Investigations and Probing

Few days later the kingdom of Omi, several soldiers were patrolling the streets, while some others had invaded several establishment, arresting everyone they saw in there, one of such establishment was the spicy Night in the red light district of Omi. Several men and women were arrested and taken away by the guards.

One week after Ija's death, a funeral was held in honor of 13 royal knights and 14 soldiers, that lost their lives two days ago. Ija and twelve members of the Queens guard who escorted the Queen two nights ago, including some soldiers who were part them.

The queens ordeal that night was just as perilous and dangerous as that of the Princess, if not much more, and the casualty was even greater. The likes of Vince and Cain, the Queens personal guard had lost their lives being pursued by one the men of horsemen, a dreadful mercenary group.

The four horsemen were four men/women in the underground word that ruled the dark world live the monarchs did in the kingdoms.

They were death- the leader of assassin's, War -the leader of the strongest mercenary groups, Pestilence the leader of most terrorists groups and zealots and finally Draught, the leader of birds and whispers.

The Queen and her men were chased by the lieutenants of Plague, that was why they tried to avoid a direct confrontation with the mad and strong army of plague himself.

While transversing the mountains, they had ended up falling for an even serious trap from the enermy, a trap that saw them being surrounded by Mercenaries everywhere and at the same time they were bombarded by Canon bombs from different directions.

They had to survive a heavy bombardment of bombs before they were finally engaged in a battle which lasted for hours, Their number had dwindled from the first ambush, the trapped bombardment and when the fighting finally started, they only had eighteen people guarding the Queen. To make things even worse, two of the commanders of Plague were leading the charge.

They fought valiantly, and bitterly, incurring loss after loss. The Mercenaries were also dying in droves but they had numbers on their side. Things were looking very bad for the Queen and her men.

The Red Queen battled the two commanders fighting the with everything she got, and even killed one of them, but it was still not enough, she looked around and saw she had only five men left. The fighting raged on and on until help finally arrived. The general Zira arrived with her army, destroying the rest of the Mercenaries and dispatching the second lieutenant herself. 

After a grueling and tiresome battle, the Queen returned with only three Knight of the men she left with.

The King could not believe how close he came to losing his wife and child in a single night, he had almost cried after he discovered the princess was replaced by a doll and the real one was out there fighting for her life. He wanted to go and save them himself, but Boise adviced against it, if someone was targeting royals then he needed to stay put, the king wanted to go by force but Boise received support from all his adviser who adviced the king to trust their soldiers.

"If my men fail to save either the Queen or the Princess I'll gladly give my head the general said. But until then I advise you stay put your majesty."

"I have no use for your head Boise, I just want my family safe."

"Then your wish shall me fulfilled Boise replied. That was why he had called Bale back to help the princess while Zira went to search for the Queen."

At the end of the day, they both survived, but no one was celebrating, not even the royals.

In the royal Palace, after the funeral, Lena returned to her room and stayed there. She had barely made it through the whole event without breaking down, so, there was no way she was going to stay for the after event.

She sat down in her personal library and was going through some books she picked from the shelves. She remembered the first time she met Ija, the knight was surprised at the number of books in here room.

"Do you read?" the princess asked the lady she saw in her room as she came out from the bathroom.

"No your highness, I'm sorry for the intrusion" Ija immediately said.

"No need to apologise, uncle Orion told me you were coming" the Princess said

"So, do you read?"

"No your highness I don't" Ija replied.

"I'm just surprised at the number of books you've hoarded here" Ija said.

"Hoard, i didn't hoard anything, I bought all of them" The princess replied.

,I'm sorry you highness for speaking out of tone" Ija immediately apologized

"I can see why you would think so, but I just enjoy reading alot" The princess said.

Ija looked at the books again reading their titles and headings. She expected to see the teen lavishing in romance and fantasy books but the princess was reading about history, politics and even science.

"So what's your name" The Princess asked, 

"I'm Ija your highness, Ija Leye."

Their first meeting was quite ordinary, but they only grew closer every day until they became what they were. Now that Ija was gone, she felt sad, so sad her tears began to fall from the books she had placed in front of her.

****

In the throne room, the king sat majestically on the throne, his wife was also by his side. In front of the king were, seven people four men and two women were sitting opposite each other, the last person was a man, he stood on the steps leading to the throne. 

"General Boise" the king said and immediately a tall huge and muscular man stood up wearing a black amour. He stood up from his seat, turned to the royals and bowed.

"Yes your majesty".

"Do you mind explaining to us how this unprecedented event that happened a week ago came to be?" the King asked in a voice laced with anger.

"Your highness, it turns out, the men behind the princess kidnap were from Eru, they had been in Omi for six years prior to this event, it made our work more difficult that they had already been recognized as Citizens,"

"You mean, spies were able to infiltrate us and not only that carryout an operation on our land for years and they were not discovered? What exactly have you all been doing?" the king asked.

"Turns out there were people helping them from our side your Majesty."

"Traitors uhn" The king said.

"Obviously we have traitors, someone was able to leak the Queen's movements to the enemy, that's too much of a coincidence."

"I know we do have a mole general, have they been caught?" The king asked

"We've captured most of the suspects but we believe some of them are still at large".

"Only few people knew of the Queens mission, it shouldn't be long before the real culprit is captured" The general said.

"Twenty eight soldiers in a single night. Including 13 royal knights. General Boise, Have we ever lost this amount of royal knights in a single night before?" The king asked.

"No your majesty."

"Then someone has to be doing something wrong...."

"Our fallen comrades lie buried in the grave and it seems I'm surrounded by fools who think I care about a few nobodies that you captured" the King said in rage

"I need the real culprits found. You have two weeks" the king said.....

"Yes your majesty. General Boise" replied