Chapter 86

When they got back to the estate, the staff had clearly already pieced together what was happening — the lights were blazing.

The moment Pons saw Lyssel and Iberin walking through the entrance, he gripped both hands together and sank straight to the floor.

It wasn't just Pons.

Ether came sobbing at a run.

"Hguh-hgh. M-mommy, hk."

His mom and dad had vanished out of nowhere, and the shock had him hiccuping through his tears.

Iberin pulled him close with a pained look and patted his back.

Rozelia and Kal were already streaked with tears too.

"It's okay, mommy's okay."

She gathered the children into her arms and soothed them.

She was saying it for herself too.

It's okay.

She repeated it like a mantra, then asked,

"Did anyone get hurt?"

Pons's expression darkened as he bowed his head.

"Some of the knights are in critical condition. We think it's poison."

"Ah…."

Lyssel's face twisted too.

It hadn't been a long time, but these were people who'd lived alongside them.

"We'll try to source an antidote, but some of them may not make it through the night."

Even Iberin and Lyssel hadn't imagined it would go this far.

Both of their faces went bleak, and they exhaled slowly.

"Captain Pigret and Captain Esmore?"

"Captain Esmore was hit by the poison and is being treated. Captain Pigret is pulling things together."

"He's back?"

"Yes. By the time he got there, Moana's hideout was already empty. He must have sensed something had happened and turned back."

Pons had been speaking with worry written across his face — and then his expression turned hard.

"We checked every assassin's body and dealt with them. Fifteen total."

"Good. Well done."

Just the ones who'd chased Lyssel had been ten. Twenty-five assassins, in total, had come to kill the Grand Duchess Lecashe.

"We've cleaned the room, but I think it'd be better if you slept somewhere else tonight."

The blood hadn't only sprayed the floor, and the smell still lingered.

The thought of sleeping in the room where it had happened didn't sit right with Lyssel or Iberin either, so they nodded.

And it was right as they were stepping inside.

Whssh—

As if he'd been waiting for Iberin all along, an assassin appeared out of thin air and scattered poison.

"Oh."

The black mist drifted down through the air like fog.

Iberin sucked in a sharp breath on reflex.

The instant Lyssel saw it, he shouted.

"No!"

A faint smile pulled at the assassin's mouth.

Lyssel cut him down before that smile could fade from his eyes, of course — but Iberin had already breathed the poison in.

"No! Don't breathe!"

Iberin reacted to Lyssel's shout and slapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late.

Her vision started to blur.

Her body crumpled, and Lyssel screamed her name like the sound was being torn out of him.

---

The moment Iberin collapsed, the Lecashe estate went on emergency footing.

They rushed her to her bedroom and got the family doctor in, but nothing could lift the dread that hung over the place.

"Hgh…"

Rozelia barely managed to hold her tears back as she kept watch.

So did Kal.

He was the oldest, so he was trying for some kind of composure, but he couldn't get the fear out of his eyes completely.

Ether had cried until he was raw, and Rotte had finally taken him out for a while in her arms.

He hadn't wanted to leave Iberin's side, but he'd cried himself past the point where they could keep him there.

Because Iberin had reacted right away, the amount of poison she'd taken in was small.

Even so, her whole body was going ice-cold.

Her fingertips were turning purple.

"Can you tell what kind of poison it is?"

If it was poison, knowing the variety meant they could deal with it.

Provided there was an antidote.

"With the color spreading from the fingertips, it looks like miyeolcho."

"Miyeolcho?"

"Yes. The name doesn't sound like much…"

The doctor paused, choosing his words.

"But what?"

"If she doesn't get the antidote within an hour, she dies. Even if she survives, the aftereffects will be severe."

"Is the antidote easy to get?"

Miyeolcho leaves were dangerously similar to lokan tea leaves, which commoners drank as a daily brew — mistaking the two and getting poisoned was common.

The antidote was also tricky to make, so commoner deaths from it weren't unusual.

The one silver lining was that, because incidents kept happening with that particular leaf, most physicians kept the antidote on hand.

"The antidote… I can make it, but not within the hour."

If the rule hadn't been that you had to take it within the hour, dying from it wouldn't even be a thing…

"…Then."

"There's nothing for it but to track some down…"

It was easy to source, hard to make — that was the nature of this antidote.

In Gelta, where the uprising had ransacked every shop, finding any would be tough.

Count Elton and Marquis Bilson were both too far — well over an hour away.

The doctor bit his lip; Lyssel went pale with despair. But he had no intention of sitting on his hands either.

"I'll find some. Territories near Gelta might be able to help."

And Iberin wasn't the only one who'd been poisoned.

