Prince Cassian admits he wanted to kill Edric and stabbed him in the chapel, but the blade carries Cassian's blood...
Prince Cassian washed a short blade in a stone basin until the water turned red and still kept washing. The dungeon chamber had no window, only a slit above the door where torchlight scratched the wall. Elias stood at the threshold with Rowan behind him and watched the prince ruin a clean confession by looking too eager to give it.
"You are late, scribe," Cassian said.
"For what?"
"My confession."
"You confess to killing the king?"
Cassian lifted the blade. Blood clung to the hilt and threaded between his fingers. "No. I confess I wanted to."
Rowan's hand went to his sword. Elias shook his head once. The general stopped, but unhappily.
They put Cassian at a table and laid the weapon between him and Elias. Without a crown, the prince still looked like a man trained to own every room he entered. His knuckles were split. His eyes were red from no sleep or too much fury.
"This was found under your floor," Elias said.
"Then your men are learning."
"The wound below the king's ribs matches this blade."
"Good."
"Good?"
"It means I reached him."
Elias opened his notes. "You entered the chapel before the blood seal closed."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because my father was going to give my crown to a child not yet born."
"Auren."
Cassian's mouth twisted. "Do not make that thing sound like my brother."
"Thing?"
"You saw the book. You spoke to Isolde. Do you still think it is only a child?"
Elias let the insult sit on the table with the knife. Cassian wanted him angry. Angry men accepted obvious answers. "You had motive."
"Yes."
"Access."
"Yes."
"A weapon."
"Yes."
"Then why did the Oracle Codex name Auren?"
Cassian leaned forward until the torch painted the old gold embroidery on his sleeves. "Because the book is either blind or afraid to name me."
"The Oracle is not afraid."
"Everyone is afraid of something."
"Even you?"
"Especially me."
"Of the child?"
"Of what my father called him."
Elias did not look down. "What did Edric call him?"
"The heir beneath the blood."
Rowan muttered an oath. Elias wrote the phrase exactly. Cassian watched the pen, not the words. People who feared scribes rarely feared ink itself. They feared what ink survived.
"Tell me what happened in the chapel," Elias said.
Cassian's confidence thinned. "He was standing at the Codex."
"Alive?"
"I thought so."
"Thought?"
"He did not turn when I entered. I asked if I was still his son." Cassian's hand closed. Blood welled again from the cut in his palm. "He said, 'You came too late.'"
"Then you stabbed him."
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Under the ribs."
"Did he bleed?"
For the first time, Cassian looked away.
"Did he bleed?" Elias repeated.
"No."
"Did he cry out?"
"No."
"Did he fall?"
"No."
"Then what did he do?"
Cassian swallowed. "He smiled."
Elias took the blade to a silver testing dish. A shaving from the hilt went into clear reagent; a shaving from the edge followed. The first cloud turned red, then pale blue. Personal blood. Fresh hand cut. The second cloud stayed empty.
"Not the king's," Elias said.
"That is impossible."
"The hilt cut you. The blade did not carry royal blood."
"I put it in him."
"A dead body does not always bleed."
"He was standing."
"I did not say he was lying down."
The door opened before Cassian could answer. Malrec entered without permission, with two temple guards behind him and patience arranged like a weapon. "This interview is over."
"The prince confessed to stabbing the king," Elias said.
"Then we have a sinner."
"Not a killer."
Malrec's eyes hardened. "You split hairs while a murderer waits in the queen's womb."
"The knife carried no royal blood."
"The Codex already gave us royal blood."
"And you are eager to spend it."
Rowan stepped between them before the guards could. "High Seer."
Malrec ignored him. "You have less than six days now, Elias Vale."
"Then I will not waste them on the wrong corpse."
He took the wrapped blade and went back to the chapel. Dawn had not reached the high windows. King Edric lay where the priests had left him, dignified, poisoned, wounded, burned, and still more silent than any body should be. Elias pressed clean cloth to the rib wound. Nothing stained it. He checked the edges, the depth, the flesh's dry resistance.
Rowan stood behind him. "What does that mean?"
"Cassian stabbed him."
"Then the prince killed him."
"No." Elias looked at the king's still face and remembered Cassian's worst sentence: You came too late. "It means the king may have been dead before the knife went in."
On the altar, the closed Codex shifted. One page turned under the iron cover.
A fresh drop of crimson appeared on blank paper, although no one had touched the king's hand.