Apple Jax

Blood in the Moonlight (Apple Jax x AutumnFrost)

As Celinny hurried out of the prison cell to handle the guard at the base of the stairs, Jax was suddenly overwhelmed with the reality of what he was doing - breaking out of jail. Breaking the law. Turning against his own men. Turning against the will of his entire kingdom. Breaking form with the dictates of his own conscience, his own soul.

Becoming a criminal.

How could he do this? He had been born in the upper echelons of Nahlrelian society to a father who had been in the Queen’s guard and a mother who had been an attendant to the Queen. He wasn’t royalty, but faithfulness to country and Queen had been inculcated at his mother’s knee, drilled by his father’s disciplined hand. His entire world had been a study of the all-important hallmarks of proper character as displayed by the royal court and the systems of law and order which the Queen oversaw and administered. He wasn’t naive; of course life in the courts held its share of corruption, backbiting, and conspiracy. In fact, everything happened on a larger scale in the world of royalty. The petty theft, the adultery, even the occasional murder that happened among the populace of the kingdom happened in larger terms among the royalty, with greater negative implications for more people, ripple effects that reached farther and lasted longer. Indeed, Jax believed as his father had, that the moral nature of the kingdom was a reflection of the moral nature of the court.

But law, order, and moral straightness was still the overwhelming majority among both the royalty and the people - and for the most part always had been, as long as Nahlreli had been a kingdom since The Sleeping. Jax had made it his personal agenda to exemplify what was right in the kingdom, and he saw his duties as Captain of the Queen’s Guard as both a manifestation and a tool of that agenda. He took great pride in bringing or even seeing any criminal element brought to justice, and he especially took pride in his role as chief protector of the embodiment and symbol of the Kingdom’s goodness, Queen Ismari.

Jax could not do this.

He should never have even begun to conspire with this thief, and he certainly should never have smiled at her. He stepped toward the door to his prison with the intent of taking her from behind, choking her unconscious and tying her up for the guards to find. Then he would come back to his cell and abide by the laws of his Queen and his kingdom. He would do his best to convince his men of his innocence. His face took on a steel-edged hardness as he pushed open the door and resolutely moved down the hall. That dark woman was about to feel the quick and efficient wrath of the Captain of the Queen’s Guard.

Just as he was about to round the corner he heard her open the door at the bottom of the stairs and give a whistle. He turned the corner, came face to face with Celinny, and… stopped.

She was so light, so youthful, so cheerful, so friendly, so… not innocent, but neither was she dark. She was nothing he was working himself up to believe. Jax knew what dark people felt like, and this was not it. He realized that from the moment she rolled in front of his little prison window, she had felt like… a natively good person. How was that even possible? Could such a well-practiced thief really just be a misguided, unfortunate result of difficult circumstances? What else could explain the good feeling about her in the face of what she was and what she represented?

The stark contrast of her present reality and what he had convinced himself she must be came crashing together, and for the second time in her company, he was completely unused to what he was feeling. He was hesitant, unsure, unconfident.

And then his father’s words echoed in his mind, an old lesson in combat: “It is always honorable and right to be clear about your intentions Jax, “came the grizzled but warm old voice, “but when it comes to fighting, you must understand that deception is often a necessary tool. If your opponent - whether an individual or an army - has taken it upon themselves to gain control by violence, they forfeit their right to receive honor from you, or to expect you to follow honorable rules. Fighting is brutal in its very nature. So long as you stand in opposition to darkness, there will be times when you will be forced to break from otherwise honorable actions. If it were not so, you would not be excusable in learning combat in the first place.”

Jax was processing his thoughts faster than rationality usually allowed - his gut was taking him from point 1 to point 10 and skipping all the points in between, and a soldier learned to always trust his gut. Queen Ismari was dead. Whoever had murdered her was his opponent - not those who imprisoned him, and not this unusual thief - and if his opponent knew him at all, they expected him to play by the rules, sit in his cell, not discover anything, be executed and go away nicely. But fate had handed him a thief that he somehow found himself trusting and a way to continue this fight.

It was time to break from otherwise honorable actions.

Suddenly he realized he was still staring at Celinny. “Hi” he said quickly. Hi? What was wrong with him? By the Queen, was he blushing? “I just…” he sighed, relaxing his shoulders and standing up straight, closing his eyes as he tilted his head back for one last meditative breath before the night continued on in its unprecedented departure from Jax’s typical evening. If he was going to do something, he was going to do it right. “I’m ready” he finally said, looking back down at Celinny.

