Poison (11 page)

Before Freddie's throne were her Beasts:  the Hawk, Ram, Bear, Bat, and two vacant seats. One was his own, which meant that Lord Lyall, the White Wolf, was the second victim of poison.

Kneeling before the Triad, Ailill rose when Etain said he could, then walked to join his companions. He nodded politely to all of them, but approached the White Bat, Verenne Tolbert, and kissed the back of her hand and her cheek. They had become White Beasts around the same time and arrived at the palace within days of each other. She was the only one he had really met before he left to track down and retrieve the lost crown jewels.

"It's good to see you again, Lord Ailill."

"Lady Verenne, the very same," Ailill said and then took his seat. He glanced at the thrones where Noire had taken up his position just behind and to the right of Etain. He was stark against the excess of white, a beautiful complement. But the shadows in his eyes troubled Ailill, and not because he was pretty certain he had fallen under suspicion. Whatever was tormenting Noire needed to be fixed before it broke him.

Gael rose and moved to the front of the dais, and all the soft, nervous chatter ceased. "Thank you for coming, White Beasts. I am sure you have noticed that two of our number are missing. Lady Elianne and Lord Lyall have been poisoned. They are not dead, but neither will they wake. We have placed them in the Sanctuary. We have called you to begin figuring out who could poison a Beast and why they would be willing to jeopardize the ceremony this way."

"You think one of us could be responsible," Verenne said, hurt and anger on her face as she regarded the three of them.

"We must consider every possibility," Freddie said, standing up to join Gael. "Though it pains us to cast our Beasts under suspicion, there are precious few options for would be killers. The faerie children are yours to command when you must, and you are resilient in all ways. No normal poison should be able to render you comatose, and yet two of your brothers have fallen. We will interview each of you in turn. All but the White Lion may wait in the hall until summoned."

Almost as one, the Beasts rose and filed out. Ailill paused before Verenne and offered his arm. She took it with a warm, if strained, smile and walked with him out to the hall. "You look well, Ailill. Let us hope we all look half as well when this ceremony finally ends."

"I will settle for living," Ailill replied. Out in the hall, Ivan immediately strode toward him. "Lady Verenne, may I introduce Lord Ivan, the Duke of Vaklov, a very good friend of mine from Pozhar."

Verenne laughed. "Yes, you are a fire child through and through. You must be a very good friend, indeed, to come here at so tense a time."

"Your grace, Pozhar was a land of tension for much longer than Verde. I assure you, what you call tension still seems relaxing to me," Ivan said and bowed over her hand.

Laughing again, Verenne kissed his cheek, then stepped away from them. "I am going to arrange refreshments. You shall have to come visit me when we have time, Ailill. I want to hear all about your travels."

"Of course," Ailill replied and kissed her cheek before she left.

"So what is going on?" Ivan said. "That was entirely too brief a meeting."

Ailill motioned them to a bench and sat down with a yawn. "They think one of the Beasts is behind the poisonings."

"There was a second one then, as we feared," Ivan said. "So you are probably their favorite candidate. I knew you were nothing, but trouble, cat."

"Nothing, but trouble and yet here you are," Ailill said with a grin, and he really did not care that he was in the middle of the royal palace any longer.  He leaned in closer and took a brief kiss.

Ivan tugged at a loose strand of Ailill's hair after they drew apart. "You might have noticed I like trouble."

"That's good," Ailill said with a sigh, "because I fear we are going to be seeing a great deal of it from here on in. Whatever happens, we need to keep investigating. If they lock me up, you'll have to manage without me."

"If they lock you up, there will be a jailbreak the next day," Ivan replied.

Ailill's mouth quirked. "Vanya, you're a duke now. Dukes are not allowed to sneak into prisons to break other people out. Especially not a White Beast incarcerated by the Triad itself."

Ivan snorted and reached up to sink one hand into Ailill's hair, drawing him close and settling Ailill's head on his shoulder. "Now, cat. Two years ago I attempted to defy the crown and the Firebird himself just to help a miscreant little thief. I went to turn myself in and came out of it a duke. Do you really think I am scared of royalty at this point? They cannot do too much to me, anyway. I'm a personal friend of the Tsar, even if I do not entirely understand why."