Some of the knights from other houses who'd come to help Lecashe had been hit too.

He had to save them.

Lyssel shoved himself up from his seat and broke into a run.

---

Lyssel ran fast.

He was practically flying — the slower-eyed barely registered more than something just went past.

He was a being who could move demonic energy at will.

Others treated it as something filthy, but to Lyssel — born carrying it — it was no different from holy power.

A thing that, used well, was a tool.

Of course, the same demonic energy had pulled the lives of the Lecashe family into hell, but that was another matter.

Running like that, Lyssel made for the apothecary nearest to Gelta.

It was deep into the night and nobody was about, but he hammered on the door and called out.

It wasn't long before the door opened and a doctor, drowsy with sleep, looked out.

"Who's at this hour?"

"I need the miyeolcho antidote."

Thrown by the abrupt demand, the doctor shook his head a beat later.

"Don't have any."

"What?"

"I said, I don't have any."

The family doctor had said apothecaries kept that antidote on hand as a matter of course, because so many commoners got it wrong with miyeolcho.

In some territories, the lord himself oversaw the stockpile.

And he didn't have any?

"Someone bought every bit of it a little while ago."

"Someone bought all of it? You had some?"

"That's why I don't have any left."

So the assassins' guild had deliberately bought the stocks out.

He should have caught it sooner — the moment he was told the antidote was easy to source, something had felt off.

The window was an hour from the moment it hit you.

What did it do to someone, in the middle of despair, to have the last faint ember of hope snuffed out too?

Made it worse.

Lyssel ground his teeth.

"You really don't have any?"

"Sorry to say it, sir."

The doctor genuinely looked grieved.

"Anywhere else that might have any?"

"I'm the only physician in this territory. Try the next one over."

If Lyssel ran flat-out, he could reach it.

But if they'd already gotten to that one too?

It'd be too late.

"It's bad, isn't it."

"Yes. Yes. You know they have to drink it within the hour."

"Hh. Truth is, with whoever's been trying to wipe miyeolcho antidote off the map lately buying it all up, I've quietly set a few bottles aside for when our own residents fall sick…"

The doctor said it with hesitation.

Lyssel's eyes flashed.

"I'll pay anything!"

"It's fine. I didn't become a physician to play games with people's lives for money."

The doctor told him to wait a moment and came back with the antidote.

"If only one person's been poisoned, one bottle would do."

"Give me all of it!"

"You had tea together or something?"

"Yes. Yes."

It was actually an assassin's poison, but he didn't need to spell that out, so he played along.

The doctor, with a what can you do expression, handed over every bottle.

He waved off the money and told him to go, quickly.

"I won't forget this."

Lyssel said it like he might actually start crying, and shoved off into the dark.

It was dark enough that the doctor hadn't been able to make out his hair or eye color — he'd taken him for a traveler from some distance off.

But the moment after the thank-you, the figure simply vanished, and the doctor was left blinking, looking like a man who'd seen a ghost.

---

After Lyssel left to find the antidote, the people he'd left behind at the estate threw themselves into whatever they could do.

It was a hopeless situation, but the doctor figured they had to try whatever they could. He worked to slow the poison from spreading as much as possible.

"Ugh."

She hadn't taken in much of the poison, so there was still hope.

The doctor kept telling himself we can do this as he watched Iberin's condition and dosed her with medicine every few minutes.

Each dose eased her color a little, but only for that moment.

Pons kept blotting her cold sweat and rubbing her freezing hands and feet, and Rotte soothed the children.

Then the children spoke up first, saying they wanted to help too.

Iberin wasn't the only one hurt.

Rotte was the head housekeeper — she couldn't stay pinned to them.

"Hh… haa…"

Iberin's fever seemed to climb; she sweated and moaned.

But her hands and feet just kept going colder.

She wanted to stop the second hand sweeping forward, but couldn't, and the time kept slipping past.

Everyone waited for Lyssel, sick with worry.

"How is Captain Esmore…"

"He's slipping in and out of consciousness."

The throwing blade Esmore had taken had been coated with miyeolcho too, and his condition was unstable.

The one thing on his side was that, as a knight, Esmore could exert some control over the spread of the poison through his own body.

The other knights could too, but the weaker among them were hanging by a thread.

They'd been poisoned earlier than Iberin had.

"They can hold on a little longer, right?"

"They will."

"Did you reach the lord—"

"Just sent word."

Captain Pigret stared out into the dark, his face drawn.

A moment later, they saw Lyssel coming back at a run, leaping over the castle wall.

Captain Pigret and Pons, who'd been waiting, both shot to their feet.

"He's — he's back!"