The study fell silent.
The royal physician quickly added, “It is not a poison that will take his life.”
“Death is not measured only by the stopping of a heartbeat,” Pernoa replied, his voice cold as stone.
For the head of a noble house to lose the capacity to function was no different from death. If the damage stopped there, it would almost be mercy.
Losing even one of the senses could plunge a person into irreversible despair. To lose all of them was to be rendered a hollow shell of a human being. Now he understood, with grim clarity, why this particular poison had so often been favored against aging men of power.
Riersha’s heart thudded with anxious urgency.
Arcmund had been poisoned. Who in the world would have done such a thing?
“How does the poisoning typically occur?” Pernoa asked.
“Ingestion is the most common route. Through food.”
The poison was colorless and odorless, so transmission through scent or air was nearly impossible.
The culprit is still inside the duchy. They have to be.
Riersha pressed her lower lip between her teeth.
How could they catch whoever was responsible? The moment they began searching, the culprit would vanish into the shadows.
But catching the perpetrator was not the most pressing matter right now.
“What is the treatment?”
“That is… the difficulty—”
“There isn’t one?”
When the royal physician hesitated, Pernoa repeated the question, his tone sharpening.
“The plant itself is extraordinarily rare, and establishments that handle it are nearly nonexistent across the entire continent. I cannot say with certainty whether an antidote could even be obtained.”
“But an antidote does exist.”
That was enough, for the moment. Knowing a solution existed was better than knowing there was none at all.
Yet the physician’s expression remained shadowed with unease.
“Is there still something else?” Arcmund asked, his gaze settling on the man.
The royal physician looked as though he had personally committed some terrible wrong, though none of this was his fault. His discomfort was plain—as if delivering this news was itself an act of transgression.
“In order to prepare the antidote, the same poisonous plant is required. Obtaining it would not be difficult for the Arachrene family, but…”
The true obstacle was the method of preparation itself.
The plant had been prohibited throughout the Declair Empire for many long years, and knowledge of how to properly synthesize the antidote had faded along with it. However, the physician did know of one noble house that retained the means to do so without question.
The house regarded as the foremost authority on medicine in the entire empire.
“…I would suggest seeking the assistance of Duke Kineart’s household.”
The physician’s reasoning was sound enough. Kineart’s family would almost certainly have the antidote in their possession.
“Duke Kineart’s household,” Pernoa repeated.
Then, without warning, he let out a quiet, hollow laugh.
A chill crept through the air around him as his dark magical energy began to gather and press against the room. His crimson eyes grew cold, still, and terribly calm.
“You are suggesting we appeal to the most likely suspect?”
One year.
That was how long Arcmund had been experiencing symptoms.
Over such a span of time, only one house in the empire could have secretly and consistently supplied this particular poison: the house of Duke Kineart.
Though the plant was prohibited across the empire, exceptions always existed for those with enough power and privilege. Kineart’s family held a special dispensation that permitted them to handle even banned toxic substances.
“Do you mean to say… that the Kineart household is truly behind something this monstrous?”
“It is difficult to believe Duke Berun Kineart orchestrated this personally.”
The current duke, Berun Kineart, was an impulsive man by nature, but also a calculating one. He would never set into motion something so easily traceable back to him.
That said, dismissing any connection to the Kineart house entirely was equally difficult.
Pernoa’s crimson eyes narrowed to a fine edge.
“There is one woman, however, who would be precisely mad enough to do this.”
Karla Declair.
The empress. The woman who had the Kineart ducal house at her back.
The royal physician went pale as chalk, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. He had stumbled upon information far beyond what he had ever expected to hear, and now his eyes simply drifted in stunned silence.
After a long moment, he spoke in a voice so small it was barely a breath.
“I… um…”
“What is it?”
“There is one more option, though I am uncertain it would be viable…”
⁂
Isierd stood at the window, watching a fine drizzle begin to fall.
Riersha had been quiet lately.
There had been a time when she came to see him every single day. Now it was as if none of that had ever happened—not so much as a word.
What a willful child.
He was still staring at nothing in particular beyond the glass when, without warning, his eyes flew wide open and he rose abruptly to his feet.
