“I could find nothing solid,” said Keth later that afternoon. “Guards claim they saw nothing that warranted suspicion… Servants didn’t want to speak at first, in the end they repeated Evan’s words. I have confirmed the man with the box was indeed one of Venna Fariah’s servants. However no one has seen him in days.” Keths gaze didn’t waver. “There’s also another thing…Both guards and servants claim they saw known servants of the Sixth mingling down by the docks. It doesn’t have to mean anything, however…” Keth hesitated, squeezing his fingers together.
Eirran raised an eyebrow. “However?”
“Venna Fariah went out to visit the V’Loraths again. Just today, in fact.” Keth let out the sentence in a breath.
For several long moments, Eirran said nothing. He walked over to the window and stared toward the distant sea.
“Search the palace,” he said eventually, head only half-turned. “Room by room. From roof to basements. Find the black box. No matter what.”
Keth nodded “I have already given the instruction.”
Eirran replied with a sharp nod of acknowledgement then turned over to the window, gaze turning westward, to the Sixth Palace, where, beneath the golden globes and high vaults of the Lamp Hall, Vhanna was welcoming Fariah like a sister. Vareth stood by, waiting. His own bearing carefully poised to reflect distance and respect.
“Venna Fariah,” said Vhanna. “Welcome again. We have heard about the…” she let the word lie on the table like an unnecessary knife, “Illness.”
“The child survived,” said Fariah. “Ellevath is merciful.”
“He is, indeed,” said Vhanna, with just enough warmth to pass for sincerity, and carried on carefully. “But we cannot ignore the truth that people of Astochia know, and they talk. Plague in the palace is not a sign to be taken lightly.”
Vareth raised his brows only slightly, to tastefully emphasize the point.
“Of course,” Vhanna continued, “we would never utter such a reckless accusation. The Sixth House never raises its voice against the Prince without reason, and without order. Yet…” her gaze was light, wrapping the words in silk, “…those who had weathered many storms know how to read signs. A human pestilence. Sickness in the palace that mocks the sacred texts. Many could interpret it as divine warning to a ruler who has mocked the Covenant.”
Fariah folded her hands in her lap until her fingers nearly drowned between the folds of silk.
“Such words,” she said, harmonies flat but sharp, “cut deeper than blades.”
“Precisely,” Vhanna was quick to reply. “And you understand how it might get twisted it if came from our mouths.” She paused. “However, if people were to hear it from you, his own mother… A woman who is a Sister of the Lanterns, whose name carries not only worldly but holy weight… In that case the truth could fly, free from the weights of misinterpretations.”
“I only wish to save my son from sin,” Fariah said quietly. “Not destroy him.”
Vhanna inclined her head in sympathy.
“Sometimes,” she whispered, “Cleansing hurts. But it heals the soul. And glorifies Ellevath. You know this better than I. How many times have you held the lantern above a girl in the Temple, and known that suffering is the spring of blessing?”
Vareth nodded. “Ellevath forgives sins that lead to His glory.”
Fariah stared at the small flame on the table. For a flicker of a candle she felt her faith tremble just the same.
“I will think on it,” she said eventually.
“Of course,” Vhanna retorted, forcing a smile. “We will pray for you.”
This time when Fariah left, Lioran wasn’t there in the hall. The corridor was quiet and dark, its silence both blessing and a verdict.
The search at the palace took hours. The guards, supervised by Rahl’s sharp eye, looked ever shadowed corner, under every stone, and found nothing.
But as the evening kissed the last rays of the sun goodbye, in the bottom of the kitchen stove, under the ashes, Tana the cook found a black, charred sliver of wood. Thin as a lid to a small box.
When she touched the edge, dark powder coated the tips of her fingers.
She didn’t bring it to Keth. She brought it to Mirna.
Mirna laid the piece on cloth, then wrapped up the cloth in a rag, placed the rag in a basket, and walked straight to Eirran’s study.
There, she placed it gently on his desk, as if setting down a baby.
“The fire did what it could,” she said. “If there was sickness in it, it’s gone. But traces…” she shrugged, “…traces remain.”
Eirran looked at that tiny black piece of wood as though it were a weapon.
Keth touched it once and drew his hand back.
“We could find nothing else. If there ever was a box, this is all that’s left,” Keth said.
“And the servant they described? The one with the gloves?”
“Was indeed one of Her Excellency’s servants. However, nobody seems to have seen him since. Rahl checked his cell and found it empty. He’s gone, taking all of his possessions with him.”
Eirran nodded, then swallowed. “I see.” He said. “So we have nothing to grasp to bring this before the Seventh.”
Keth remained silent. Mirna looked at Eirran, then at him, brow furrowing. “What does that mean?”
“It means we cannot raise accusations,” Eirran finished. “But we know. Most importantly, I know.”
Mirna took a step back. “So what? She simply walks away free?”
Eirrans gaze fell sharper than an axe. “She walks away into the prison of her own making. And I will make sure she lands there.”
