Poisoned Blood

“That will be all for now, Miss. I need to speak with my Lord for a moment. Can you give us a moment? I’ll go back out to help you look for your daughter, so please wait for me.”

Of course, she knew this was asking a lot of a shaken mother. She would certainly want to go look for her daughter right away. But two nights had already passed. Liel knew it was likely that Isabelle was dead. Of course, she couldn’t affirm this until her body was found. But there were times that some things must be considered as a reasonable truth even when there was no reliable evidence, even if just to eliminate wasteful investments.

And as it stood, it might not be the best use of time. If on the slim possibility that she was alive, and they were able to find her, it would mean nothing if a cannibalistic ritual were to be enacted. Of its design and outcome, Liel was not sure, but it certainly couldn’t be anything good. If the death of the townspeople were just stepping stones to its finality, then it could definitely be much worse.

“Yes, my Lady.” Elienoire bowed her head once more before leaving her own room to the Lord and the Lady. It was a bit ironic in that way. Liel felt for her, truly. She cared for the little girl who had given her the gift of childhood, but as a Paladin, it was time to look towards the greater danger.

Liel turned towards the man in the mirror, a stern gaze curling up her expression. She moved the chair towards the edge of the window, sitting back down.

“I admired how distrustful you were of her.” Ciseus teased Liel. “You even tacitly threatened her with your blade. She was so kind to you, and you were so cruel to her.”

“This doesn’t seem like the type of thing ‘the martyr’ should praise me for.” Liel leaned on her hand as she stared out of the window. The rainfall had already overtaken the streets. Townspeople skittered about as the darkness of night began to reign, wary of forsaking the curfew. The lazy guard, son of the Chieftain, stood outside the inn, looking up at Liel in the window as the rain drenched his clothes.

She stared back at him for a time, and noticing her gaze, disappeared into the shadow of night.

“Do you know who the Bard was that led me to the corpse?” Liel spoke to Lord Ciseus.

“Someone important, I’m sure. I don’t pay attention to every little thing, Miss Astalette. If you want the intricate details of something specific, I can tell you. But if you want broader knowledge, Chimes would have been a better Lord to serve.”

“It sounds like you’re calling yourself quite useless right now.”

Ciseus’s expression grew serious as he leaned in within the mirror, finally facing his servant, free of his wit and jokes.

“You have to consider that the dismembering of the corpse was supposed to be misleading. If it is a cannibalistic plot, then many more might be in danger. But what if that wasn’t the case? What if they only made it look to be the work of a cannibal in order to draw your attention away from the truth? You must consider multiple points while you’re building that theory.”

“Perhaps. Even if it’s not the case that they’re cannibals, they’re certainly murderers. Murderers who work with poison.”

“You yourself were poisoned. How could this have happened?” Ciseus smiled slyly, pushing her. “Of course, you could have ingested the poison. But when was the last time you had eaten? It was the stew served by this inn’s keeper that you last ate.”

“Don’t suggest things you know couldn’t have happened, Lord.” Liel shook her head.

“We should work through all possibilities, shouldn’t we? I just said so a moment ago.”

“If we work through all possibilities, we would have to theorise every square inch of every section of Eddhet I’ve touched upon in the last month, just to make sure it wasn’t a poison that infests one after making contact, wouldn’t we? We should eliminate the unlikeliest options, and the stew was one such thing. There are too many contingencies that the innkeeper would have to cover- someone else could have eaten the stew, I could have gone to a different inn or stayed with one of the kind townspeople who offered me their home… not to mention that I could have been a person who has no taste for stew. I could have denied the meal entirely. If I were trying to poison someone, I wouldn’t choose an option that could fail so easily. It’s illogical.”

“Not all people operate with optimised logic. Not everyone has been born as the daughter of an esteemed family, trained from birth to think in such a way.” Ciseus teased Liel as he leaned back against the edge of the mirror’s interior, smiling. “Then, if not the innkeeper, who else could be responsible for the poisoning?”

“The old carriage driver?”

“When did he ever make contact with you?” Ciseus shook his head.

“If you’ve been watching close enough to know that much, then I’m sure you’ve already come to a reasonable conclusion on who poisoned me. Why don’t you just tell me outright?”

“It wouldn’t be entertaining if I just told you.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the kind of person who helps further the conclusion?"

