36. 35 #2
Aseem tutted across from us, a tittering sigh; more annoyed than surprised.
He clearly didn’t like to know there were men operating in his city who had assisted these murders.
He clicked his finger, and a sunner appeared by his side.
I watched him murmur something, and then the sunner trotted from the room.
“When did this happen?”
Camriel stiffened at the question, though it was hardly an intrusive one.
He groaned, and his hands tensed once more.
Petros didn’t tense his own hand over the Leader’s scalp, but his focus was iron.
I wondered if anyone had ever successfully evaded the hand of a sunner.
It was clearly tiring for the warden, from his gritted teeth and sweat, but he was continuing anyway.
The judges just waited.
This must have been the fish-like smell from the day of Davian’s Oath. The sweat of the hour-long questioning. My nose wrinkled, and once more I felt nauseous.
“Seven months and four days ago,” he whispered. “The day they found his body.”
“Whose body?”
All the fight fell out of Camriel’s body. He looked far older than his years, sagged in the chair like an octogenarian king. “Niko.”
Davian jolted in his seat. Something clunked into place in my memory, a key in a dusty lock
The judge whispered something to another, who shook his head. They frowned. The first man spoke again. “Who is Niko?”
“My son.”
Davian’s head fell into his hands, his palm misting against the silver surface of his mask.
I had known Camriel had a son. Fella had mentioned it once. I had no idea he had died. And so recently? She had said he was grieving, I realised. But I had assumed it was Seera he grieved for. Not his own child.
And why did that name ring a bell? I was certain neither Davian nor Fella had ever mentioned it.
The judges got there before me. “Niko was the child killed as the Merriment sacrifice?”
I sucked in a breath. No.
Camriel was nothing anymore. A living corpse chained before us. “Why him? Why did that man choose my Niko? Why my son?”
Juven had killed his son. He had started with a child. Camriel’s child.
The female judge tapped her quill into the ink pot. “This was why you agreed?”
Camriel sank further down, confirming with a nod. Petros had to step around the chair to keep his palm on him.
“Speak, for the record.”
“Yes,” Camriel whispered. “I agreed for Niko. It was the only time I met the man who might be Ragnifort. He handed me the blood of my son, and told me how I could finish the work. It was for Niko. All for him.”
The judges conferred again, and it was clear this was almost over. They had got what they wanted. They had pulled everything from Camriel.
I stared at the Leader of the House of Pain.
I hated myself for pitying him. But I couldn’t let that part of myself go.
I had lost the naivety that had protected me from the unsettling seclusion of the Ekrissian House; I had lost the unerring belief in human goodness and the power of love to conquer all.
That was tainted now, and I didn’t think I would ever get it back.
Despite all of it, though, I hadn’t lost my sympathy.
I couldn’t look at Camriel and see someone entirely undeserving of a kind word. I couldn’t wish to see him hang.
It made no odds. No matter my feelings: he would hang.
He muttered to himself as the judges whispered together. “He was going to bring them all back. My Niko would be alive again. All of them. I never killed anyone, not truly. They were coming back.”
The central judge flashed their eyes up, and I realised the look was directed at Aseem. I saw Aseem nod in response.
“Where is Seera’s body?”
Davian shuddered, but did not move from his defensive position.
Camriel quivered, but Petros didn’t let up. Petros himself looked near enough ready to collapse. “I burned it.”
Aseem’s nostrils flared, and he stood. He didn’t say anything at all, but he stood, and stared down at Camriel with a hideous rage.
A judge clarified. “Her body is gone?”
“Yes,” he said. “I tipped the ashes into the canal after I had the blood painted on the floor. She will be given a new body when she returns.”
Beside me, I saw a tear fall onto Davian’s trousers, and he shook beside me.
“Her ring didn’t burn,” Camriel said, and his voice was hoarse. Like the rest of us, he had nothing left to give. “I sold that to Granville. It was too recognisable.”
And Granville must have given it to Robar, who had given it to me, and all of this had fallen out. I had thought it was a token of love.
There was a pause in the room, a new awfulness that sank into the wood. Seera was one of theirs, after all. Then, a cough. “Tell us everyone who you worked with. Everyone who delivered you a devotee.”
I breathed in through my nose, and let it out shakily from my mouth. I touched my hand to Davian’s knee, and he flinched.
“Can we go?” I asked, my eyes swimming with tears.
His face wouldn’t meet mine. He kept his gaze locked on Camriel, then his eyes fell to my lap, and all the strength drained him.
He fell into my arms, and I held him to me.
He sobbed quietly, his tears dropping into my dress.
He gripped my waist, holding the fabric, as his forehead pressed to my shoulder, his mask shifting against me.
Then he sniffed. “Yes. Let’s go.”