What a night this was turning out to be. What a crazy, moonlit night.

Blood in the Moonlight (Apple Jax x AutumnFrost)

Jax tried to shove down the feeling of embarrassment that welled up at Celinny’s reaction to his matter-of-fact declaration of inability to climb the walls of the palace - until he reminded himself that everyone knew climbing the walls of the palace was impossible. If Celinny really had scaled those walls it was completely mind-blowing; he made a mental note to ask her later to teach him that particular skill. His mind was beginning to comprehend how useful it would be, even if it was a thief’s skill. For now, he listened to her makeshift plan… makeshift, he realized with chagrin, because she had assumed he had the apparently elementary skill of an impossible feat.

He reminded himself there was no reason to be embarrassed. It was a feeling he was unused to.

Considering her idea to pretend he was her sick brother, he took the dark cloth she handed him and started tying it at the back of his head to cover his face from the bridge of his straight nose down, tousling his hair while he was at it to look a little less like himself. The Captain of the Queen’s Guard always looked impeccable, and everyone knew it. Looking like a sick mess was a good idea.

He paused almost imperceptibly as she quickly and casually reached behind her back. Jax had spent decades of training becoming hyper-aware of such movements but, context of the moment considered, he was mostly certain there was nothing threatening about it. Indeed, she did pull out a small dagger, but nothing about her body language suggested mal-intent, and he appreciated that she held it out hilt-first.

His eyes stayed on the dagger for a moment as she explained why she was offering it, and then he stared at it for a bit longer, thinking. He was a deadly weapon with his bare hands of course, but the idea of taking a blade with him to help him become a fugitive, even as a last resort… he didn’t think he could do it. Finally he shook his head, looking back up at her. “I understand why you have it, and I understand the offer, but I can’t take it. If we get apprehended, I will do my best without any weapons, but I will not draw the blood of the good people here doing their job. I will either be killed or brought back to prison.

“Now about me being your sick brother, if anyone inquires, it will beg the question of why a girl from the palace cleaning staff brought her sick brother into the palace, and why they are leaving in the late evening. You must answer that you brought me in to see your favorite palace nurse - Nurse Merina - whom you trust over the medical help to be found in town. We are leaving when we are because you had to bring me in after hours, not being part of the palace staff, and Nurse Merina was kind enough to see us late. You must do all the talking, I’ll just moan and cough.

“As for the stables, there are several. We will want the servants’ stables, and not because it makes more sense for servants to use the servant’s stables - in fact, horses are a good idea, but getting them does present a problem. Palace protocol dictates that anyone removing their horse from a palace stable must report to the groom of that stable, who will ask one of the stable hands to fetch it while he himself reports to the guards at the gate we tell him we will be leaving through. I fear we will need some… quietly violent stratagem to get any horses out of the stables. Besides, most of the palace staff lives in the palace, and few servants have need of a horse, so the groom and stable hands will know who every horse there belongs to. We won’t want the servant’s stables because it will be any easier to get a horse, but it will have fewer armed guards close by, it is closest to the north gates, and frankly I’d rather not steal a royal horse. The horses of the Queen’s Guard are kept with the horses of the Palace Guard in the Stables of the Guard, but that is too heavily guarded - luckily, it is by the east gates at the front of the palace. Unfortunately, that means I won’t be escaping on my own horse, but that may be for the best anyway. Everyone will recognize my horse.” Jax paused in his explanations to give a brief sigh that he would have to leave his horse, a beautiful white stallion named Nirodha.

He continued, suggesting his thoughts on the best course of action to get out of the palace grounds. Without simply climbing the walls, of course. He decided it really was embarrassing, then decided to ignore it. “We can’t just walk out of the dungeon without alerting the guard you passed at the bottom of the stairs, so I’m hoping you can put him to sleep like you did this young man,” he said, gesturing back at the boy now wearing the uniform of the Captain of the Queen’s Guard. “Then I’m hoping we can get out to the stables without attracting further notice. Once the stables is in view, I should be able to sneak in the back while you approach the groom. There shouldn’t be more than two stable hands inside; I will take care of them quietly while you take care of the groom quietly. If you need to, just keep him distracted long enough for me to sneak up behind him and dispatch of him myself.

