Two Angry Young Ladies… and One Person Who Gets Excited Watching Them
Citrina took enough powdered lightbane from the bottle and mixed it with water. Then, she poured the mixture into the king’s mouth without any hesitation.
With her eyes wide open, Tiona watched the process while the king’s head sat on her lap. Some of the liquid came out of his mouth and stained her skirt. It didn’t bother her; she didn’t even seem to notice. She looked at the king’s face the whole time.
Mia stood back and watched the treatment while she thought about what was going on. She had a thought all of a sudden.
Hold on… Isn’t it my fault if this doesn’t work out? I mean, Rina is trying to help him right now, but if King Abram doesn’t make it, they could say we poisoned him…
This was a scary discovery. She quickly did a tactical study of the room and made a list of her allies in case things went badly at any time. Liora, who was great at archery, and Tiona, who was good with swords, were on her side. She knew that Abel and probably Sion would look out for her.
I’ll be fine, really. Dion is with me, after all. Most things shouldn’t go wrong as long as he’s here…
“Dion Alaia is my friend” she said as a mantra three times. That’s when she felt some calm come back. Now that she was calm again, she looked at Abram again.
“How is he, Rina?”
Citrina got up. She held an empty wine glass in her hand. “He’ll be okay…” She gave a nod and added, “Probably.”
Mia felt that last word deep down inside her. The desire to add grammatical caveats to claims was something she completely understood. Sadly, this time it was her turn to hear the word, and no amount of pity could change how upsetting it was.
Citrina said, “But I did everything I could, so…”
Her words were true, and the dark spot on the king’s face started to fade. His face got better as they talked. At that point, a group of physicians finally showed up. They were just as shocked and confused as everyone else when they saw the king lying down. Citrina walked up to one of them and told them what had happened. She went into great detail about how the king had been poisoned with shadowbane and then given lightbane to counteract it. As soon as she was sure that the physicians knew enough to take over, she went back to Mia.
Mia smiled and said, “Thank you, Rina. That was some great work.”
“Your Highness is very welcome. I’m happy to have lived up to your expectations.” Citrina smiled back, but it wasn’t her normal flowery smile. It was a smile of relief. It seemed more real and true. “So, I already knew for sure that the poison was shadowbane. All I had to do was pay attention to how much medicine to give. It wasn’t really that amazing.”
“Oh? Is that so?”
“Yes. You should never give too much lightbane because it makes things worse. It makes you very hyperactive, and when you die, blood comes out of every hole in your body.”
“My, that’s terrible. There’s blood coming out of every hole—Hmm?”
Mia made a face. The statement sounded like it had been heard before.
Is it just me, or did I read about that kind of death in the Chronicles? Hm…
Before she had time to think about it more…
“Poison? Did you say poison?”
After pleading with a physician to describe the king’s condition, one of the younger nobles raised his voice in alarm.
“So you’re telling me that His Majesty was targeted for assassination through poison?”
Right away, there was a lot of noise in the hall.
“Assassination?”
“Someone poisoned the king!”
Mia made a face when she heard the frantic whispers. She didn’t like what was going to happen next.
Okay, then. It’s time to point the finger…
Everyone in the hall suddenly felt sick to their stomachs because they knew that any of them could have eaten something poisonous. The tension in the air got so thick that you could feel it. The young nobleman who first raised his voice did speak again in the end.
He looked around and said, “Well, it doesn’t look like anyone else has been poisoned. So the one that seems the most fishy is…”
Mia tsked. Since Echard gave the wine glass to the king, he was the most likely suspect, but what he said would make things much more difficult. She was shocked when the young lord turned toward her.
“You! You said you were taking care of His Majesty, but what if you poisoned him in secret?” He pointed a finger at Citrina.
Mia huffed as she looked from Citrina, who was standing next to her, to the noble who was blaming her. His goal was clear right away.
Pfft. I understand what he is doing. He doesn’t even want to find the real culprit. He’s only using this to attack us.
