Chapter Eighty-Four: Shadow Reading

Osmund surged through the doorway, heedless of anything. A hard grip closed around his arm, which he noticed only because it stopped his forward momentum. “Stay outside,” barked a voice. “Our sovereign’s orders.”

“Let go of him, he’s one of ours!”

Sweet, wonderful, blessed Sakina. Osmund fell out of the man’s grip and took a dizzying step towards her. “Is he—?”

“He’s alright,” she breathed, returning Osmund’s seeking embrace.

“Is he hurt?” The words kept tumbling. “Where is he?”

“He’s alright!” Sakina repeated. Her face was ashen. “Calm down. Let them do their work.”

Osmund couldn’t see him, but now he heard Cemil’s voice. There was a crowd gathered in the center of the room. Somewhere in that mass, Cemil sounded haggard, but calm. Steady.

Without warning, Osmund burst into tears.

Sakina guided him to the wall and absently patted him. No one paid any mind to them at all. “Yücel is…?” he finally managed.

“I don’t know,” Sakina replied, not hiding her outlook. He saw that she was crying, too. “It doesn’t seem good, Osmund.”

“W-what happened? Who did this?”

Before Sakina could answer his question, they heard a sound that bordered on a laugh, albeit a surprised one. Someone sighed. The tension at once seemed to break. And Cemil, sweaty, tired, and beautifully alive and whole, stepped out of the crowd towards them.

“We think he’ll live,” said Cemil.

Osmund and Sakina tackled him nearly in unison. He enveloped them both in his arms and held them close. “They’re still tending to him,” he said quietly. “But the worst is over. He’s conscious, and breathing on his own. We don’t know what the poison will do to him in the long term.”

“Poison?” Osmund drew back in horror. “Someone tried to poison you?”

“Oh, to think if you had both eaten,” Sakina nearly wept. “Cemil, no one would have even known!”

“It’s lucky then that I don’t like figs, as you well know,” Cemil joked humorlessly. “It’s the only thing he ate that I didn’t.”

Osmund learned more of the story piece by piece. Yücel had invited Cemil to dine with him privately, and the two brothers had retired together, not to be seen again until Cemil had thrown open the door and hollered for help. If he hadn’t intervened immediately with his own healing magic, Yücel would have been beyond saving before the imperial mages could reach them. Cemil didn’t say the last in as many words, but he didn’t deny it when Sakina laid it out as fact.

“This isn’t the bit of ‘theater’ we talked about, is it?”

The three of them turned and saw Emre, frowning, his hair wet as if he’d just stepped from the bath. His expression grew dire when he saw Sakina and Osmund’s tear-stained faces.

They quickly brought him up to speed. Emre paled. “Cemil,” he said, pupils shrinking. “I’m going to be blamed for this.”

“If any person, including my father, utters a word against your innocence, I’ll challenge him to a duel myself,” Cemil said fiercely. “Will you help me get to the truth of what happened here?”

Emre nodded with equal enthusiasm. “Of course I will,” he swore.

The crowd broke, and they got a brief glimpse of Yücel being conveyed onto a wooden stretcher. His skin was a ghastly color, but his eyes were open and regarding the ceiling. The emperor beside him spoke, and his son attempted something back. Osmund felt a strange sympathy for the old man. He did seem to dote on at least one of his children.

The emperor straightened and stood once his fifth son was removed from sight. His face was fury, but his voice was eerily calm. “I’ll see heads roll for this before the night is done,” he promised his audience. “No one leaves or sleeps until we have the traitor’s blood. Emre.”

Emre jumped, and Cemil took a step in front of his brother protectively, but then the emperor continued, “Let’s have our suspects. Determine who was in here, and why.”

Osmund had learned from his tutor in Valcrest Castle why dark mages made such good spymasters—besides the obvious benefit of being able to cloak their presence with a thought. The mastery of illusions required a heightened awareness of the human mind, and of the “patterns” it sent out into the world, a concept that was apparently quite difficult to describe to those without the innate sense for it. The most powerful illusionists could even determine if, and when, a certain person had entered or exited a room just by the vague traces of energy they had left behind.

Some called this “shadow reading”.

