The Queen's plan succeeded.
Not with a knife. Not with poison splashing into a goblet mid-banquet. Not with anything as crude as that.
But with precision.
With elegance.
With the patience of a spider.
A single dried leaf ground into the edge of a honeyed cake. Not enough to kill—not at once. Just enough to slow the pulse, to choke the blood. It would look like his condition worsening. It would be his condition worsening.
And as the King slept deeper each day, fewer questions were asked.
Fewer dared to ask them.
---
Lumira's hands trembled as she examined Erevan's chest again. His skin was cold—far too cold. His heartbeat was still there, but faint. Weaker than the last time.
She gritted her teeth. "I don't know what's wrong with him."
Carlos stood nearby, fists clenched. "You said the root cured him."
"It did. I swear it did," she snapped. "But something else is working against it. Something I can't see."
She reached for her vials with shaking hands, then stopped. Her vision blurred.
Carlos caught her before she hit the ground.
"Rest," he ordered.
She tried to argue, but her eyes closed before she could finish the sentence.
She hadn't slept in four days.
Now even the healer was unconscious.
---
Carlos sat at Erevan's bedside. The candles cast long shadows across the room. He watched his brother's chest rise and fall—slower than it should.
"I told you," he whispered, voice breaking, "you don't have to protect me."
He stood, turned away, then slammed his fist into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.
I'll find them.
Whoever did this—whoever touched his brother again—would bleed.
He stormed from the room, cape trailing behind him like fire.
He didn't care about the whispers now. Didn't care about the nobles watching him with wary eyes, or the priestesses who blessed him with insincere smiles.
He had names. He had pieces of puzzle.
And this time, he wouldn't play fair.
---
He went to the palace kitchens first. Shake every servant with his anger, show them who is a true owner of them.
Burned through the records.
Found the missing page from the delivery logs.
Rose petals from the south. Herbs not cleared by Lumira. A transfer slip signed by a priestess loyal to the Queen.
He brought it to the old steward, forced the man to read it out loud.
The steward paled. "I—I didn't know—"
Carlos didn't give him a second chance.
"I don't care what you didn't know," he said, voice calm and cold.
"I want the names. Every person who touched that tray. Every servant who prepared that food. Every priest who delivered ingredients and...." He looked back at Kave beside him " I want the evidence, everything." Kave nodded.
He didn't sleep for the next thirty-six hours.
He questioned cooks, clerics, servants. He poured through half-burned papers the Queen had tried to destroy.
And then he found it.
The powdered leaf. Used only by priests for mercy deaths. Banned in the capital two decades ago. One priestess had taken it from the sealed temple vaults.
A priestess assigned to the Queen's personal service.
---
Carlos stood in the royal chapel, the proof in his hands, staring at the empty altar. He has killed the priest since he had got the proof , the letter, the record. And Kave didn't stop him anyway.
He didn't feel rage. He didn't feel anything except___
clarity.
Like a sword being drawn from a sheath.
He whispered to the empty room: "She did this. She's still doing this."
And for the first time in his life, Carlos no longer cared if the people hated him.
He would be the villain they needed.
If it meant Erevan lived.