Chapter 63 #2
“Idiots who might’ve been told a story. Something along the lines of: Prince Nicostratus is crafty. Wouldn’t be surprising if he used underhand methods in his fight. Poison. Carry these flowers on you in case you show symptoms. Consume immediately at the first sign.”
Eparch Valerius’s hand clenches around grass. Seems I’m right.
“It looked like poisonous petals had been stuffed in their mouths and they, left to die. The real poison went undetected. This worked well, and so you used it again. This time on the refugees.”
“I organised donations for their welfare, helped set up temporary homes. Why would I harm them?”
“Why did you have men scouting for the prince? Why did you want him dead? The answer is simple. The king’s supporters have been most active in aiding the influx of refugees, and as they move on and disperse through the kingdom, they’d take their gratitude with them, spreading the word, strengthening support for the king.
” I narrow my eyes on the eparch. “You wanted to destroy the true king’s remaining power.
” A pawn of the high duke, wearing a mask of benevolence.
“They got sick from porridge you gave them. I didn’t donate a single oat.”
“This is true. You didn’t touch any of the oats.” I lean in. “But you donated the pots, and the poison on them seeped into the food.”
There are hisses around me as my words are repeated and passed on until there comes a cry of outrage from the spectators—the refugees themselves.
Valerius scoffs. “If my aim was to kill the refugees, why didn’t they die immediately?”
“You delayed their deaths by a few days to play the role of saviour. No one would suspect someone who came to the rescue. In fact, your popularity would soar. This is how cunning you are.”
“Stories.”
From my belt, I show the record of donations.
“My name isn’t on it.”
I glance over my shoulder and see that, as planned, Eparchess Juliana has found Sparkles and is hauling her across the field. “Hers is, though. Ariadne Aureliana.”
She stumbles onto her knees beside the eparch and stares up at me, frowning, perplexed.
I soften my voice as I address her. “Your colleagues at the dance house said you help the eparch with his donations. Have you helped him deliver to the refugees?”
Sparkles swallows and looks beseechingly at the eparch, who dares not look back. “He means well,” she says. “Anything he says, I’ll do.”
“What did you deliver on his behalf?”
“He didn’t do anything to make the refugees sick! He only donated tents, blankets, pots and such.”
I return my gaze to Valerius. “Pots.”
He says nothing.
To Sparkles, I say, “The night I came to your dance house, you helped me. Why?”
Again, she tries to seek the eparch’s gaze and fails. “I saw you bang into each other outside. I chased after the eparch to see if he was alright—I was afraid you were trying to steal his hard-earned donations. He said all was fine but to watch you for the evening. So I did.”
Quin hadn’t liked the way she’d been looking at me. I thought he’d meant in a more flattering way, but he’d sensed an ulterior motive.
“It was prudent. You were skulking around alleyways in the dark. What if you were a risk to the prince?”
“Does he often get you to watch people?”
She hesitates. “He just wants to be sure his city is safe.”
“Did he ask you to keep an eye on the commander? Eparchess Juliana?”
She swallows.
“He’s been using you.”
She calls for the eparch to deny it. He barely looks her way. “I almost died helping with the antidote. How can I be the mastermind?”
“He’s fooled everyone from the start, why would he stop at this point?
” I say. “Vitalian Dimos died because I had no magic to instantly heal his injuries. Eparch Valerius, however, invited half of Thinking Hall’s vitalians to his house to resume discussions on the antidote.
He bashed his own temple, knowing he would be saved.
His impaired memory of the killer was believable, and ‘a very long shadow’ was enough to have everyone scrambling to find .
. . someone else. Anyone else. Nicostratus’s head aklo.
” I throw Constable Michealios a look. “Me.”
The constables shift awkwardly, looking from me to the eparch to the king. Quin keeps his eyes rooted confidently on me.
“Vitalian Dimos went to Thinking Hall to use collective knowledge to help find the antidote.” I meet the eparch’s furrow-shadowed eyes.
“You jumped up on stage in an appearance of helping but you were actually taking control.
Steering the discussion away from the answer.
When impassioned vitalians began drowning you out, you suggested taking a break for lunch and meeting at your residence.