Emre exchanged a glance with Cemil, and nodded in assent. The small man considered the room with a look of deep concentration, eyes sliding over invisible figures. He focused on the doorway through which they’d come. Then the hall branching out from this room, which led to the attached second kitchen and to the parlor with the open door—where the brothers had eaten. “In the last hour, besides Cemil and Yücel,” Emre began, “I see Vasiliy. He’s hard to mistake. He was here.”

Vasiliy—the broad and cantankerous old Videlari man who was apparently the emperor’s longtime friend—made an indignant noise. “My rooms are just upstairs,” he snorted. “Don’t I have the right to be here?”

The emperor gave him a shrewd look. “No one’s accused you of anything, my friend,” he said, but his voice lacked warmth. “Well, who else?”

“Mirhan and I were here too,” Sakina volunteered quickly. The fox-eyed man in question had at some point drifted to her side. “We were on the couch—this one.”

“We did see Vasiliy descending the stairs and headed into the kitchen,” Mirhan put in. “Otherwise, I’m afraid we were quite occupied in conversation. Unless Lady Sakina wishes to contradict me, we didn’t hear or see anything until Cemil called for help.”

“I think we can rule them out,” said Cemil impatiently, as Vasiliy continued huffing in indignation. “And?”

“Serving girls.” Emre looked vaguely around. “I don’t see them in here.”

The emperor huffed impatiently and made a gesture. “Someone bring the girls!”

Within a minute, four terrified young women were huddled against the wall, holding back their tears as they awaited the emperor’s judgment. Osmund knew one of them might be responsible for the attempt on Cemil’s life. Still, they looked wretched, and his heart moved in pity.

Emre gave the girls a long look. “These two are suspects,” he decided. “Let the others go.”

Cemil cleared his throat. “Could the figs have been poisoned earlier?” he speculated with a frown. “Limiting ourselves to who was here recently may be casting too small a net.”

It was Cemil’s father the emperor that Emre looked to now. “I assume the two you’ve got in the kitchen right now are checking to see if the rest of the store is affected,” he intoned.

The emperor darkly chuckled. “You see them from here? I knew you were powerful.”

As if on cue, a man and a woman—the latter wearing the illusionists’ cowl over the garb of the imperial mages—emerged from the hallway. “The tampering happened in the kitchen,” the woman confirmed. “We have our suspects right here, my sovereign.”

The emperor stared down the two girls. “Give up your co-conspirator,” he commanded. “Do it now, painlessly, or we shall turn to other methods.”

One of the girls trembled and began pleading for mercy, swearing on ten generations of her ancestors that she knew nothing, that she was innocent. The other wept. And raised a violently shaking arm to point across the room. As one, everyone turned to look.

She was pointing to Vasiliy.

The big old man immediately purpled, a shocking contrast to his head of flyaway white hair. “What’s the meaning of this?!” he raged. “It’s a lie!”

Cemil approached the girl and said, gentle but firm, “You’re sure? Once this tale is told, there’s no taking it back.”

“It was him!” she wept. She had a distinctive accent. “He threaten my family if I don’t obey him! He say dirty Meskato has no business marrying proud princess of Videl!”

“You’re from Videl too,” said Cemil, realizing.

She nodded furiously. “He’s from—baron’s family,” she accused. “He’s powerful man!”

The ever-opinionated Vasiliy experienced a rare, but brief, moment of speechlessness. He railed against the girl in what must be Videlari before addressing the rest in Meskato. “I won’t be slandered by a deceitful serving girl!” he declared. And he jabbed a finger in Mirhan’s direction, sending all eyes in the room traveling again. “This man is a schemer, Alemşah!” Vasiliy cried to the emperor. “I have seen him with my own eyes whispering with the servants!”

Mirhan’s face didn’t change. He looked at Vasiliy like the old fellow was a pitiable street mutt, beneath scorn or contempt. “I’m common-born, sir,” he said evenly. “I don’t grudge servants for their station in life. I’ll speak to those I please.”

The emperor held up a hand. “Do you have anything besides these trivial accusations?” he asked of Vasiliy. His patience for stories was clearly wearing thin.

“Everyone knows he’s found his way into more beds than a camp whore!” the old man went on ranting, spit flying. “Someone in this court has filled his head with treachery!”

“Sometimes sex is just sex, my Lord Vasily,” said Mirhan mildly, “or shall we assign more meaning to it? Perhaps your wife at home might like to know.”