After all, this meeting was meant to break up the partnership between her and Sion. Even though King Abram’s sudden collapse had made things more complicated, it didn’t seem to stop the conservatives in Sunkland from going after their original goal.
“No. It’s not true what you said. This young woman definitely took care of the king.” Someone with a calm voice replied, and it came from the strangest place.
“There is a poison called shadowbane that was used on His Majesty. Younger nobles like you might not know,” Count Lampron said. “It gives you a unique black shadow across your face after you eat it. The shade could be seen before she got close to His Majesty. I can vouch for that.”
Even though the count testified, there was still disagreement, but this time it came from a different direction.
“But the timing was just right. It looks like it was planned. Could this not be a trick pulled by the ‘Great Wisdom of the Empire’?”
“That’s…”
It was easy to see why Count Lampron kept quiet after that. It was clear that Shadowbane was an old poison, which made people wonder why a guest from Tearmoon had the cure with them. Even people who don’t know much about poisons could tell that the accident didn’t make sense.
“The fact that she had the cure shows that she was guilty! What else could be a better proof? How in the name of the sun could this girl have the cure for this ancient evil when and already knows how to identify it? And here of all places?”
“That’s right!” One more lord joined in. “It doesn’t seem right! It can’t be a coincidence!”
Oh no, the tides have changed in a worrying direction…
Mia started to panic. It wasn’t because she was scared for her own safety. It was much, much worse. She was afraid… of Rafina. A quick look in her direction showed…
“Eep!”
Mia quickly put her hands over her mouth to stop a scared squeal. Rafina was just as shocked as everyone else when the king fell, but she slowly calmed down as she watched what was happening. Now…
She was angry. Her teeth were digging into her lips, and the milky color on her face had turned a fiery red. Her eyes were like fires of anger.
Uh-oh. This is not good. This is really, really bad. Miss Rafina is going to lose it!
This was the most angry Rafina had been since the election for student council. She had just recently learned that Rafina apparently thought of her as a friend—a close friend, at that! Even though this was good news, it felt like a hornet’s nest at the moment.
It’s pretty clear that the stupid noble who blamed me just spoke badly about someone the Holy Lady considers a very good friend.
He was also very rude about it. Even Mia was furious about what he said, but she didn’t say anything to protect herself. She didn’t want to officially accuse Sion’s brother of trying to kill her father because that would mean she had to name the real killer. That would make things more difficult, and she didn’t have any proof. Mia wanted the same thing that all weak-willed people want: problems to be small until they go away. With the king being poisoned, this problem was already very big. The last thing she wanted to do was add more charges to the mix.
The good news is that the Chaos Serpents are involved, so I can put all the blame on them and their killers. All I need is for everyone to stop blaming us and stay cool as long as I have the Serpent card.
She was shocked to see that things were getting much less calm. There could be a fight between Rafina and Sion if she lost her cool. In turn, that could make things worse between Belluga and Sunkland. Cracks like those were great for snakes.
Moons, how can I stop this from getting out of hand?
She tried to think of something but couldn’t. At the exact moment that her fear hit its peak, a very angry cry resounded through the hall.
“Be quiet, you barbarian! That’s enough! I won’t stand for it!”
The voice rang out like a whip, telling everyone to pay attention. Everyone turned to listen to the speaker. Esmeralda stood in the middle of all the attention, her chin raised in pride and anger. She looked angry all the way down the hall.
“Do not dare to say anything bad about Mia Luna Tearmoon, my dear friend and princess. You will have to answer to me if you do!”
Esmeralda Etoile Greenmoon, who was proud to be an Etoiline of the empire and to be married to the second prince of Sunkland, let everyone know how she felt VERY loudly and VERY angrily. She was used to getting what she wanted because her mother was a tyrant when she was young. She was not the type to hold her anger in, so she took it out on the lords by acting like a lion. There was, however, one that did not draw back. Echard was looking at her with big interested eyes because she was so mesmerizing that he couldn’t react.
Esmeralda’s words made room for a second person to walk onto the stage. When there was a moment of silence, another Etoiline spoke up. She was the one who was the target of the attacks.
