The West Hall had never been meant for warmth.
It was a long, high‑ceilinged chamber of stone and shadow, built for winter ceremonies and old oaths. Frostfire lamps burned along the walls, their pale, unnatural flame carving sharp planes into the stone and leaving pockets of darkness between each pool of light. Outside, the night pressed against the narrow windows. Inside, the air smelled of steel, wax, and fear.
Guards held every archway, boots planted wide on the marble, hands resting on hilts. In the centre of the hall, a rough line of chairs had been dragged into place.
The people in them wore no sigils.
Cooks with grease still on their sleeves. Scullions with raw‑red hands. A footman in livery gone a shade too pale. Three serving girls in plain dresses, their aprons stained by old wine and sauce. The chief steward stood a little apart, wrists bound, chin lifted as if the rope was more insult than danger. Eyes were wide, throats tight. Some stared at the floor. Others could not stop flicking their gaze towards the doors.
They opened.
Ecclesias entered without heralds. He did not need them.
The hall seemed to narrow around him as he walked cloak trailing dark, jaw hard, eyes colder than the frostfire. His scent rolled out in a slow, gathering pressure, something coiled and dangerous that made the nearest guards straighten as if pulled on a string.
Soren came after him.
Not at his shoulder, but close enough that no one could pretend not to see him. A cloak wrapped tight over clothes too fine for any servant to mistake. His hair was hastily bound back; there was still a faint smear of ink along one thumb. His presence drew a second line through the room: the queen had been the target. The queen had come to watch.
The royal physician followed with a small satchel at his belt, Arven at his side with a slate and stylus. Kael took his place with the captains, a single step to the left of the heavy chair someone had brought and set at the head of the line.
Ecclesias did not sit.
His gaze travelled once along the row of bound hands and bowed heads. When he spoke, his voice did not need to rise to fill the space.
"The tray sent to the queen's wing passed through these hands," he said. "The taster who bled for that mistake is in the infirmary. He is alive. For the moment."
No one answered. Somewhere in the line, someone's breath hitched sharp and thin.
"You touched the tray," Ecclesias went on. "You breathed near it. You signed for it. You ordered it prepared. You stood in the kitchen when it was plated. You carried it to the corridor outside His Grace's door." His eyes did not pin one person; they skimmed across all of them, icy and precise. "You will tell me what you did. You will tell me who else was there. You will tell me where the poison came from."
He turned first to the chief steward.
"You are responsible for every plate that leaves the kitchens," he said. "Begin."
The steward swallowed. His composure did not quite crack, but it bent.
"The menu was set this morning," he said. "The queen's tray was matched to His Majesty's, with adjustments for preference. I approved the list of ingredients, as I do each day. The cooks prepared it. The assistant steward checked the plating. The taster sampled it in the antechamber before we sent it up."
"No ingredient on that list should have done what it did," the physician said quietly. "The reaction was too fast. The bitterness too sharp. Something was added that did not belong there."
Ecclesias' eyes flicked to him, then back to the steward.
"Names," he said. "Who had charge of the tray from the moment it left the kitchen table?"
The steward hesitated.
A beat passed. The soft creak of leather carried across the hall as Kael's hand shifted on his sword hilt.
The steward's shoulders slumped a fraction.
"The under‑cook plated it," he said. "Marla. The assistant steward checked it. Deren. The footman you see there" he nodded toward a young man whose eyes were fixed firmly on the floor—"carried it to the antechamber. The taster was summoned. After that, I do not know."
"You do not know," Ecclesias repeated. The words were flat. "You are telling me that a tray meant for your queen crossed half this palace and you do not know every hand that brushed its edge."
The steward wet his lips. "Your Majesty, there are always many hands. Runners, door guards, the girl who opens the wing doors, the one who carries the empty trays back. I cannot list every—"
"You will," Ecclesias said. His voice did not move, but the air seemed to tighten. "You will list every name until your tongue fails you. If I learn of one hand you chose not to mention, I will assume that hand was yours."
He turned his head slightly.
"Captain," he said to Kael. "Walk him through the path. From the kitchen table to the queen's threshold. If he stumbles, steady him."
Kael bowed once.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
He took the steward by the arm with a grip that looked polite and was anything but, and led him a step aside, already asking low questions. Which scullion raised the tray to the warming shelf. Who wiped the silver. Who signed the ledger. With each answer, Arven's stylus moved, drawing a web of names and duties, threads that would, sooner or later, knot around a throat.
Ecclesias turned back to the line.
"Marla," he said.
