MPNS Ch 95

Chapter 95

In Ossinis’s noble society, the day after a ball never began before noon. Attendants, knowing their masters returned home drunk at deep dawn, took care not to wake them.

Barring urgent matters, nobles of the capital, Rasiris, breakfasted in bed, then washed and dressed with a maid’s help. Most believed this morning would be no different—until the thunderclap of news.

“Count Gaspar…”

“In the prison—”

“Dead?!”

The nobles of the capital cried out in a dozen registers. Last night had already been a spectacle: “that” Nikiel appearing partnered with Duke Lucian Turun, and Raymond—thought to despise him—stepping forth to urge the king to punish Count Gaspar.

For one who had haunted balls and revels with wine and women to vanish last summer in sudden seclusion, rumored deathly ill—only to stand shoulder to shoulder with Raymond and Lucian at a ball—was strange indeed.

And now, another shock: Count Gaspar, implicated by circumstantial proof in attempting to dose Nikiel, was dead by morning—his body burned, as if seared by flame.

Minervina ran straight to Raymond with the news. In former days he would have slept late from the party’s aftereffects, yet he was up early, in a light tunic, taking tea; she barely nodded greeting before she began.

“Gaspar is dead. Cause of death: burns. They say he burned to death in sunlight—how is that possible?”

“What…?”

Cup to lips, sunk in thought, Raymond snapped upright at Minervina’s words. Burned to death by sunlight? What could that even mean? No matter how constitutionally sun-sensitive a man might be—like Lucian—no shaft of light through a prison window could burn one to death.

Minervina, understanding his incredulity, nodded and went on.

“But it is fact.”

Raymond rubbed the end of his brow between thumb and middle finger, then asked, as if remembering something,

“The window of the cell to which Gaspar was moved—how large?”

Minervina sighed shortly, as if expecting the question.

“No wider than a child’s head. For such a beam to kill a grown man is absurd.”

Even if there truly existed men who burned in sun, the windows, made minuscule to prevent escape, admitted too little light to be fatal. In every way, it defied reason.

Yet by Minervina’s account, at dawn’s first light, Gaspar was struck by the sun’s beam and burned where he lay. The guard, discovering this, rushed in with sand to smother the fire; it would not go out, and the count soon died.

Magic was first suspected, but officials of the Ministry of Magic, arriving in haste, reported no mana flow sufficient to kill. So soon after a blaze, traces of mana should have lingered; the scene was clean.

Listening, Raymond tapped the porcelain teacup resting on the desk with his forefinger. It was bone-mixed, clear and resonant—a luxury from the eastern continent. He watched it sing and sank into thought.

“The dungeon is too harsh for one not yet condemned. I love my people.”

He considered how the king had come to that decree. No matter how he looked, Raphael’s hand showed. And last night, had Raphael not wandered the garden like a man deranged, searching for Nikiel who had run out after Yullan?

Probing little holes under the bushes—places where only a child could hide—was irksome to recall. Raymond summoned a servant and announced he would dress to go out.

“You plan to go at once? Surprising; thought you loathed trouble.”

As the butler handed him a frock coat and Raymond donned it without pause, Minervina sounded taken aback. Raymond smiled with a slight knit to his brow—as if events moved regardless of his will, and he would not bother resisting. It puzzled his adjutant. He said,

“One must be worth the price of being called by name. The other beast-cubs are making efforts… and it seems I’m the last of them. Or is the dog the latest?”

Minervina clicked her tongue; she half-understood him—and smiled.

“Then make more effort. You returned last night without even dancing.”

“Quiet. Let’s go.”

Waving off the nagging, Raymond left the study. They set out for the palace.

—

Though the capital’s nobles rose late after balls, Nikiel was different. He had risen early, taken a morning walk, and enjoyed Chef Bendy’s nutritionally balanced special breakfast.

“At the ball, no time to eat between dances… should have at least told Lucian to come in for noodles.”

Having seen Nikiel to the prince’s palace, Lucian had surely gone hungry too. Perhaps it would have been better to bring him in for a late-night bite.

“No—that would only spark talk of indiscretion if seen.”

Ears and eyes abounded within the palace. One could not know how or where rumor of himself and Lucian might spread; perhaps restraint had been wise. Nikiel lunged forward. Three sets of forty-five—his chosen number—lit his thighs on fire, a tearing burn he relished, thinking himself better today than yesterday.

Then Paul—who never approached his “beloved” exercise contraptions for their brutal look—came running, breathless, with news of Count Gaspar’s death.

“Dead—truly? Do people just drop dead in this country…?”

“The rumor’s already swept the capital. Gaspar’s house demands the sovereign return their lord’s body—no telling what will come.”

Since he died before trial, Gaspar was, strictly, no criminal. The circumstantial evidence was ample, but he had no chance to defend himself; the judges of Ossinis could no longer question him.

Prisoners of the royal cells were often presumed guilty without trial, but this case was too ambiguous. The king himself had brushed it aside as “not much”—postpone till after the ball. Now Nikiel would wear a new stigma: that some hapless noble had died on his account, even as he had nearly been the victim.

“On the eve of the Hunt, a death—an ill omen…”

“They whisper that?”

Setting down the copper bar, Nikiel’s face fell. It seemed no effort could easily shed his infamy. He sighed and told Paul to ready a visit to the main palace.

Distasteful as it was, better to speak to the king directly. From his face last night, the man likely wished to sweep it all away as “Nikiel’s conduct again.” Better to set out his own case.

Paul, worried, helped at once. Nikiel asked for the neatest dress; Paul brought a deep-blue frock coat, tastefully edged with silver thread.

Ready, Nikiel left the prince’s palace, climbed into his waiting carriage, and rapped the wall. The coachman flicked the whip; the carriage set off toward the main palace.

“—Gh!”

A stabbing pain lanced the nape of his neck. The careful coiffure Paul had set was mussed in an instant. His vision flashed white. Then, like a revelation, a rush of data flooded his mind.

They were not new—rather, conclusions one might reach after studying the past months’ research on monsters:

Why the insect-type Nixie suddenly abandoned its nest alongside the queen; why the plant-type poison-bearer, Sanphas, began to secrete harmless sap; how the great bird-monster, Spitz, forsook warm habitat and flew north, snatching two plow-oxen from a farmstead on the way.

Scattered notes coalesced into an algorithm in Nikiel’s head. His eyes flew wide. He saw what it meant.

“Monster wave…”

He murmured without thinking—just as the carriage squealed to a halt before the main palace.