Chapter IX
IX.
Torren
“General Hadrian is going to collect on that vessel of wine as soon as we get back, you know.” Julian relaxes, kicking his bare feet up on my sofa.
I harrumph as I pack a bag. The vessel will cost me nearly a week’s pay, but I had to try.
The general, however, was correct—it was a futile attempt.
Chief Judge Probus was thoroughly unimpressed by me dropping a bloody knife on his desk.
He was more concerned about me dirtying his papers and interrupting his tea than the fact that I’d found a murder weapon.
Still, I was about to make my case to the Council when the High Priestess asked about Verhardt. I couldn’t tell whether she was genuinely surprised or if it was an impressive performance, but her shock made me hesitate.
I was lucky it did.
Evidently, the Council has political plans for Kerasea. They would’ve instantly sided with her and put an end to my inquiry, so it was better to not reveal the knife for now.
And then she looked directly at the scene of the crime. Not a notable moment except for the fact that no one said he was murdered on the altar. Few people other than the killer know that.
“Let’s go,” I say. “I need to leave for the conclave.”
“This early?” Jules rises from the sofa and peers out the window. “It’s not even dusk.”
“I am going to ride with the High Priestess to Jubilee.”
Or try to.
Julian’s eyes widen until they’re saucers. “May I ask…why?”
“To get some answers.”
Lady Verhardt declined to speak with me, claiming to be too grief-stricken for questions. She also would not let me disturb her son or even question her servants. She literally shooed me from the grounds of her villa. Therefore, I don’t have a starting place outside of Kerasea Vestal.
“Hmm, and here I thought that under no circumstances are you to investigate the High Priestess.” Julian taps his dimpled chin. “Yes, in fact, I remember Probus saying that quite clearly.”
He’s not wrong. Jules strolled into my audience with the Chief Judge just in time to hear me be roundly rejected as I urged Probus to reconsider.
I shove a second length of rope into my leather bag.
“There’s nothing in the law that says I can’t make friendly conversation,” I say.
Julian smiles. “The law? No. Your nature, on the other hand…”
I straighten my spine to the challenge. “I can get close to her.”
“By making friendly conversation?” He laughs. “Pray tell, when did you develop this new skill?”
I offer a cold stare for a response as I toss my manacles down on the counter.
“Never mind, I stand corrected. This is a beautiful repartee.” Julian points between us.
I stare at the ceiling, hating that he’s right. “Julian, I am going to strangle you.”
“No.” He shakes his head and takes a step closer.
“You are going to get in over your head with the High Priestess. She has been untouchable her entire life, and you know that. Rumor is she will marry a future patron soon. For some reason, you hate a woman who is protected by the temple, nobility, and the Senate—not to mention that she is beloved by the people. You can’t win.
Hand them someone you know committed other crimes and be done with this. ”
Of course Julian doesn’t understand my hatred for her.
By the time he and I met, no one in Pryor believed my father was innocent, so I stopped talking about how the High Priest’s daughter falsely swore against him.
She, however, knows what she did. She might’ve been only a child when she testified, but so was I.
I do know I’m on dangerous ground, though.
If the Senate were to find out I was investigating the High Priestess without their consent, I’d be censured at a minimum.
If she caught me, she could have the Senate strip me of my title.
I would fall from a position of power—the highest someone like me could reach, back to being a powerless commoner.
Dread pools in my stomach. No. I won’t allow that to happen. I’m not going to lose everything again. Not because of her.
But I’m also tasked with catching Verhardt’s killer, and that knife is my only lead. She is my only lead. I’ll simply have to be cleverer in how I get to her. While friendly conversation isn’t my forte, I could tell last night that something in her wants me closer. Like how a moth wants a flame.
I don’t bother with messy entanglements for more than a night, but if I play the role of a suitor, maybe I can catch a murderess.
Julian’s suggestion that I hand them someone else, while expedient, is untenable.
There is no justice, no honor in that. I shake my head.
Whoever the murderer is, they cannot get away with this.
I just unreasonably hope it is Kerasea because of that knife.
I can’t fathom what she would hope to gain, but sometimes power becomes an unquenchable thirst.
Still, it doesn’t feel quite right for her. What is she hiding?
“Tor, this obsession…”
Julian pauses as I look up and meet his gaze. I’m not sure if he’s referring to my obsession with being Praetorian or if he’s implying that I’m obsessed with the High Priestess. I grip the metal of the handcuffs as I wait for him to continue.