The under‑cook jerked as if struck and scrambled to her feet. Her hair had escaped its tie; her hands were cracked from heat and lye. She looked as if she belonged to fire and steam, not frostfire and stone.
"You plated the queen's tray," Ecclesias said.
"Yes, Your Majesty," she whispered. "The meat, the vegetables, the sauce all as ordered."
"The sauce," the physician said. "Describe it."
"Drippings, wine, herbs," Marla said. Her eyes fixed somewhere around Ecclesias' boots, as if looking higher might burn. "I tasted it twice. It was right. I turned my back for a moment—only a moment. A pan flared behind me. I had to—"
"And in that moment?" Arven asked mildly. "What stood behind you?"
"The spice shelf," she said, and the words came out like a confession. "Someone could have reached. I did not see. I swear I did not see."
"Who stood near the shelf?" Arven pressed. "You may not have looked, but you heard. Shoes scraping. Someone coughing when the air filled with steam. Someone humming off‑key."
Marla's eyes flickered along the row, then stopped on a girl with pale, blotchy cheeks.
"Lysa," she said. "She was there. She was meant to be polishing spoons, but she always comes too close when there are sweets on the fire. She could have stepped to the shelf. I did not— I did not think—"
Lysa shook her head hard enough to make her hair shift loose under her cap.
"I didn't touch the pot," she said. "I polished the spoons. I took them to the sideboard. I only went to the shelf to get more salt, I swear—"
"Who told you to fetch it?" Ecclesias asked.
Lysa swallowed.
"The assistant steward, Your Majesty," she whispered. "Deren."
The tension that had been quietly gathering around Deren pulled tight. The servants beside him did not move away, not openly, but the lines of their shoulders changed, angling back as if his guilt might rub off.
Ecclesias let the quiet breathe, thin and cruel.
"Deren," he said. "Step forward."
Deren obeyed.
He was not much older than Soren, with a clerk's neat neatness and the contained wariness of a man used to staying on the edges of power. His eyes did not meet the king's. They fixed somewhere over his shoulder, on the far wall, as if he could pretend he was speaking to stone instead.
"You sent her to the shelf," Ecclesias said. "For salt."
"For the main table," Deren answered. His voice had gone tight. "The salt is kept there. I did not tell her which jar to touch. I did not tell her to go near any pot."
"Yet you sent her there," Arven said softly, "at the exact moment the under‑cook's back was turned and a pot meant for the queen's supper sat unwatched. That is a remarkable coincidence."
"I did not know the pot was unwatched," Deren said. His own fear was starting to fray his words. "The kitchen is always moving. Pans, people it's noise. You cannot know where every eye is, every instant."
"You are right," Ecclesias said. "Which is why someone who wished to add something unseen would choose a moment when no one knew exactly who was watching."
He stepped closer.
"You checked the tray before it left the kitchen," he said. "You signed the ledger. You saw every dish that went to His Grace's rooms."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Then you touched the tray."
"Yes."
"And before that, your hand touched the spice shelf."
Deren's throat worked.
"The salt jar," he said. "Only that."
"Only that," Ecclesias repeated. "On a shelf where other jars stood. Jars that can be opened. Jars that can be closed again. Jars that might not smell different with a little extra powder inside."
The physician's voice cut neatly into the silence.
"The poison on the tray was bitter," he said. "But strong spices hide many sins. In a rich sauce, most tongues would only decide the cook's hand was heavy."
Soren stayed very still.
He stood just behind and to the side of Ecclesias, cloak wrapped tight around his night clothes. His fingers were hidden in the folds; he was grateful for that. His body had not entirely stopped shaking since the courtyard. Every time someone said "the queen's tray," he felt the words pass across his skin like the shadow of a blade.
He watched Deren's face.
Not the words. The flicker in the eyes when Arven spoke Vallens' name. The way his shoulders tightened just a fraction before he looked towards the door. Soren thought of the nobles at Vallens' table, of quiet voices talking about "wrong heirs" and "dirty blood," of the way they had decided death in a country house that smelled of dust and old smoke.
Arven tilted his head.
"Which house pays you beyond the palace stipend?" he asked. "You can answer that much."
"No house," Deren said at once. "My family has served in these walls for three generations. My wage is the king's."
"And yet," Arven said, "you were seen last month delivering a sealed note to a carriage with House Vallens' colours."
Deren went very still.
"I carry notes for the steward," he said. Now his tone was too careful. "I do not read them. I do not choose where they go. I follow orders."
"Whose orders did you follow," Arven said, "when you sent Lysa to that shelf?"
