3.06: Revelations – 4

The hall froze.

Elders, servers and soldiers gasped. All eyes turned toward me.

I remained silent.

Your health blessing has neutralized the poison you ingested.

The message still lingered in my vision. Only one plate’s contents had triggered it.

I could still feel the itching at the back of my throat. It remained tight in animalistic fear, even though I had concrete confirmation that I wasn’t in danger anymore.

A wave of nausea came over me.

I ignored it. I couldn’t afford to feel sorry for myself.

The crackle of embers echoed in the silence. The tantalizing smell of fat hung in the air.

I took another piece of meat from Lothar’s plate.

“Don’t!” Aprilia shouted, hand shooting forward to grab my wrist.

Ignoring her, I put it in my mouth.

The meat coated in berry sauce tasted amazing.

Nothing happened.

No itching sensation. No system message.

I exhaled. My jaw loosened as white-hot fury cooled down to ordinary anger.

I put a hand on her tense back and rubbed it.

“It’s fine. You’re fine. Only my plate was poisoned.”

“Will you be fine, sire?” ‘Lothar’ asked.

I nodded.

His chair scraped across as he rose up quickly.

“Nobody leaves,” he barked.

The soldiers jolted to action, getting up.

Servers stiffened like rabbits sensing a hawk overhead.

The Elders had gone pale as bone. They began rising from their seats.

“Sit down,” I said out loud.

Elder Meyer bristled. “That is not—”

“I’m not in the mood to be polite, Elder.”

Bram spoke up. “Sire—”

I cut him off. “Let the General do his job.”

Lothar’s gaze met mine.

“I’ll round up all those who cooked and served the meal.”

I inclined my head, then added, “Separate them, so they can’t match stories.”

He nodded and left. Rafiel talked to some of the soldiers and followed, leading other officers.

Two guards dropped a wooden bar across the doors, built to withstand invaders.

My guards surrounded me, crossbows ready in their hands.

Torchlight reflected off the bayonets.

I got up.

Then lifted my plate and walked up to the Elders.

Their eyes tracked it.

I pulled up a chair and sat down next to them, putting the plate in front.

“I made a mistake, didn’t I?” I said, trying to not let hurt and anger seep into my voice.

“I was too shocked to think straight. I shouldn’t have said anything about the poison and just offered some of the meat to everyone. Their reactions would have told me who is the culprit and who is not.”

I looked from one older man to another.

“I got emotional. Angry that the one place I call my home would try to kill me.”

“I would never poison you!” Erickson said in indignation. “We might have disagreements, but this is beyond heinous.”

He was the least likely to do something like that, but I couldn’t favor him openly.

Not right now.

“Maybe not, but how would I know?”

Bram and Eliard were equally afraid but composed. Both usually swayed in the direction the wind blew.

I didn’t see them sticking their necks out. But maybe I was wrong.

Surely not Erickson.

He was the one who had nominated me as their leader and the one I would almost call friend. Did he get disillusioned? It would be quite a blow if he betrayed me.

Last was Meyer.

He looked older than before. Frazzled hair and red-rimmed eyes. Unstable?

There was also Hyde.

Maybe one of his more zealous followers who hadn’t been captured?

“My Judran…” Meyer whispered under his breath, breaking my train of thought.

“Elder?”

He blinked as if waking up from sleep, then pointed at me.

“This is a ploy!” he shouted. “You seek to get rid of the Elders’ Council entirely! First you tell Lothar to set up this People’s Council,” he spat, “and now you are framing us so you can finish your takeover.”

I leveled a flat gaze at him. “And I poisoned myself for that?”

“What poison?” he said, spraying spittle. “You are unharmed!”

I cut a piece of meat from my plate and carefully put it on his.

“Then it must be safe to eat, right?”

He looked at me, then at the meat. His throat bobbed.

“Go ahead.”

Everyone waited for him.

He didn’t move an inch.

My eyes narrowed.

Is he just scared or certain?

I looked to the other Elders.

“Would anyone else like to try?”

Erickson raised his fork, then hesitated.

“Is it really poisoned?” he asked.

“It is.”

“Then how are you fine?”

“I gave you the answer the very first time I met the whole Council.”

His brows scrunched in confusion, then rose as comprehension dawned.

“You really met…” he whispered, staring at me.

“Have you known anyone else to heal as fast as me?”

He said nothing. Neither did the others.

A crash broke the silence.

Meyer had stood up so violently his chair toppled backward.

Then he dropped to his knees and almost struck his forehead on the stone floor.

“Sire!” his voice cracked. “Please! Forgive my grandson! Punish me instead!”

I looked at him in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

Behind me, Aprilia sighed. “His grandson was one of Hyde’s core supporters. He… he tried to kill the General when he came to my rescue.”

“How old is he?”

“Twenty-two.”

“An adult, then.”

I looked at the man grovelling on the floor. “Elder, why would I punish you for another man’s crimes?”

“Please, sire. Have mercy. He is all I have left.”

“He’ll face justice for his own actions, not you.”

My gut twisted uneasily.