“That gets us to the north gate with horses, but it will be closed and guarded… the mechanism to open it is just inside the gate itself, but the palace guard is not going to simply let us saunter through without the ok from the stable’s groom. If only there were some way to hit the opening mechanism as we approached the gate, then we could surprise the guards and rush through… any ideas there? Keep in mind, we have to do all of this as quickly as possible, starting now - we’ll be leaving a trail of unconscious bodies and untrue stories behind us, all of it likely to raise an alarm as soon as any of it is found.”

Jax really hoped Celinny had a miraculous idea for opening that mechanism. His plan to that point was risky but plausible, but that north gate would put a quick stop to escaping...

Blood in the Moonlight (Apple Jax x AutumnFrost)

Jax watched the thief leave his window and move silently into the night in the direction he had instructed, impressed at her confidence, and doubly impressed by her fervent declaration of intent to harm no one. For all the world she was a thief, she seemed both more disciplined and more honorable than some royalty he knew - and discipline and honor were hallmarks of good character, in Jax's book. He wasn't about to completely shift his attitude toward thieves in general, but this one... more interesting by the minute, indeed.

As he sat back down, wiping his map in the dust out of recognition, he realized he was conflicted about wanting this rescue mission to go well. On one hand, he hoped it worked fabulously because it would mean he could stay alive, it would mean he could investigate Queen Ismari's murder on his own terms, and, a little grudgingly, he realized he wanted to be validated in being impressed by Celinny. On the other hand, escaping the prison would make him an outlaw and a fugitive, and would certainly make it look like he had something to hide; as far as the kingdom was concerned, he may as well declare in writing that he had murdered the queen. Not to mention that if the escape was successful, it would be twice in two days that the security of the palace had failed, and he was loathe to admit that were possible. Jax would have to make new protocols, new orders to make sure this never happened again...

...he sighed, looking around his cell and realizing he wasn't in a position to do that anymore. He fought back the overwhelming sense of failure that had been making it so hard to think for the last day, and told himself again that he had to get this cleared up. This escape plan had to work.

His thoughts turned to what Celinny might be doing now, how long it should take her if she wasn't stopped on her way to his cell. Any number of things could happen to her on her way here. Palace security wasn't terrible, after all. The tragedy of Ismari's murder was a complete mystery and shock to him and the rest of the palace; nobody understood how anyone could have slipped past the guards at the gate to her gardens, or the door to her chambers. Someone would have had to have been able to actually climb the walls, and that was simply imposs...

... Celinny had just proven she could climb those walls.

How could he be sure of her intentions? But why would she frame him, only to break him out? Why would she frame him at all when they didn't know each other? Perhaps he was simply an easy target? No, none of that made any sense, and he thought back on the look in her eyes as she vowed not to harm anyone tonight. He believed her, but the palace obviously wasn't as secure as it had been thought to be. Damn, he felt like a fool, sure he had been doing everything in his power to keep the queen safe, and that very night, a common thief innocently shows him his ignorance. Perhaps there was some consolation in the possibility that she was no common thief.

As if on cue to prove exactly that, the lock on his door started squeaking and was nearly instantaneously clicked open. "Sorry to keep you waiting, I got sidetracked" said Celinny with the same casual air he may have told someone he got sidetracked on his otherwise uninterrupted way to dinner. "Help me get snorey in and you can switch clothes with him," she said, indicating the young man in cleaning staff uniform apparently sleeping on the stone floor behind her. It could've been the lighting but, were her hair and skin a little lighter than they had been fifteen minutes ago? So, not a common thief, then.

Jax regarded the young man with a frown, made sure he was breathing, then moved forward to quickly pull him into the cell. Nodding to Celinny to close the door behind her, he whispered, "if we're going out the same way you came in, I'll need some way of getting past that guard at the bottom of the stairs to the ground floor - without killing him, of course. I can knock him out if I have to, but if you can put him to sleep in whatever way you did to this poor sap, I'd prefer it." Jax hurriedly changed clothes with the young man - his clothes fitting quite loosely on the boy, and the boy's clothes fitting much too tightly on his more muscular body, then turned to Celinny and said "I'll follow your lead, but know that everyone in the palace will recognize my face in spite of this clothing. Oh, and don't expect me to climb the palace walls like you did, we'll need some other way out. So, what's the plan now?"

