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Varrus expected the poisoning to reduce Morwen’thir to accusation and chaos. Instead, each part of his plan has left a record. Debt. Payment. Contaminated stock. An agent’s route. A royal force summoned within the poisoning window.

Evidence is more useful than vengeance.

It must also survive scrutiny from houses eager to protect their own privileges. A private punishment would become another feud between Varrus and Morwen’thir. A public judgment can strip away that excuse. The evidence must be presented in order, each witness confined to what was directly seen, each seal opened before the council.

Varrus will attack Fiona’s race, Nessa’s debt, Joran’s caste, and the loyalty of my guards. He will call every fact a product of my household. That is why the royal captain’s timing matters. It stands outside Morwen’thir’s command and places Varrus at my doors before any honest report could have reached him.

“Convene the Ridge council,” I tell Joran. “Invite a royal representative and an Arbiter-sanctioned witness. Varrus will attend under guard.”

“A duel would be faster,” Joran says.

“A duel would let him call defeat honor. I intend to remove the power that made this possible.”

Fiona meets my gaze. Through the restored connection, I feel restrained approval and lingering exhaustion.

Joran seals the cases again. “When?”

I rise from the chair without assistance. My legs hold. Chaos answers in a controlled thread around my right hand. The cursed scar burns, but it cannot force me down.

“After I am strong enough to stand through his judgment.”

Varrus has not yet faced the council.

This time, I will bring evidence instead of rage.

29

FIONA

Ihave spent days watching Rhysandir reclaim his body by degrees, and I still catch myself counting every breath.

Tonight, he sits beside the bed without assistance, the gray cast long gone from his dark skin. His true color has returned, deep river-stone brown beneath the firelight, and when he flexes his right hand the fingers close cleanly instead of fighting for every fraction of movement. The numiscu is gone.

The old scar at his side is not. It remains exactly what it was before the poisoning, quiet for now but familiar beneath my hand when I check it.

Tomorrow, he intends to leave these chambers. I should be relieved. Instead, some part of me is still waiting for his body to go still again.

"Tell me again that you’re ready to leave these chambers tomorrow."

"You are covered in my blood and half the solarium."

A sound breaks out of me that is half laugh and half sob, and I press the back of my wrist to my mouth to stop the rest of it.

"That's the first thing you say. After all of this."

"It was the most pressing observation." His voice is still rough from the poisoning, but it is his, entirely his, sharp underneath even now. "You have been awake how long?"

"I don't know."

"You do. You count everything."

"Then I've stopped counting, because the answer is unkind." I set the cup down before my hands can shake it apart. "You were paralyzed on this chaise for the better part of a day. I put my own poison into your blood. Forgive me if I've lost track of the hour."

His hand closes around my wrist. The grip is steady now, strong enough that some stubborn knot inside me finally begins to loosen.

"You did not poison me," he says.

"I mixed the salve. I spread it into the cut with my own⁠—"