"Just because you have to act according to my 'Will' doesn't mean that I have to." Ciseus stuck out his tongue towards Liel, mocking her. “Besides, if you don’t work through it with the information you have, it will be pointless. I haven’t seen all the things that you’ve seen.”

“What’s the point of godly powers if you don’t use them?”

“I do use them. I just can’t tell you what for.”

“How secretive.”

“Is there a rule written somewhere that says Gods have to be truthful in all things?”

“I suppose not.”

Ciseus quickly returned to the matter at hand. “You noticed that odd smell between the bracelet and the doll, didn’t you?”

Liel’s eyes widened as she stared at the man in the mirror. ‘No… is that really… the case?’

She reached into her jacket, procuring the wooden-beaded bracelet she had retrieved from the corpse and the shoddy doll given to her by Isabelle. These items certainly both had an odd smell to them, and they were the prime connecting evidence between the corpse and the Chieftain.

But what if that weren’t the only evidence that they were able to provide?

Liel pulled out the vial of writhing silver blood from her coat, uncorking it before placing a single drop of Siltte on top of the doll and the discoloured bead of the bracelet. As soon as the silvery liquid made contact with the items, it began to thrash violently, a malevolent pitch-black colour spreading across its surface. Soon, the Siltte stopped moving, silent and lifeless.

It had been poisoned to death.

“The doll was poisoned!” Liel’s gaze shook.

“Yes, the doll was poisoned, and so was the bracelet. But it wasn’t the doll that caused the poison to enter your system. Siltte is in essence, an equivalent to human blood, isn’t it? That’s why Paladins can integrate with it so easily. If the Siltte died upon contact with the poison, but you can touch the doll without being harmed, then it must be the sort of poison that needs to make contact with the bloodstream in order to have any sort of effect."

"My sword... I cut myself with my sword during the harvest blessing ritual... and little Isabelle had her hands all over my sword the night before! Is this how the poison was spread to me?"

"A good theory, but the little girl isn't the prime suspect herself, is she?"

"She was given the doll by her father, the Chieftain, Calligan. As he gives all his children... as he gives all the women who went missing..." True terror entered her heart. "But why would the Chieftain give his own daughter poison? Did he want to get rid of his illegitimate children?"

"It could certainly be Calligan who is behind the disappearances, but the rest is just speculation."

"If speculation is all I can do with this little evidence, then maybe it's necessary."

"Speculation will get you killed. You'll fail to consider the actual points and be blindsided. You can consider multiple points without theorising them."

"I should confront him, then. I need evidence to build up the actual theory. If being passive isn't giving me any leads, I should be brazen-"

Liel stared down at the surface of the desk in silence. She had just wanted to live an easy life after she had graduated. She would have taken all the easy tasks, wandering about as she solved the menial problems of people's lives. She wouldn't be great, she wouldn't be a hero, not in her own eyes. She might improve people's lives slightly, but nothing over the top.

She wouldn't risk her life. She wouldn't run towards danger.

That was what she had assumed she would try to live like, but now she was confronted with a perversion of her fantasy. An easy ritual had dug up a deeper plot, a darker plot, and now she herself had realised she had yet to decide on whether to proceed. She had been talking as if it was a matter of fact, influenced by her calming rune, but she remained as she always was- afraid.

'Should I call in the Paladin's Templar...? They're two weeks of riding away from Estelle... the nearest Estuary would take a couple days of riding, maybe...'

She slumped back in her chair, her gaze looking out of the window. The sun had positioned itself in the middle of the sky, and only a handful of hours remained until the next curfew struck.

'If I don't do it myself, there won't be any chance of little Isabelle surviving, if she even remains alive... and if this plot continues as it has with the frequency it has, then the ritual might soon take place. A ritual needs nine points, and nine people have gone missing. If there are eight more graves, then the foundation has already been laid down…'

Liel slammed her fist down on the table. The pain radiated through the bones of her hand, and she felt as if one of her knuckles had shattered, but her anger remained.

She smiled, and it was an odd sort of look for such a pretty woman. Her face was a warped mixture of anger and hilarity, as she was humoured by the irony of her circumstances.

She had been entirely correct when demeaning herself in front of Alice, the day before she had graduated.

What kind of person would be distraught over having to save the lives of others?