Deren dropped his gaze to the floor.
"No one's," he muttered. "The sauce looked thin. I thought more salt would help. I told her to fetch it."
"Lies sit poorly on you," the physician murmured.
Ecclesias watched Deren for a long, quiet moment. His scent had shifted again, growing darker, heavier no longer just cold, but edged.
"You will be questioned further," he said at last. "Away from this hall."
He turned his head.
"Captain," he said to Kael. "Take Deren and the chief steward to the lower rooms. No one speaks to them without my leave. No one touches them but the physician if he deems it necessary."
Kael bowed.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The clink of iron was soft but final as shackles were fastened. Deren did not fight. The chief steward did not bow. The march of their steps as they left the hall sounded, to Soren, like the first strokes of an executioner's blade being sharpened.
Ecclesias waited until the door closed behind them before he spoke again.
"The rest of you will be held until this is finished," he said to the remaining servants. "You will be fed. You will be watched. You will not be harmed unless you force my hand. If you remember anything you have not yet said, you will tell Arven or the physician at once. If I learn you chose silence instead, you will wish you had not."
He did not shout. There was no need.
One by one, the servants were led away under guard. Their footsteps and muffled sobs faded into stone. The West Hall grew large again, its emptiness a different kind of weight.
At last, only the king, the queen, Arven, Kael, and the physician remained beneath the hissing frostfire lamps.
Arven exhaled.
"Vallens," he said. "Not proof. But the line is there."
"It was always going to be Vallens," Kael muttered. "The question is how many hands he bought between himself and that shelf."
Ecclesias' jaw tightened once. He said nothing.
"The taster is stable," the physician reported. "He will be very ill for days. If there are no complications, he should live. The sample from the tray is enough for me to identify the poison. Once I know exactly what was used, I can tell you whether any merchant could sell it, or only a few."
"If it is rare, we follow the few," Arven said. "If it is common, we follow whoever suddenly needed more than usual."
Soren listened, but his mind kept circling the same image: a man collapsing on tile that should have been his. The memory of the guard's words "the food was meant for the queen" still echoed along his bones.
Kael looked towards him.
"By morning the palace will be full of talk," he said. "They will say the queen was the target. They will say the queen is weak. They will say enemies can put their hands on his food."
"Let them talk," Ecclesias said. "The queen will attend council as usual tomorrow. The only change they will see is more guards at his doors."
Soren felt the instinctive protest rise and burn in his throat.
"I will be there," he said anyway. His voice came out steady. "If I hide, they will smell it like blood."
"Good," Ecclesias said. Something in his eyes uncoiled, just barely. "Then the only weakness they will see is their own fear when they realise you are still standing."
"With respect," the physician said, "His Grace still needs rest. Council, and then no more until I say otherwise. If you drive him past what his body can carry, you will undo what we have begun."
Ecclesias inclined his head once.
"You will send me a list of what he may and may not do," he said. "I will see it is obeyed."
Soren almost laughed at that too tired, too startled. The idea of a king obeying a written list for anyone's sake would have sounded like a joke, once. Now it felt like another ring of armour closing around him, whether he had asked for it or not.
Arven closed his slate.
"I will start on the ledgers," he said. "Kitchen accounts, apothecaries, spice merchants. And every servant with ties to House Vallens that we can prove on paper."
Kael nodded.
"I will clear the hall," he said. "And double the guards on the kitchens and the queen's wing until we know exactly which hands were bought."
They left, the physician last of all, until only Ecclesias and Soren remained in the pale circle of frostfire.
Silence settled again, deeper now that no one else was there to hear it.
Soren looked at the empty chairs, at the impressions left by frightened bodies. He could see, perfectly, the line that ran from this cold room to the warm tray that would have been carried into his chambers, if the taster had not stepped between.
"Someone tried," he said. The words scraped his throat on the way out. "At my table. At my door."
"Yes," Ecclesias replied. "And tonight, they failed."
Soren's heart was beating too fast for a room so still.
"They will try again," he said. It was barely more than air. Not a question.
Ecclesias crossed the few remaining steps between them.
He lifted one hand and set it at the back of Soren's neck, fingers warm against chilled skin, the grip steady but not cruel. He drew Soren in just enough that Soren had to tilt his head back a little to keep looking at him, and then he lowered his mouth to Soren's forehead.
The kiss was not long. It did not need to be. It was a touch of heat and promise more than comfort, and it anchored Soren in place as firmly as any hand on his shoulder.