Blood in the Moonlight (Apple Jax x AutumnFrost)

Celinny wanted to sneak in as one of the guards? Impressive, if she could do it. She had proven her capacity in stealth, but this venture was almost pure personality. She was getting more interesting by the minute, a feeling some part of him wanted to rebel against, as everything interesting about her so far would have made her a threatening adversary a mere 24 hours ago. But 24 hours ago beheld Jax in a completely different context of life.

Well, if anyone could tell Celinny how to do this successfully, it was Jax. He knew the palace like the back of his hand - and as a swordsman, Jax knew his hands better than most people knew their own faces.

"Follow the curve of this edifice to your right, and pass the first door, the second, and the third, until you come to the fourth - it is never directly guarded, aside from the rounds the guards walk that take them past it, but it will probably be locked from the inside, so hopefully you have means to deal with that. This fourth door is the outside door to part of the servants' quarters, closest to the storage rooms for most uniforms worn in the palace - cleaning staff, cooking staff, personal servant staff, advisory staff, and of course, uniforms for the palace guard and the Queen's Guard. Don't take a Queen's Guard uniform; there are too few of us and everyone knows who all of us are. There are no helmets there, but you won't want one; nobody wears them inside the palace, and you'd draw unnecessary attention to yourself by wearing one. In fact, you'll draw the least amount of notice as cleaning staff.

"Once inside this door, you will be in a straight hallway; the first door on your right is the uniform storage room. Turn left at the second intersection with this hallway, then right at the end of that hallway - it's long. About 20 steps down this new hallway is a door on your right, which should be unlocked, which opens to a spiral stairway leading down to the palace prison cells. The door at the bottom will be guarded by one of the Palace Guard, but it is a normal door for use by the cleaning staff and if you're convincing enough he'll just nod and let you on your way.

"Turning left once you exit this door with the guard, turn left again almost immediately with the intersecting corridor, and you will be in the passageway that my cell is at the very end of. Please do your best not to hurt anyone if you can get away with it - they have me in prison, but they are good, innocent people. Do you have any questions?" Jax had been drawing in the dust on the floor of his cell as he gave all these directions, so that Celinny could see a rough blueprint of the parts of the palace he was describing while he was describing them to her. Crystal clear directions were crucial if this was going to work...

...and he found himself hoping more and more that it worked.

Blood in the Moonlight (Apple Jax x AutumnFrost)

"I was asked to come and help perform a jailbreak."

A rescue mission, then. Curious.

Jax was tempted to ask her why he should trust her, but knew that was pointless; having no prior experience of her trustworthiness, or anything about her at all, she could say he should trust her for any reason she could come up with, real or invented, and he would be just as in the dark as if he hadn't asked the question. She was obviously adept enough at breaking into the palace grounds, he figured he could trust her to be able to get them out, hopefully without hurting any of the palace guards or, heaven forbid, his own men.

The only thing left to consider was whether or not he wanted to be taken from his captivity. Discomfiting as it was to be in prison on a false charge, and even though his life hung in the balance, his duty was to the Queen - and even though she was dead, his duty was still bound to her wishes. She deserved to have her murderer found and punished, the people of the kingdom deserved the same, and if he was broken out of prison, he could no longer communicate to the Guard what he discovered. But he was so limited in his investigation while he was in this cell, and of course, if he were put to death before he could convince them he didn't murder Ismari, well then, however far his mind got him in its investigation of the murder would be worthless. That made his decision for him.

Jax regarded Celinny with a hard focus. "I'll allow this on one condition" he told her. "Once I am free, you will either aid me, or not stand in my way, in my attempts to discover what truly befell Queen Ismari. I don't know why you're getting me out, but even if the Queen is dead, my duty to her is not. My life will be dedicated to finding her murderer and stopping their plan from moving forward." Then he looked down and added, almost to himself, "surely their intent was not merely to kill a queen."

Looking at Celinny through thick steel bars, suddenly his disposition altered. Jax raised an eyebrow and said with a grin, "now I'm very curious to know how you plan on getting me out of here."

