I stand frozen like a statue, as still as everyone else, while the Praetorian tries to clear Eyo’s airway. He sticks his fingers into the senator’s mouth and pounds on his chest. But in seconds, the sounds of struggle fade, and both men go quiet.
The Praetorian sits back on his knees. Senator Eyo lies stiffly on the ground. The air is knocked from my lungs as my hands and face go numb.
“Senator Eyo is dead,” he says.
XXIV.
Torren
Romlock poisoning has distinct hallmarks, and Eyo has all of them, from the way he collapsed to the purple marks now spidering on his cheeks and his engorged tongue.
Someone poisoned him, but who?
I stay next to the body as my suspicions immediately turn to Terrance. He and Eyo were both being blackmailed by Verhardt with payments recorded by Antinous and now, Terrance is the sole survivor.
The eldest senator looks shaken, collapsing into his chair, his eyes wide. It’s either an impressive acting performance or it’s genuine shock, because the color has left his lips and cheeks, giving him a ghastly appearance.
“What just happened?” Senator Medea asks. Her hands shake, her jewels shimmering. She pats her silver-streaked hair and takes a deep breath as she looks around. Her concern seems genuine, but I can’t rule out that it could all be for show.
“Did he have a stroke?” Senator Foreau asks, blinking rapidly. He’s standing near me, gripping his toga in his fists as he looks down at Eyo. The sky is gray with snow, but the lights of the room reflect off his bald head.
“Or a fit of some kind?” Paolo nervously brushes his wavy hair away from his forehead and spins his ring.
“It looks like poison,” Senator Suh says.
He is one of the only people in the room who is completely calm right now as he stays seated in his chair. Suh was a general before he became a senator, and he saw death regularly under the old king, but is his placid demeanor just because of the legions?
Terrance shakes his head, his hands still trembling. “It couldn’t be poison. He looked…he looked like my son Emilius when he died of an allergic fit. It must have been allergies.”
Terrance’s eldest son died in his thirties. From my understanding, he was a rising star who choked at a dinner party thrown by Verhardt. Medea and Suh were also at the soiree during the celebration of the ten-year founding of the republic. Many tried to assist Emilius, but he died in his father’s arms.
The death, of course, was never ruled as anything other than a tragic accident—an unknown allergy—but it’s more than a coincidence if they died in the same manner.
Medea looks from Suh to Terrance to Eyo’s body.
“Praetorian, what happened here?” she asks.
“He might have died of an allergy of some kind, but I can’t rule out foul play,” I say.
It was certainly not an allergy, but I must tread carefully. Someone was bold enough to act in the daylight, to murder a senator in front of us all. Poisoning is clever, as it is notoriously difficult to trace. Romlock takes between fifteen minutes to an hour to kill a grown man, depending on the dosage and the victim’s health. Eyo could have been poisoned by anyone in here or even before he came down for breakfast. Yet given the acuity of his death, it was likely done here.
“Close the doors, Commander,” I order. “No one comes or goes from this room.”
Julian rubs his knuckles, his old worried habit, but he shuts the doors. The sentries had arrived in the hall.
Now that I’ve said that it could be foul play, the senators have the good sense to look shaken. They laughed at Antinous’s death, and none seemed fazed by Verhardt’s grisly murder, but this is different. This was one of their own dying in front of them.
“Praetorian, are you saying you believe someone in this palace may have…poisoned him?” Paolo asks, his mouth agape.
“Under your watch?” Medea adds.
I’m certain of it. Eyo didn’t have any known intolerances, and there was nothing in his airway, but if I tell them that, I admit to failing to keep Eyo safe. But it’s notable that Medea is pointing out my responsibility.
“You also mentioned allergic fits,” Foreau says before I can reply. “Isn’t it possible he had a condition we weren’t privy to?”
I take in Foreau’s smooth brow and steady voice. He, like Suh, is calm considering the death of his ally.
I bite my tongue. “It’s certainly possible, as Terrance said. I will need his body examined by a healer to be certain. Of course, that will prove difficult with this storm.”