“I imagine when you got out of the hall, vitalians split off in different directions and you kept Vitalian Dimos close, invited him to lunch with you. You got to the canal, out of sight. And perhaps it was there Vitalian Dimos had an epiphany. Discovered the answer. You couldn’t have your plans foiled and took immediate action.
You smashed his head with an oar and hurried to your residence to stage your own attack, leaving him for dead. ”
Valerius laughs, but there’s a desperate quality to it.
To the constables, I say, “Prince Nicostratus has the vial the eparch so desperately wants. Investigate. You’ll find it’s the antidote.
Proof he knows far more about the poison than he’s led us to believe.
This—along with the donation of his pots, and his connection to the redcloaks and the flower used to frame Prince Nicostratus—is enough to have him interrogated, if not prove his guilt. ”
Constables close in on Eparch Valerius and he blasts magic, bowling them, Sparkles, and me back. I’m caught by a pocket of wind and carefully set on my feet beside Quin. Nicostratus leaps towards the eparch, captures him tightly, and blocks his meridians.
He snarls wretchedly. “You think you know everything. You have no idea what’s coming.”
I square my shoulders and step up to him. “You mean all the spectators you poisoned, timed to die during the game?”
His eyes glimmer with fury. The mask of philanthropist has shed rapidly.
“Something about the audience today niggled at me,” I explain. “The poisoned refugees, the commander’s unit, five hundred invited from the king’s father-in-law’s army. And then it hit.”
Quin channels magic; his wyvern clouds rapidly disappear and sunlight streams down on us. Glints and flashes come from all directions.
I sweep my arm toward the crowd, their buttons catching the light in a dazzling array of reflections.
“These aren’t just spectators,” I say, my voice rising.
“These are the king’s men. And you’ve poisoned them, just like the refugees.
” My words ripple through the crowd, sparking gasps and murmurs that grow louder with every passing second.
“Dying like this is better than him gaining power and warring against his uncle! More lives will ultimately be spared.”
Constable Michealios finally looks like he believes. “You thought you’d get away with it.”
A twisted laugh bursts from Valerius. “Who says I won’t?”
“Ah,” I nod. “Of course. Everyone who took welcoming drinks will die here, not to forget the refugees. Only you, the prince, and a few planted ‘witnesses’ will be left. You know Nicostratus well enough to know he doesn’t drink when he plays, so it’s easy enough to set up.
Originally you intended his head aklo to be the last left standing, because he’d lead back to Nicostratus, under house arrest already under suspicion of murdering the redcloaks.
But Nicostratus was released early, and you pivoted with it.
How would you explain his motive? Killing the high duke’s redcloaks—that makes sense, but these are his own men.
” I lean in. “You can tell me. We’re all about to die. ”
“Who says he’s to be the fall person? The high duke has promised the prince’s pardon. The prince killed these rebellious soldiers to stop an uprising against the young king.”
Quin and Nicostratus hiss. The constables whip their gazes around the pitch, on the lookout for anyone keeling over, for the wave of deaths to begin. One of them squeals in fear.
“I’d never betray my brother,” Nicostratus says, a dark mutter in the eparch’s ear. “I’d sooner kill myself.”
“That also works.”
I grit my teeth and slap the eparch. “You failed.”
“I know the antidote. Once you drop dead, I’ll save myself.”
I tap my foot. “Should we wait?”
“What do you mean?” Eparch Valerius stills suddenly, like something has occurred to him.
I smile.
He struggles against Nicostratus’s binds. “You don’t have enough vitalians! You don’t know the missing component!”
Quin steps forward. “He solved those problems.”
A baffled splutter. “He? Him? His meridians have been smashed. No way an insignificant youth without magic could—”
Quin slaps him soundly.
I ask for a rock, and a gust of wind delivers my request. I catch the hefty stone two handed, lift it, and ask Quin to smash it for me.
With a soft kind of quiet, he looks at me, and sends magic hurtling the rock into the air and more to splinter it in pieces.
“It might be broken,” I say, throat and cheek prickling where Quin still watches me. “Might be impossible to put back together.” I pick up a shard and press the sharp end under the eparch’s chin. “But it still has a purpose.”
“At most you’ve delayed their demise.”