you. You were the one to kill my mother. It was all a trick, wasn’t it? Pretending to be the
best detective? You just wanted me dead, didn’t you?”, I spit at him, my eyes filled with disgust. How could you kill
someone, let alone walk back into their home and taunt those whom they’d left behind?

“I underestimated you,” he tells me, still grinning.

“I’m sorry?”
“You see,” he begins. “I planned to make you suffer, make you spend gruelling hours trying to find out who I
was, days even, but you found out because of my eyes,” he laughs to himself.
“I still don’t understand,” I tell him. “Why? Why would you kill my mother?”
“Money.” I glance at him, puzzled. What does money have to do with anything? “When The Unity hired me,
who was I to say no with how much they were giving me?”
“The Uni- what now?”, I ask, still very much confused. I should be scared, and panicked, but I’m just confused
more than anything.

“The Unity. They hired me, what was it? Two years ago, I think, to rid us of all of Europe’s leaders. Little. By.
Little,” Dolion starts, telling the story. “They want us to all be free of all the corruption you ‘royalty’ bring upon us. I
mean, it’s a great cause, but I wouldn’t have done it if they hadn’t given me the pay,” he shakes his head with almost
disbelief. “Over 4 million euros, just for killing one person. Just one, itty bitty, murder,” he says inching closer, and
closer. It’s only now that I notice the glinting steel, hanging right alongside his leg.
 “No, no you don’t have to do this!”, I plead, staring into his eyes. “I’ll give you the country for free! No harm
done! And I’ll even go into hiding so you still get paid! I promise!”
“Oh, but where, oh where is the fun in that, King Thyre?” The sound of the sword whooshing through the air
brought me back, and a sharp pain in my chest. I look down to see a gaping hole, blood gushing out.
My eyes start to flutter close, as everything around me fades to nothing,