“Where are you going, my lord?”
“Outside.”
As Isierd left his room, one of the attendants stationed nearby fell into step behind him. The Arachrene household had extended him every courtesy, but each and every person within these walls served as Pernoa’s eyes and ears.
“It is raining outside. You may catch cold—it would be best if you returned inside—”
Isierd ignored the attendant trying to stop him and kept walking.
Things that had never bothered him before felt grating today, for reasons he couldn’t quite name.
When he reached the entrance of the estate and stepped outside, he spotted Riersha approaching from not far away.
“Riersha—!”
He called out to her and then stopped, his whole body going stiff.
“Isierd…”
Riersha rushed toward him, and before he could react, she grabbed his hand and held it tight.
The sudden closeness startled him, and he stepped back once to find his footing.
“Isierd.”
“…Riersha?”
“Hewp me.”
Help me with what?
He tilted his head at her, at the way she had come asking for help without a single word of explanation.
Where she gripped his hand, it ached. He shifted slightly to pull free, and Riersha shook her head frantically.
He looked down at her for a quiet moment, then asked, “What do you need me to help with?”
⁂
“There is one more option.”
“Tell me.”
“Purifying the poison with holy power.”
Holy power.
The sacred force said to run in the blood of those descended from the Declair imperial line.
Of course, not every member of that lineage was born with it. Even those who carried divine blessing varied greatly in the degree of power they possessed.
But in the moment those words left the physician’s mouth, Isierd came into Riersha’s mind at once.
I need to ask Isierd to purify the poison!
Even if he carried only the smallest trace of holy power, it should be enough to cleanse a poison of this nature. Holy power, after all, was known to be capable of purifying even corrupted magical energy.
The thought had barely finished forming before Riersha was already on her way to find him.
But now that she had asked for help, the words simply would not come.
A long silence settled between them.
“If you don’t tell me what it is, I can’t exactly help you,” Isierd said.
“It’s just… the thing is…”
Was she even allowed to say it aloud? That Arcmund had been poisoned?
Riersha hesitated, her expression caught between urgency and uncertainty.
Then, after a moment, Isierd spoke first.
“You need holy power, don’t you?”
“…How did you know?”
Riersha looked up at him in surprise. Isierd gave a small shrug, as if the answer were obvious.
“It’s the only thing you don’t have and I do.”
Beyond that, any other kind of help would have been handled by the Arachrene household already. There would have been no reason to come to him.
Riersha nodded slowly in agreement.
“That’s wight. I need your holy power, Isierd.”
“You can’t tell me the specifics of why?”
“…No.”
Her voice shrank to barely a whisper.
Even she found it absurd when she thought about it. She had come asking for help, and yet she couldn’t offer any real explanation.
If I were in his place, I would have been upset by that.
The grip she had been pressing into his hand slowly began to loosen.
And then, astonishingly, an answer came from Isierd that she had not expected.
“Alright.”
“…Hm? What did you just say?”
“I’ll help you.”
Riersha stared at him, mouth falling open.
Before she could lose her nerve, she seized his hand again with both of hers, her grip fierce and desperate.
“…C-can you put holy power into an object? Like, store it?”
“I’ve never tried. But I think I probably can.”
Goodness.
Riersha could hardly believe it.
To think she could obtain holy power this easily.
She had honestly not expected Isierd to be able to wield it with any real control. But when she stopped to think about it—the people of the Arachrene family weren’t born with perfect command of their magic either, and yet they all learned to harness it naturally over time.
Of course Isierd could do the same with the holy power he had been born with.
“Isierd, you’re the best!”
“…”
“You really are! The absolute best!”
Riersha beamed, her whole face lighting up with pure delight. Isierd flinched slightly at the brightness of it. Their clasped hands swung gently up and down between them.
“…So how exactly do I put the holy power into something?”
“Wait right here! I’ll go get a Serinel right away! And don’t you dare change your mind!”
A Serinel.
The image of a brilliant, glittering gemstone flashed through Riersha’s mind.
With that, she would be able to safely store Isierd’s holy power and bring it to Arcmund. She was sure of it.