Blood in the Moonlight (Apple Jax x AutumnFrost)

It was hours after sundown, but Jax still had light from a beam of moonlight shining into his cell from outside. Not that he needed it to see anything while his eyes were closed. He still sat on the floor in the middle of his cell, back to the moonlight, facing the door to his one-man prison. He had been unable to remain in his motionless meditative state throughout the entirety of the day of course; he had stood up a few times and moved through several empty handed fighting forms, as his sword had been taken from him. All fighting forms had the capacity to be a form of meditation, but he had done them mostly to keep his body from becoming unbearably stiff and sore from being in a seated position for so long. He had never gone for more than thirty-five to forty minutes before tonight. But tonight he had to think, and clearly. His life and honor depended on it, not to mention the safety of the kingdom.

Queen Ismari had been murdered and somehow he had been framed for it. He was still reeling from his failure, but he had to keep trying to push aside his disbelief and shame in order to figure out the truth of what had happened, and how.

He'd kept vacillating between who could have done it, and what the motive could have been. He'd quickly come to a relatively certain conclusion that whoever had done it, he didn't know them personally. The only people in the course of the Queen's reign who had tried to harm her had been the few mentally unstable men who had attempted to throw their misguided romantic interests at her through constant inappropriate letters - which she never read, of course, queen's had no time for such nonsense - and then decided to wait outside the palace walls for her, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, or talk to her when she ventured out of the palace. When they felt rejected for lack of response, their already unstable minds worked them into such a frenzy that they became angry with her, and they'd either try forcing their way onto the palace grounds to find her or they'd wait outside any number of the palace gates hoping to catch her on her way out.

The Queen's Guard had only had to kill two such men, but such men did exist. They were however, the only people Jax could think of who'd openly displayed ill-will toward the Queen. None of the lands in their country were contested, nor were the lands of the capital contested by any of the other noble houses, and Jax could think of nobody of known significance who would dare murder Ismari. Attempt to manipulate her for political gain, certainly, but not murder her. Jax had given a moment of thought to the possibility that the King had murdered her, but had dismissed the idea almost immediately; Kaltriel had adored Ismari, and had always bowed to the Matriarchal tradition that in Nahlreli, the Queen held the rule.

All of this lead Jax to the idea that someone unknown to him was responsible for this, and for reasons he was unclear of. It was incredibly frustrating, but it left him with the possibility that the whole thing had something to do with that peculiar medallion Ismari had taken to wearing the last year or so. She had worn it constantly; as soon as he'd noticed the thing, it seemed she never took it off. The few times he'd asked about it, she'd responded either coyly or dismissively. There was little he hadn't known about the Queen, as body-guarding didn't lend itself to allow for much if any privacy, but that medallion had been a mystery to him, even though it was obviously important to her.

It didn't seem like much of a lead, but it did seem like his best shot at the moment. He started recalling all the details of the medallion in his mind; the ruby in its center, surrounded by what seamed to be a sunburst, and didn't it have...?

Footsteps outside his window, he was certain he'd heard them. Just as he was about to dismiss the sound as a likely passing guard on patrol, he heard the barest hint of a whisper. Guards didn't whisper to themselves. Mumbled to themselves sometimes, to keep themselves awake, but never whispered. Whispering meant more than one person, and both or all of them trying not to get caught. He was about to be either the object of an assassination attempt, or of a rescue mission. Given everyone's love for the queen...

...he thought assassination much more likely.

Just as Jax was about to dive roll directly under the barred window so as to create an impossible angle to shoot him with a bolt or an arrow, an unfamiliar feminine voice nonchalantly said, "looks like you've gotten yourself into a lot of trouble, Jax."

Confused, Jax hesitated in his movement to roll, deciding to stand and turn instead. There on the ground outside his cell's window was an apparently lazy thief, laying on her stomach and not seeming at all like having broken onto the palace grounds was a reason for her to be nervous. If not for the cloth obscuring everything on her face but her eyes, he would have thought she looked... amused!

"Who are you, who is with you, why do you know my name, and why are you here? Answer quickly before I call for a guard - I have no time or inclination for games on this night!"

Blood in the Moonlight (Apple Jax x AutumnFrost)

Jax Marchant opened his hard blue eyes upon completion of the morning's meditation. Loving the relaxed-yet-ready-for-anything feeling that followed his morning practice of sword forms and meditation, he looked deliberately around his spacious quarters to take note that everything was exactly as it had been when he had closed his eyes. Not that anything was likely to have been moved, as nobody else was in his quarters at the moment. That he knew of, anyway - you could hardly ever be too sure in his line of work.