A rogue draft lifted a corner of a parchment laying on the table. It rose, trembled, then settled back into the silence of shadowed stone.
Fariah knew it was over the moment she returned to the palace.
Eirran’s guards had let her pass without a word, moving elegantly out of her way, eyes watching.
Always watching.
Keth stood in the shadow of the hallway leading to her chamber, silent and observant, one palm casually touching the dagger at his belt.
She wasn’t returning home. She was walking to the execution. But her stride did not falter, her head did not bow. Fariah V’Asanii walked and flew with chin held high.
When she entered her chambers, the candlelight flickered along the walls, dressing the room in dancing shadows. She didn’t remove her cloak; she only lowered her gaze, fixing it on her son, who sat near the fireplace, waiting.
“I know where you’ve been,” he said, face half bathed in the flickering light, half obscured in shadows. His voice was quiet, dangerous in its calm. “And with whom you consorted.”
Fariah didn’t answer. She only drew the cloak tighter around her shoulders, as though warding off the cold.
“The proof burned in fire,” he went on. “Your hands will be clean before the law. But not before me.”
He looked at her directly. “I know what you did, Mother.” His eyebrows drew tighter as pain in his eyes broke through the mask on his face. “I know it was you.”
Fariah stripped away her gloves, threw them on the table.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Eirran took a step towards her, wings tensing. “You conspired with V’Loraths to poison my daughter with plague.” His fists clenched, unclenched. “You tried to kill my child. And you won’t hide that truth behind words and temple walls.”
At last she raised her head, her eyes gleaming – almost ecstatic.
“You give me far too much credit.” she spat back. “If it’s anyone who should be blamed for your mongrel’s illness, it’s you. You’re the one to spit Ellevath in the face, then act surprised when He strikes you.”
Eirran took a step closer. His wings spread just enough for their shadow to swallow the firelight behind her. Once he might have flinched at those words. Once, a man he had been, might have held a flicker of doubt.
But that man had died in his daughter’s sickroom. What remained was certainty and steel.
“When I first learned about this, I thought the fury would consume me.” He said, instead. “But now I realize I only pity you,” he continued softly. “For you are the greatest victim in all of this. Not only are you blind, but you are proud of your blindness.”
Fariah turned slowly.
“That child brings Ellevath’s curse to this House,” she said, her voice eerily gentle. “Do you think you can force me to stay aside and watch as she destroys you?”
Eirran closed his eyes for a moment, as if wrestling with an old weariness. When he opened them again, his gaze was steady.
“No, Mother. You’re not worried about me. You’re worried about losing what I used to be. The Seraph they carved from gilded marble and placed on that colonnade. Your pride. Your exalted triumph.” He shook his head. “You love the statue, not me. You love what I represented to the Fifth House – a trophy. A symbol. Glory. You don’t know me, Mother. I don’t think you ever did.”
His voice deepened, quieter now, edged with that sorrow that wounds more than anger ever could.
“After Tal’Hessia… After Selavetia… Not even once have you asked me how I felt, offered a word of comfort. You haven’t even asked who I was without a sword and an oath. Let alone loved me without them.”
She opened her mouth to object, but he was faster.
“Perhaps you have nothing left with which to love.”
Her eyes narrowed. Her fingers trembled.
But he went on, not waiting for her reply.
“Perhaps back then, in the Temple, when they Cleansed you, when they remade you into the perfect bride for a perfect lineage, perhaps they took your heart as well.”
Silence cracked like ice under weight.
“How dare you?” She spat, harmonies dragging down and rubbing together. Her teeth gritted. “How dare you spit on my sacrifice?!” Her hand clutched at her lower stomach, grasping at something long gone.
Cleansed, sanctified and forgotten.
Her eyes closed shut.
Eirran watched her without hatred. With the calm of someone who has finally called a ghost by its true name.
“I know why you did what you did,” he said in voice still as the sea under the dawn. “You cannot stand that I fight to keep what you have thrown away.”
Fariah’s eyes blew open, full of black fire. “Get out!” It was not a shout, but a deep, guttural growl.
Eirran pressed his lips together, then turned toward the door. “I will leave. And you will remain in this chamber until Gioden decides your punishment.”
She stepped back into the shadows. “Gioden won’t interfere. You think he cares about your mongrel?” She spat her last drops of venom, without effect.
Eirran simply shrugged, tired, but lighter.
“I don’t. But he will care about the fact you nearly caused an epidemic amongst humans, disrupting the flow of coin in Astochia.”
She sprang, furious. “You have no authority to imprison me. The Seventh…”
“I have every authority!” He thundered back. “And anyone who doubts will soon be reminded otherwise.”
“Why? What are you planning?”
Eirran let a smile twitch a corner of his lips. “Goodbye, Mother.”
He left the room without waiting for reply.
Keth watched him go, filled with bone-deep sense that nothing in Astochia would ever be the same.
Inside the chamber Fariah remained standing, fingers twitching at the fabric of her skirt. Her eyes searched the ghostly reflection in the glass window.
In swift move, she pulled down the curtain.
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