[ WP ] A medieval prince is also the serial killer his father , the King , is looking for .

`` Hear ye, hear ye! A woman murdered! Her body was found in the king's moat, missing one eye, stomach torn open, and head partially torn off! The king will pay over nine thousand gold coins for a veritable tip-off!'' 
 
 To the king's castle Katherina went, once the most beautiful maid in the town, but now a wreck, after losing her eye and having her throat almost slashed two nights earlier. 
 
 `` My king, I have information about your murderer.'' 
 
 `` Yes?'' 
 
 `` It is your son. He tried to do the same to me, two nights ago.'' 
 
 `` Nonsense! He never left the castle. The guards would have told me if he did. He is a wondrously moral boy, too. He does everything proper. He would *never* have done such a thing!'' 
 
 `` But he told me who he was before he...'' 
 
 `` I will not have you talk this way about my family. Guards, get her!'' 
 
 And into the dungeon she was thrown. Nobody believed her. 
 
 That day, and for the nights after, everyone was scared for their life. They saw the signs of a serial murderer in this case. One that had not yet been brought to justice, one that would very likely strike again tonight. 
 
 ***** 
 
 `` Hear ye, hear ye! Thirty murdered, one month gone by since it started! No clue yet who the perpetrator might be!'' 
 
 The crown prince of Borenland staggered along the cobbled street, knocking over the town crier. 
 
 `` Watch your step, majesty!'' 
 
 The prince mumbled an incoherent reply and kept wandering along the street. Onlookers, at first surprised by the prince's hung-over appearance, had gotten used to it. It had been thirty one days since he started his nocturnal bar-hopping activities. Before tonight the prince had been good about getting home early so that he could pretend this was n't happening. 
 
 `` You think you're ever going to be a king? Ha! Chief drunk, more like!'' came a voice from the crowd. 
 
 The prince changed the direction of his stagger, and headed toward the belligerent man. As the prince got closer he pulled out a knife and murmured, `` You do n't know who I am, do you?'' 
 
 The prince stabbed the man in the heart with an accuracy that a drunkard could not hope to achieve. The rabblerouser brought his hand up to try and stop it. Instead his hand closed around the grip of the blade. As the prince moved away, knocking a few more people to the ground in his wake, the man appeared to have stabbed himself in the heart as the prince staggered by him. 
 
 Such was the level of the townspeople's trust for the royals, and of the prince's sleight-of-hand. 
 
 ***** 
 
 `` Where were you all night? Were you drinking again, boy?'' 
 
 `` Father, I...'' 
 
 `` Enough! I ca n't have you out there. There's a serial murderer on the loose; so far he's only killed women but you never know, he might come after you. With your gait you might be a prime target for such a soulless beast...'' 
 
 `` Yeah, well, what are you going to do to stop me?'' 
 
 `` Do n't take that tone with me, boy, or I'll lock you in the dungeons.'' 
 
 `` Try me! You'd never do it.'' 
 
 And so was the town's serial murderer locked in the dungeon for the same charge as his first victim: badmouthing the king. 
 
 ***** 
 *The next morning*... 
 
 `` Hear ye, hear ye! Thirty murdered, one missing, one month and one day gone by since it started! No clue yet who the perpetrator might be!'' 
 
 The king smiled to himself, knowing that it could not be his son who was the serial murderer. Katherina's testimony was indubitably false. He would today have her executed. And painfully. 
 
 On his way down to the dungeons the king asked the captain of the guard who was missing. 
 
 `` It was the baker's daughter, Emily, my king.'' 
 
 For a few seconds the king feigned interest but was more interested in seeing Katherina suffer for libel. He stalked down to the dungeons like a madman, an evil-looking gleam in his eye. 
 
 `` Open the cell.'' 
 
 The prison's night guard complied, his pockets full of gold, and opened the cell. Katherina was slumped against the wall. Starved and dehydrated, the king heard three words from her: 
 
 `` I was right... Always...'' 
 
 The king shook her roughly. She would never budge; she was probably insane. He threw her to the side and a rock fell out of the wall. Katherina smiled. 
 
 `` Keep pulling them...'' 
 
 Interested, the king continued to pull rocks out of the wall. He knew he was tunneling through the extra-thick walls into the cell where his son was being held. 
 
 As the last rock came out, the king saw a person's naked back. He pushed the body forward and crawled through the gap. 
 
 Standing there was his son, with a long, pale knife in his hand. There was a huge hole in the wall leading to the outside, and the body the king had discovered. The king knew that the person whose body it was was dead, but it appeared fresh. 
 
 He turned it over and saw the baker's daughter. With an eye missing, stomach torn, and head torn off *exactly halfway*. 
 
 As the king inspected Emily's body for clues, he heard a familiar voice behind him: `` You should not have tried me.'' 
 
 In the back of his neck the king felt a pain. Then all went black. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Katherina escaped. But she was not safe. Because the prince was now the king. Immune from any punishment, and free to kill and maim as he pleased. 
 
 To be sure, the following night, as she crept home through an alleyway -- she refused to be seen publicly anymore, because of her disfigurement -- she ran into the king. 
 
 `` I'm going to finish what I started a month ago. And now, not only will nobody doubt me, nobody can stop me.'' 
 
 *End* 
 It's cheesy and I seem to be terrible at suspense, but... criticism plz