Some thought his practice a little odd, but only because they'd never tried it. Sitting on the ground instead of in a proper chair, with one's eyes closed, remaining perfectly motionless for ten to twenty minutes, focusing on nothing but one's own breath, seemed a little quirky at best, and at worst a great waste of time. Jax found however, that learning to observe and ignore the unimportant sensations and thoughts that arose during such practice, and focusing entirely on a thing taken so utterly for granted, lent him a superior ability to focus on the important things, and the details that were so often overlooked.

A crucial ability, when the responsibility of keeping a queen safe rested on your shoulders.

Standing up, Jax Marchant, Captain of the Queen's Guard, was careful to straighten his gold-embroidered, white collared shirt into his cleanly pressed white trousers, and sat in the chair at his desk to tug his boots on, maneuvering his sword-belt so as to not catch it in the chair back. It was mid-morning, and he was in no rush; he still had a few papers on his desk to go over before the morning's report was expected. It would be given by Joatham this morning, the newest member of the Guard, who had been given charge over the queen's safety on the midnight-to-mid morning shift. Some thought it was a difficult shift due to the obvious tendency to be sleepy, but Jax felt it was the easiest shift - the queen wasn't interacting with anyone in her sleep. No need to look closely for hidden weapons on anyone, no need to watch their hands intently as they approached Ismari, just stand outside her door until she woke up. The only other way into her room was through her private gardens just outside the royal quarters, but of course those had high walls and locked gates with their own contingent of the Queen's Guard to watch them. Nobody was going to fall out of the sky into her gardens with a sudden murderous intent on the Queen. The only way to be more sure of her safety while she slept would be to stand at the foot of her bed, but that was unnecessary. Though sometimes, he almost wished that were standard protocol. It was actually, during times of war or otherwise obviously sensitive times for the Queen's safety, but these were not such times.

The captain turned in his chair to address the papers on his desk and tensed immediately when someone started knocking - pounding, really - at the door to his quarters. Either someone was a rude idiot, Joatham was here to give his report half an hour early, or something was urgent. In the royal palace, it was unlikely to be either of the first two options.

Springing from his chair, he made his way quickly from his study to the front room of his quarters. Halfway through the front room however, the pounding stopped and the door flew inward off it's hinges with a loud crunch. Jax's sword was out of it's scabbard and in a high ready-guard position before the door hit the floor, and instead of freezing timidly as an untrained man would do, he rushed forward ready to give a bold and violent surprise to whoever had the nerve...

...if the queen had been harmed...

...Jax froze, ten feet away from the now door-less doorway, looking past his sword at about two-dozen of his own men, Joatham at their lead. Their swords weren't bared, but seeing him with his out and ready caused every man's hand to reach for his own. Jax did the calculations without thinking and in the blink of an eye; his chances would be decent if this were a group of untrained thugs, but it wasn't. He had seen to the training of each one of these men. He may be able to kill four, six at most before he was overwhelmed. He could see them do the same calculation in the same moment. The ones in front knew they would die, but the looks on their faces were not of fear. They looked like men ready to die doing their job. They were good men.

Jax lowered his sword to a low ready-guard, but remained tense. Not to mention livid.

"What is the meaning of this!?!" He yelled.

Joatham answered, obviously nervous but resolute, "we found the queen's body in her gardens, sir." Jax's heart dropped into his stomach, his sword dropping completely to the floor as the tension in his arms melted entirely. Her body? "And this was found on the ground nearby" said Joatham quietly as he raised his left hand, right hand still on his sword, to reveal a bloody knife. The ornamental knife of the Captain of the Queen's guard.

Jax's heart went from his stomach to the floor as he fell to his knees. He had failed. How? How had someone gotten to the queen in her own gardens? How had anyone been able to pass the sentries? Who would do this? Why? Why was he being framed? How could his own men possibly believe he could be responsible? How had he failed? How?

How?

His mind filled with questions, for once in his life Jax was speechless as his own men escorted him to the palace prison for an interrogation. Unable to respond to questioning, completely absorbed with the questioning he was giving himself in his own mind, the Queen's Guard shut their own Captain in a cell under the palace for the murder of the queen. As they left, they told him they would return the next day to resume the questioning and they would get answers the hard way if they had to. He would be put to death if he couldn't convince them he didn't kill the woman he was honor-bound to protect.

Alone, Jax sat on the floor of his cell, closed his eyes, and started to meditate. He was going to figure this out.

And someone - some murderous coward - was going to pay.