Why is he having a breakdown right now?

Then it clicked.

Right when I reminded him of that meeting.

The man was more devout than most. A reminder of my divine favor had clearly frightened him.

Enough to confess his crimes?

“Elder,” I said carefully, “did you poison my food?”

He remained prostrated, saying nothing.

“Answer me.”

Still nothing.

Someone knocked on the door. The guards talked with the person outside and opened it.

Rafiel entered.

Before he could say anything, a rushing soldier arrived and almost collided with him.

“There’s a woman screamin’ at the guards,” the soldier said. “At the gatehouse.”

“Who?”

“Name’s Emma.”

Rafiel stiffened.

“Emma who?” I asked.

Instead of answering me, his eyes flicked past me.

I turned.

Aprilia had gone rigid.

“You know something?” I asked.

“A lot of things happened when you weren’t here,” she muttered.

“By Emma, does he mean your healer friend?”

“Maybe.”

“Then let’s go see what is happening.”

“No,” she shouted. “What if someone else tries to…”

I exhaled. “There’s no such thing as absolute safety. I won’t remain cooped up indoors just because there are threats outside. If my own people want me dead that badly, so be it.”

She hurried to my side, and forcibly turned me around to face her.

I let her.

She met my eyes. “Don’t say that! We need you.”

She squeezed my arm, then whispered. “Let me talk to her.”

My heart lurched. If there was indeed someone ready to shoot…

“No.” I shook my head, then turned to the soldier. “Bring her here.”

He nodded and ran to the gatehouse.

Silence settled over the hall.

Nobody touched their food. They didn’t trust it, nor each other.

Soon, the soldier was back, with the short woman running in tow.

Her face was flushed red, her bob-cut hair stuck to it.

“Sire!” she blurted out the moment she saw me. “I think someone is trying to poison somebody!”

I folded my arms.

“Someone?”

“I—I was cleaning up at the end of the day when I noticed a few herbs missing from the store. Some of them rare. They can be ground together to make poison.”

“How do you know they hadn’t just been used in the hospital?”

“Because I am in charge of the apothecary and we didn’t have to cut into anyone in the last three days. There was no need for them!”

Aprilia stepped closer.

“Emma, are you telling us everything?”

She hesitated for a second.

“Yes!”

I sensed some tension there, but now was not the time.

“Someone was poisoned,” Aprilia told her.

Emma blanched, her hand going to her face.

“If you have anything to tell us, now is the time,” I said softly.

She looked at the floor.

Then she wrung her hands, and finally looked up at me.

“It could be Yara.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She works with me, and her man, he… he’s one of the six who were jailed.”

I looked at Rafiel for clarification.

“One of Hyde’s followers who bound Lady Aprilia and attacked the General,” he explained.

“Why would you hide it from us?” I asked Emma.

She didn’t say anything, head hung in shame.

“She has a gentle heart,” Aprilia spoke up. “She didn’t want Yara to get in trouble if she was innocent.”

“We won’t be unjust, I promise,” I told her, then turned to Rafiel. “That’s a good lead. Check which of the servers and cooks are relatives of Hyde’s supporters, and send someone to find this Yara.”

I pointed to Emma. “Take her with you to look for any signs of the poison.”

He nodded and left.

The short woman hurried after him.

I closed the door behind us and went back to my seat.

Only then did I remember what had been interrupted.

Meyer was sitting in his chair, head cradled in his hands.

The other Elders looked at him with pity, but sat at a distance, leaning back as if he was tainted.

Something had shifted.

“Elders?”

They didn’t look at me.

“Elder Meyer?”

The man just sat there, motionless.

The rest of the hall waited.

“We could force the confession out of him,” one of my guards suggested.

I turned to look at him.

It was Noah.

He recoiled at what he saw in my eyes.

“You can torture a man and he will say anything you want, just to stop the pain.”

He nodded quickly.

“I need the truth, not satisfaction. Torture only gets you the latter.”

Unless you can verify the claims.

I know. Shut up, brain.

The man was too old for more aggressive measures anyway.

“Until the General has finished his investigation, nobody will leave this hall,” I declared.

Then I turned to the newcomers. “Sadly that includes you four as well.”

They nodded in understanding.

Jaklen came through the door.

“Sire. The General says he can take care of the investigation. You should go rest.”

I decided to take him up on his offer.

As Aprilia and I walked to the door, my guards picked up pace.

They filed outside before us, checking for dangers. Only then did they nod for us to proceed.

“Nobody leaves the hall without my or the General’s permission,” I told the guards.

They nodded sharply.

Aprilia and I stepped into the courtyard.

Night air struck my face.

The guards surrounded us as if we were in a war zone.

I sighed.

This was supposed to be a celebration. A happy reunion.

Aprilia wrapped herself around my arm as we walked towards the bastion opposite the gatehouse. Our house.

Her warmth seeped through the cloth.

As we approached our house, my pulse began hammering.

I made sure to not look at her.

The way she leaned into me made it difficult.

I could only hope that the rest of the reunion wasn’t going to go from bad to worse.