Measured footsteps echoed through the darkness.
Gareth, seated on a bench in the garden while staring into the pond, turned his head toward the corridor.
Varkas, dressed impeccably in the formal uniform of the Imperial Knights, was walking down the long arcade connected to the garden. The sight of him resembled a serpent slowly gliding through deep, black water.
Gareth sometimes wondered why that was.
Pale blond hair the color of faded flax, blue eyes tinged with silver, skin like plaster...
Why did a man composed entirely of colors as dim and faded as old parchment give off such an ominous presence?
Whenever Gareth faced him, a chill always crept down his spine for no reason.
“Your Highness the Crown Prince.”
The man placed a hand over his chest in greeting. Gareth waved a hand irritably.
“Drop the useless formalities.”
Though he belonged to the Imperial Guard, the man would soon inherit the title of Grand Duke Siorcan and govern the eastern territories. He was not someone Gareth could truly treat carelessly.
Yet Gareth jerked his chin at him as if addressing some insignificant subordinate.
“How long are you going to make me look up at you? Sit.”
Despite the rudeness, the man’s expression did not change in the slightest. Neither displeased nor servile, he simply wore the same indifferent face as he sat down upon the marble bench.
The Crown Prince studied those perfectly sculpted features devoid of all humanity.
At first glance, he looked no different from usual, but it was not difficult to tell that he was in a rather foul mood.
Had things not gone well?
Narrowing his eyes, Gareth questioned him sharply.
“What happened with the interrogation? Don’t tell me you failed [N O V E L I G H T] to uncover the people behind it.”
“We learned everything that could be learned.”
The man answered in a flat voice as he loosened the tightly fastened top of his coat with one hand.
“But it will not be the answer Your Highness wishes to hear.”
One of Gareth’s brows arched upward.
“Explain.”
“The substance placed in Her Highness’s wine did not come from the Empress’s Palace.”
“Then where?”
“It was prescribed by an imperial apothecary to a maid serving in the main palace. Apparently, it is not even classified as a poison to begin with. Its only side effects are vomiting and stomach pain if consumed in large quantities at once, so it is not kept under especially strict supervision.”
“So you’re telling me some maid in the main palace suddenly lost her mind and drugged my sister’s goblet?”
The Crown Prince burst into a disbelieving laugh.
But the thick tendons in his neck stood taut. It was a clear sign that Gareth was furious to the core.
Yet Varkas’s gaze upon the flushed and enraged prince remained endlessly dry.
“The maid did not put the drug into the wine herself.”
“Then who the hell did?”
Losing patience, Gareth raised his voice.
“Stop dragging it out and give me the conclusion! If it wasn’t the Empress scheming and it wasn’t a maid acting alone, then who dared tamper with my sister’s drink?”
“The Second Imperial Princess did it.”
At the calm reply, Gareth abruptly fell silent.
“That bitch?”
The Crown Prince’s face twisted savagely.
Whenever he spoke of the Empress, Gareth resembled boiling lava. But whenever he mentioned the bastard daughter the woman had brought into the palace, he looked like a man forced to hold the filthiest thing in the world between his teeth.
A grinding sound escaped his clenched jaw.
“If it’s that lunatic bitch, then of course she’d do something like this. The moment it concerns my sister, jealousy drives her completely insane...”
Even at the vulgar curses fit for gutter thugs, Varkas showed no reaction whatsoever.
Staring hard at the man, Gareth still refused to let go of his suspicions toward the Empress.
“Even so, isn’t it too early to conclude that Senevier... that woman had nothing to do with this? There’s every possibility she incited her daughter...”
“If she had, she would have used a proper deadly poison instead of a childish drug like this.”
Varkas spoke coldly. His pale eyes gleamed faintly in the darkness.
“And if it had been the Empress, she would not have handled the aftermath so sloppily that she got caught.”
Unable to refute him, Gareth shut his mouth.
Having his words interrupted irritated him, but the contempt woven into Varkas’s voice pleased him immensely.