"They dared to reach for my queen in my own palace," Ecclesias murmured against his skin. "When I find them, they will beg the day they were born had never come."
For a moment, Soren let his eyes close.
The hall, the chairs, the echo of weeping and the stink of fear all of it fell back. There was only the warmth of the hand at his neck, the low iron in the voice that promised violence on his behalf.
He had not asked to be anyone's queen.
But in the breath between that kiss and the next step of the hunt, he let himself think, just once, that if the world insisted on putting him where people would try to poison him, there were worse shields than a king who bared his teeth at the dark.
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Across the palace, far from frostfire lamps and stone echoes, someone moved as if the corridors still trusted him.
Head down. Pace steady. A ledger folder tucked under one arm like a shield.
On any other night he would have been invisible: just another assistant with neat ink and a better memory than rank, the kind of man guards waved past without thinking when he said he had to reach the cellars, the kitchens, the steward's rooms.
Tonight, the folder was empty.
The purse under his cloak was not.
Coins clicked softly against one another when he walked. The sound had been pleasant when the purse was pressed into his hand days ago. Now it rang too loud in his ears, like a bell only he could hear.
They had promised it would not kill.
"It will tire him," they had said, voices smooth behind a half‑closed door. "Strain him. Show what we have all known that someone like that was never meant to carry such weight. No one will question it when a boy dragged from nowhere buckles under the pressure."
They had sounded so calm. So certain. As if they were not asking for murder, only for "nature" to be helped along.
They had not described a man dropping to the floor after three bites. They had not mentioned the dark rim around his lips, or the way his fingers had clawed at air that would not come. They had not mentioned how fast the body could decide it was done.
He had believed them.
No....that was not quite true. He had wanted to believe them. The difference only became clear when it was too late.
Let them drag cooks into chairs and bind the chief steward, he thought, vicious satisfaction twisting under his fear. Let them tear apart storerooms and count every jar twice. If the king and his pet counsellors were so eager to clutch at the nearest neck, who was he to correct them?
His mockery steadied his legs.
His heart refused to listen.
Because whatever pretty words those cloaked men had used, his eyes had seen what the poison did. It did not care which body it was given. It would have killed the queen as easily as it had nearly killed the man paid to keep him safe.
He turned down a service corridor that smelled of wax and old cloth. He knew every bend by heart. He knew which doors were usually open, which hinges squeaked, which guards were bored enough at this hour not to look closely at anyone carrying papers.
If he could reach the outer yard, he could reach the small gate that opened for deliveries at dawn. If he could reach the gate, he could reach the road. If he could reach the road, he could be someone else by midday.
You are not running, he told himself. Not yet.
Running was panic. Running drew eyes. Walking like a man with errands to finish drew none.
Even so, every time he heard boots on stone behind him, his shoulders twitched before he forced them still.
In the kitchens, there would be shouting. In the West Hall, they would be turning names over and over, looking for rot. There were so many hands on a single tray. That had been the clever part. That was what they had told him.
His was only one among many.
He reached the narrow passage used for linens and lamp oil a strip of stone so unremarkable no noble would ever bother to notice it. At the end stood a plain door with iron hinges worn smooth by years of use.
Beyond it lay the yard and, beyond that, the wall.
His fingers closed around the latch.
It did not move.
He frowned and tried again, harder. The metal dug into his palm. The door did not even rattle.
A new bar had been set from the other side fresh wood against old iron.
He had come this way every week. No bar. No bolt. No reason to lock a servants' door that led only to coal, laundry lines, and grey light.
This was not a kitchen seal put in place during panic.
This was not accident.
Someone had decided this door would not open tonight.
His mouth went dry.
For a heartbeat, he considered throwing himself against the wood until something broke. For a heartbeat, he considered turning with a clerk's tired smile and claiming he had taken a wrong turning between storerooms.
But the bar across the door said the story had already moved past that.
Behind him, at the mouth of the passage, boots sounded on stone. Not rushing. Not wandering. A measured pace, the tread of a man who already knew exactly how far the corridor went and where it ended.
He let his hand fall from the latch.
Slowly, he turned.
The empty folder hung from his fingers like a joke that no one would laugh at now.
A shadow blocked the light at the far end of the passage.
"You were always going to try this," a voice said, calm as a knife laid on a table.
For one wild second, he clung to the hope it was only a captain, only a guard he might talk past for one more minute.
The shadow took a single step closer.
In that step, he understood two things at once: that the poison he had been given was never meant to be harmless, and that he had never, not for a single heartbeat, been ahead of the king whose halls he was trying to escape.