“I’m going to ask you as your friend one more time to leave her alone, but I suspect you will ignore this warning as well,” he says.
I nod.
He sighs, defeated, and we sink into silence.
Julian partially covers his mouth with his hand and stares to the side. He does that when he’s trying to conceal a secret.
“You know something,” I say.
“Yes, but you didn’t hear it from me.” His face is serious, his gaze distant.
I wait, bracing myself against the wooden dining table.
The thrill of the hunt has started to take hold of me, but I can’t be too eager.
These investigations always require precision and patience.
With the implication of the High Priestess, it will be doubly so.
I must stay focused and objective. It was all too easy to lose myself last night.
He draws a long breath and exhales a noisy sigh. “We cannot locate Verhardt’s liver.”
“What?” My voice carries, too loud for this conversation. Julian grimaces, no doubt already regretting his decision to tell me.
“While you were in the Senate Hall, the healer finished cataloging the body parts we collected from the fountain. Everything was accounted for except his liver.”
“That is the prophecy organ, is it not?” I ask.
Julian purses his lips, because there’s nothing more to say. “Uncle Hadrian wants this kept quiet.”
“Because it also implicates the temple,” I say.
“Because it would set you down the wrong path. Torren, this still doesn’t equal the High Priestess having any involvement with the murder.
You and I both know that the knife was too convenient and the scene too strange.
You admitted as much when Probus questioned you.
The most likely scenario is that someone is trying to pin the murder on the Faith. ”
Five gods and yet there is only one worshipped as “the Faith.”
“Or she did it to cast the disbelief,” I say.
Julian purses his lips. Probus was also unconvinced by that argument. The old man is sharper than people give him credit for. He questioned me until I admitted it could potentially be a setup, and then he promptly denied my request.
Jules sighs. “She couldn’t have decapitated him with that knife, and you know it—at a minimum, a sword was used, and we haven’t found that yet.
And even with the sharpest axe in the world, Kerasea doesn’t have the strength to take a man’s head off, certainly not in a clean swipe. A last time: leave it be.”
We walk out of the barracks, and I admit that his logic is sound.
It would take far more muscle and experience than she has to decapitate a grown man in a single motion.
I should be more concerned about Julian’s warnings, but I can’t stop now.
Even if she weren’t the one to take his head off, conspiracy to commit the murder of a senator is the same as the act.
It is high treason, punishable by the foulest death. And that would be a fitting end to her.
“I’ll take it under advisement,” I say, tossing my rucksack over my shoulder. “I’ll see you at the palace.”
I knock fists with Julian and walk out. I love him like a brother, but he didn’t grow up with me. He didn’t live in the filth of the slums, hungry and wanting. Julian can’t ever really understand me. What I went through. What the Vestal family put me through.
Alone, I stride toward the massive temple of truth. The colonnaded temple occupies the entire east end of the Forum. It is as large as the public baths, and it is the grandest temple to any god in Pryor.
I bypass an endless line of citizens waiting to confess their lies and buy forgiveness and climb the marble steps of the temple.
As I walk inside the towering bronze-and-gold doors, the scents of lilacs and eucalyptus gently waft through the silent space.
Gilded mosaics cover the ground, and sculpted columns reach forty feet into the air, holding up the high-coffered ceiling in the Great Hall.
The line of citizens continues into the more austere Inner Hall.
The colossal marble statue of the god of truth seated on a throne looms at the end of an enormous reflecting pool.
I genuflect. It is not the gods that trouble me but their use by ambitious men…and women.
A temple guard with a scar on his face approaches me.
They all wear steel and leather armor with blue capes, but this one is different, with gold embellishment on his chest. He’s a few inches shorter than I am and middle-aged, with grays peppering the black of his short hair. He must be the chief temple guard.
“May I help you, Praetorian?” he asks.
“I am here to bring the High Priestess to the conclave,” I say.
He shakes his head. “That’s not possible. The High Priestess already left for Jubilee.”
“What? It’s not yet nightfall.” I take a step back, physically thrown by the news.
The guard stares at me, and there is nothing more to say. Either he is lying or she is already gone. Either way, I missed my opportunity.
I turn on my heels and squeeze my rucksack strap.
Julian had tried to warn me that Kerasea is cleverer than expected.
Perhaps all she was doing in that dress last night was distracting me, and I refuse to be thrown off a scent so easily.
The only reason for the knife, the missing liver, and her glancing at the scene of the crime would be her involvement in the murder.
She knows something. And I will stop at nothing until I find it out.