"Hopeless," Ailill said, and he'd meant to say more, but pressed up against Ivan, soaked in his warmth and smoky scent, it was impossible. His eyes slipped helplessly shut, the buzz of conversation around them fading as he succumbed to sleep.

He groaned in displeasure when someone shook him awake sometime later and scowled up at Noire. "Go away."

"Get up," Noire said, mouth twitching as he fought a grin. "The Triad has called for you."

That jolted Ailill back to awareness, and he reluctantly dragged himself from Ivan's arms. He looked back before he vanished into the hall, warmed by the smile Ivan gave him. He was definitely going to need to look harder at the reasons he was so addicted to a man he had not seen for two years and had only known for a matter of weeks before that.

As he entered the hall and strode up to the thrones, Ailill tucked thoughts of Ivan away and focused on his current dilemma. "Your majesty, your highnesses," he said and knelt, bowing his head low.

"Lord Ailill," Etain said, her voice sweet, soothing; it was the kind of voice that made it hard to hold onto anger, no matter how hot that anger burned.

Made it hard, but not impossible. Ailill kept his anger back, burning like embers, ready to set something ablaze should he need it. "How can I be of service to you, majesty?"

"You have always served faithfully, Lord Ailill. Like I and my siblings, the White Beasts find it difficult to be away from Verde for any length of time. We are the heart that pumps the blood of the kingdom. Yet you were steadfast, and all these years have traveled the world to bring back the pieces that were lost."

Ailill was growing tired of the flowery language. "And now you fear that I lost myself in the process and want the ceremony to fail."

Silence fell in the wake of his blunt words. Ailill decided to take it as permission to keep speaking. "I will be the first to admit that I do not want to be here. That I do not like being a White Beast. I was happier elsewhere, even when I was stuck down and nearly killed … " He trailed off as thinking about how he had almost died reminded him of the dead Minister of Magic, who had been corrupted by shadow magic. "That's what you think," he said. "You think what happened to me might run deeper than his Highness could fix. I am not shadow poisoned, Majesty, highnesses. But I agree shadow magic might be at play and am looking into the matter. I have always done my duty. I continue to do it and will continue to do it."

"Yes, Lord Ailill, you are dutiful," Freddie said. She glanced at her siblings as they turned to her, and at their nods said, "I think we can safely declare that you are free of corruption, Lord Ailill. I think we safely return to the assumption that someone outside the inner circle is behind these attacks, someone with a great deal of knowledge if they are able to devise a poison that can put a White Beast in a coma."

"If it is Schatten responsible, I fear where the culprit may be lurking," Etain said softly.

Fear and remembered pain seized Ailill's body as he recalled that night in the inn. The way he had not been able to move. The pain, merciful Triad he would never forget how much everything had hurt.

He also remembered how Ivan had taken care of him, their farewell on the ship. And Ivan had come to see him, even after two whole years of silence. Thoughts of Ivan steadied him. "If Schatten is responsible for this, I will figure that out. But it could be anything; if I have learned anything over the years it is that guessing someone's motive is nearly impossible."

"Let us hope it is not impossible," Gael said. "We will continue to leave the investigation to you, Lord Ailill. Did you learn anything at Lady Elianne's estate?"

"No, highness," Ailill replied. "I lingered only to study some of Lady Elianne's books. She has quite the impressive collection, and I had hoped one of them might produce information on the poison. Ivan and I thought it might be the very same poison that killed the late Tsar, but without a body to examine, we cannot be sure."

Gael's brows rose at that. "Poisoned? The last Tsar? Of course we were notified of his death; it was quite tragic, but I never heard that he was murdered."

"It was kept quiet," Ailill said. "I did not know myself until Ivan told me about, and he himself knows only because he is good friends with the current Tsar. They met back in the last days of the sacrifices, and Ivan helped to capture the traitorous Minister of Magic."

"This sounds like quite the story. Who is this Ivan?"

"Lord Ivan Mikhailovich Kozlov, the Duke of Vaklov," Ailill said.

Freddie snorted in amusement. "He helped capture the Minister of Magic and then took his title?"

