I curl my hands in fists. I can’t stand this a moment longer.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I say. “There are many matters that need my attention as we prepare for tonight.”
“Of course,” her father says. “Thank you, Great One.”
They both bow again, then take each other’s hands as they leave, and I remember finding my fingers woven with Torren’s. He might be the only one who understands what I am feeling. I’m livid at my failure, at the power imbalance throughout Pryor, at the senseless murder and now being thanked. Somehow, I know he’d understand.
I want to see him—it’s startling how strong the urge is to go to him—but unlike Zel’s parents, I will never be able to trust him. I’ll never be able to accept solace from a man who would persecute me to the ends of the world if he really knew me.
I call the chambermaid back into my room. I need to prepare for Zel’s funeral rites.
LXI.
Torren
It’s well into the evening when I return to the barracks with an expensive bottle of sparkling wine and a gold laurel wreath. I set both on the counter. Perhaps Hadrian will take this bottle instead of the vessel. Although given the reason for the award, perhaps I should just smash it in the sink.
“Take the commendation, Tor,” Julian says, again reading my thoughts.
We are both dressed in our finest armor, having been called to the altar of peace an hour ago. This wine was given to me as a gift, along with a laurel wreath for my investigation.
Little could have felt more wrong than accepting the awards from three remaining senators. Foreau was absent; the rest are dead or under arrest.
And I, first and foremost, am the Senate Protector.
“I can’t let this go, Jules,” I say. “Why would they publicly thank me? Verhardt, Eyo, and Antinous are dead. Medea is arrested. Don’t you find it unusual for them to reward me?” I tip the bottle and then leave it on the counter.
Julian’s brow wrinkles. “No. They are pleased with the result—they all got what they wanted.”
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. With Eyo’s body having burned, the Council has decided that no further inquiry is proper. No one will ever be able to say for certain whether it was poison or an allergic fit and, therefore, there was no murder. To them, the only murders to solve were the ones already brought before them—the murder of Verhardt, which we have a suspect for, and the murder of Mirial, who was a commoner, and thus I have done my job. Paolo and Terrance even hinted at my reappointment. No one mentioned finding the diamond ring of the republic in Medea’s possession because it is not enough evidence without testimony.
“Do you not recall? You solved the murders.” Julian smiles.
My friend is also back to being deeply unserious.
I suppose nothing really changes in Pryor.
“Yes, Medea is now suffering the indignity of being confined solely to her city villa instead of her thousand-acre estate in her province.”
Julian parts his hands. “She is under house arrest, Torren. Some houses are grander than others.” Then he sighs. “What is really bothering you? Do I even want to know?”
Terrance and Suh have already floated the idea of Medea paying a sizable tribute to the temple instead of facing any real consequence. Without Kerasea terrifying them, they have returned to their normal indifference. They want all the murders swept under the rug and to move on with their own schemes and ambitions.
But something is off in all of this. I know there is information that would pull everything together and make sense of the timing and the chosen victims. One fact sits right at the edge of my knowledge, but I just can’t reach it.
“Everything.” I crash onto the sofa.
Most of all, Kerasea’s testimony itself gnaws at my mind.
Before we left Jubilee, I returned to the divining room. I wrapped Zel’s body and brought it down, but not before I leaned out the tower window in the direction of the palace. There was no possible way Zel saw Medea’s balcony. Not during the day and especially not at night, which makes that a fabrication. I was going to confront Kerasea, but then I remembered that she never said Zel was her source—that wasmytheory. But if not her…then who?
The other oddity in the room was that the remains of Calais were completely gone. Because Kerasea and Zel sat unburned in the center of an enormous flame, I hadn’t noticed at the time, but there should have been ash and fragments of bone along with teeth. I’ve never known fire to fully consume a body, so what happened to the remains? And how did he wind up with his head sliced off cleanly? There was no weapon in the room aside from a dagger.
I shudder. All of it was too similar to how Verhardt was decapitated, but Kerasea wasn’t responsible for that crime. I’ve already accepted that as true.
Perhaps the answer is simple: she was able to divine that Medea committed the murder from the god of truth. But then why hide it when she showed her power in the throne room? It has to be something else, something she wouldn’t say, but she swore on her god that it was true.
Maybe the thought I had in Jubilee was correct. If she were Elusian…