Vasiliy’s face grew purpler still. A cough like a stifled laugh sounded from somewhere in the crowd.

“Lord Vasiliy,” said Cemil darkly. “As my friend and ally, Mirhan would stand to gain nothing from poisoning me. Do not insult us both.”

Any other man would have begged forgiveness from his social better. But Lord Vasiliy would not compromise his pride. “So shall I be put to death for insulting a prince, now?” the man spat, certainly no coward, at least. He turned to Cemil’s father. “Alemşah, this is a circus. I’ve known you since before your eldest was born.”

The emperor’s face was hard. He turned to the side and asked in an almost casual voice, “Did you try to kill Cemil, sweet one?” He was addressing Mirhan.

“No, my sovereign,” said Mirhan in reply.

Next, the emperor said to Emre and his own illusionist: “There’s no traces of anyone else?”

“No, my sovereign,” said the court mage.

“There isn’t,” confirmed Emre.

Finally, to the serving girl: “You swear before the all-seeing Glimpse Eternal that Lord Vasiliy has compelled you in this evil matter?”

The girl nodded, and took a great sniff. “I swear it. He wanted Prince Cemil dead.”

But it wasn’t Cemil who ate, was it? Osmund couldn’t help thinking. It was Yücel. It was as if everyone had already forgotten, even the emperor. 

The sovereign sighed bitterly. “To have to spill blood in such a place,” he complained. “And of an old friend turned traitor. Let’s have it done.”

Vasiliy rattled off invectives at the soldiers who rushed forward to restrain him. He struggled and flailed in place, managing to cast off one of his captors, but was soon overpowered and hauled out the doorway. Osmund watched the spectacle helplessly.

“My sovereign, the girl,” he heard Mirhan say. “Lord Vasiliy used foul means against her.”

“We cannot overlook this,” growled the emperor in a most foul temper. “She will die.”

“Let us at least ensure shame does not befall her family. It would be too cruel.”

“Very well, since you were dragged into it. We will grant her a clean and swift end.”

The rest was a repeat of the scene from the courtyard at the governor’s mansion. Attendants laid out a red mat, and and an executioner’s block was laid upon it. The girl went first. A blue-clothed man in grim raiment drew the gigantic bladeless hilt of his sword, which grew with a icy crystal sheen into a sharp, glistening edge. The thing was done fast. Osmund didn’t even have a chance to look away before her blood spattered.

Vasiliy was thrust upon the block next. “Cemil needs me!” he ranted. “He has much to learn about our court! The barons will eat him alive!”

Osmund heard Sakina beside him make a derisive sound at that.

The emperor gestured. The blade came down.

Side by side on the mat, two unlike bodies. The heads were placed in a bag. The rest was rolled into the carpet and carted away. Like they’d never been there at all.

Mirhan approached Cemil’s group. “Emre, our sovereign wants you to leave,” he announced. Emre raised a brow.

“Leave? On his mission?” Cemil clarified.

“Yes. Alone, at once. The timing is perfect. People will naturally speculate about his involvement.”

Mirhan returned to his sovereign’s side, and there was nothing to do after that but exchange a quick, teary farewell. Emre disappeared into the crowd, another casualty of the evening.

“Cemil,” Osmund said oddly, as the three of them turned on heavy feet back to their room.

“Yes?”

“…Does Mirhan know you don’t eat figs?”

Cemil startled at the question—but he didn’t reject it outright, as he had with Lord Vasiliy. Instead he looked to Sakina.

“It’s possible one of us has mentioned it,” she said faintly. “Now, or even back then…”

Cemil was silent awhile. Then he shook his head. “You’re suggesting that Mirhan has some reason to want Yücel dead,” he said in a hush.

“Well,” Osmund began tremblingly, “you promised him a position in your government. He’s invested in your success, and Yücel is, after all, another prince…”

“No,” Cemil said.

“I’m only saying it’s possible.”

“I won’t hear more of this,” the Meskato prince decided. “Mirhan wouldn’t take such a risk for so little reward. Anyway, Sakina was with him. I don’t see how it’s possible that he could have acted without her knowing.”

Sakina had gone very still. “That’s true,” she agreed. “I was with him.” Cemil wasn’t paying attention, and didn’t see how her hands trembled. Or how her brown skin looked suddenly pale.

A large part of Osmund wished he had never said anything at all.