"From what I understand, it was the Tsar who thrust it upon him," Ailill said with a smile. "He is proving quite useful to my investigation, though of course I should have cleared it with the Triad first."

Gael waved the words aside. "We appointed you the task, and you are allowed to do as you please—for the most part."

"Yes, highness. Might I know, then, how the White Wolf fell?"

"It was during the royal ball," Etain said softly as her siblings resumed their seats. "I went to my crystal parlor for a brief reprieve; it is something I often do at these affairs. He was sitting there, alone and unconscious. I had hoped he had merely passed out from the wine, but I barely needed my magic to confirm the worst had happened."

Ailill frowned. "Does everyone know you sneak out to that room during the ball? Do you go at roughly the same time?"

"Always at about the halfway to three-quarters point," Etain said. "I return to enjoy most of the last portion, then we all three slip away again toward the end."

So very likely, whoever had done it had wanted the body to be found, and quickly. Not necessarily to cause a panic, however, because the killer likely knew Etain would keep her composure. Whoever it was wanted to frighten the Triad, the Beasts.

He did not voice his beliefs, though, merely said, "Is there any way I might view Lord Lyall and Lady Elianne? It may provide new clues, and we can definitively confirm or eliminate the poison involved."

The three exchanged a look and finally Etain nodded. "Very well, you may enter the Sanctuary and view them. Only you, however. Come with me." Etain rose an, after Ailill had climbed the dais, led him through a back door and down a short hallway.

When they emerged, they were only steps away from the Sanctuary. The guards bowed, and Etain murmured politely at them as she opened the doors.

Inside, Ailill just stared, his breath stolen, a sudden deep ache lodged in his chest. All his life he had been told this place was his fate, that as a White Beast he must help ensure the Triad was able to reclaim their power locked away in the Great Oak.

He startled when arms wrapped around him and lips as soft as the wings of a butterfly brushed his cheek. "Welcome to the Sanctuary, White Panther," Etain said softly and wiped away the tears Ailill had not realized were falling. "Heart of Verde and very soon we will all gather here and the Great Oak will restore the Triad to their fully power and glory, and Verde will once more have back its Lost Gods."

"I hope so," Ailill said softly. "I do not want to bear witness to yet another Tragedy."

"This time, I have hope that we will not fail," Etain said with a smile and finally pulled away. She kept hold of his hand as she led him across the field to the Oak, then past it to where Lyall and Elianne were arranged in the grass.

Ailill looked at them, their positioning and relation to the Oak. It reminded him of the points on a clock. There was enough space between them, however, that he realized the assailant was not poisoning them in a particular order. Well, not in the order they were meant to stand around the Oak, anyway. So either that bore no significance, or the attacker did not know the right order.

Of course, it would not be so simple. "It never occurred to me there was a specific place we each must stand, though it should have."

Etain smiled at him, then looked out over the Sanctuary. "We do not know if they must stand in the same order for the ceremony every time, but it is best not to change tradition, yes? We have no records of it, of course, but when we are in here we can sense who is meant to stand where. Please, see if they can tell you anything. You will not hurt them; the Sanctuary keeps them safe."

Nodding, Ailill knelt down beside Elianne. The flowering vines that covered her pulled away at his touch, though they continued to cling loosely to her arms and legs. "I do not suppose, majesty, that you were able to sense if they were in pain when it happened?"

"I felt no residue of suffering," Etain said. "Unfortunately, I cannot feel anything. The poison does not merely shut down their bodies, it shuts down their minds. I feel very little from them; they are so deeply asleep I can read no hint of what happened in the moments the poison took them."

Ailill nodded and rose, then went to examine Lyall as well. Frustratingly, they merely looked asleep. The only possible way he would know if it was Vaklov's poison was if they died and their blood turned black.

Standing, he watched as the vines covered Lyall once more. "Do you think they will ever wake, majesty?"

"I do not know," Etain said softly, curling around him again. She smelled of sunshine and honeysuckle, body warm where it pressed against his. "Let us hope so."

Ailill frowned, turned his head, and found himself completely captured by those swirling, colorful eyes at such proximity. He forgot what he was going to ask, completely absorbed by his Faerie Queen. "Majesty ... "