Hehehe... The Whole Cast Has Gathered
Two months had already passed since Vireya placed in Serena's hands a poison ten times stronger than the last.
If Lumina had truly been taking it, she ought to have been wasting away by now, slipping little by little toward death. But Lumina was healthy—so healthy she might never have swallowed a single pill. The sight had begun, slowly, to trouble Vireya.
Is that Serena withholding the medicine, just because Lumina looks well?
The suspicion reached no farther than that. She had not yet touched the truly vicious heart beneath Serena's smile. Even so, she meant to drive the warning home, and she summoned the girl.
"Serena. How has the child been, of late?"
For an instant, a strange light stirred in Serena's eyes.
The reaction she was waiting for hasn't come, so now she's asking.
She answered with the face of someone who knew nothing at all.
"Lately? She's grown wonderfully healthy. It's all thanks to the medicine you gave me, Madam."
"I see. But as I charged you before, you must not forget to dose her simply because she looks well at the moment. You have been giving it to her properly, I trust?"
Serena's eyes went wide in exaggerated surprise.
"Oh—I forgot!"
Displeasure soured Vireya's mood. She crossed her legs the other way and leaned toward Serena.
"The season is warm, so she may seem fine for now, but no one can say when she might take a sudden turn. And you would skip the medicine?"
"I'm sorry, Madam. You were so clear with me, but Lady Lumina looked so well that I... I made a mistake."
When Serena owned the fault without resistance, Vireya's temper eased a little. She patted the girl's shoulder.
"Living as we do, anyone can slip. I'll forgive you this once. From now on, do not forget—one pill a day, without fail."
At those words, kind only in the playing of them, Serena bowed her head low.
"Thank you for forgiving me!"
"You may go."
Serena left the office, sat down beside the garden fountain, and thought.
She's come out and said it. What do I do? If only I could feed Lumina something to counter it...
A healthy Lumina. A Lumina one could trust, and follow. To build that impression, Serena had already released the Veil of Frailty she had laid over her. But if Vireya meant to press like this, Serena would have to paint her the picture she expected to see.
What if I simply give her exactly what she wants?
A good idea taking shape, she resolved to ask Lumina's leave and cast the Veil of Frailty once more.
Told she would have to wear the veil again, Lumina was plainly displeased.
"People follow you when you look healthy. So I don't want that magic."
Serena took her hand.
"Lady Lumina. The only reason we've been able to make allies at all is that Madam has left us alone. She thinks you're going to die anyway, and it's that carelessness we have to thank."
Lumina's brow tightened, as if her whole footing existed only because her stepmother had been gracious enough to look away.
"How long am I supposed to depend on my stepmother letting her guard down...?"
"Until the very last moment."
"That's far too long a wait."
Serena closed her fingers more tightly around Lumina's hand and whispered, low and secret.
"Lady Lumina. We are hunters. Hunters after a truly terrible man-eating bear. That bear is so enormous that if the two of us met it head-on, we would die. A hundred times out of a hundred."
"..."
"So while the bear is careless, we lay every trap and ready every weapon we need, until we can actually win. Running, for a little while, is only for the sake of that preparation."
That was what the shares they were gathering in Arneve Steel were for. That was what the poison Vireya had given them was for.
Coaxed in that voice, Lumina bit her lower lip. She trusted Serena without reserve. If Serena went this far, there was a reason, and so she chose to follow.
"That magic of yours, the Veil of Frailty—can it make a person actually sick, and not only seem it?"
"It can put a fever on even a healthy body, and make them stagger like a real invalid. Why?"
"Before, I truly believed I hadn't long to live, so it wasn't acting. I really was that ill. I'm not, now... so I'd have to pretend. And I'm not confident I can act."
She meant she would endure real pain, if that was what a perfect performance required.
This girl...
Serena looked at her with complicated eyes.
"Then from today, I'll cast the Veil of Frailty on you. Harshly enough that it feels as if you're truly sick."
"Yes. Make it really strong."
And so Lumina became an invalid.
A sudden wreck of health would only draw suspicion, so the strength of it was raised by degrees, until ordinary life itself began to fail her—until, one morning, she came out to the training grounds and the knights worried over her.
"My lady. Oughtn't you to go back in and rest a while longer?"
"I want... to see Serena a little more. Cough, cough..."
"Then I'll have Miss Serena's training stopped, so the two of you may keep each other company for a time."
Lumina shook her head.
"Please let Serena do what she loves... I like that better, too."
"If that is your wish..."
"Even so... cough. It's cold. I'm sorry, but could you bring me something more to cover myself with?"
It was July. This was the North, yes, but summer was warm enough all the same, and still Lumina asked for a covering because she was cold. The knights felt a pang of pity. They had just stepped away to find a blanket when someone brought a winter one and laid it over her.
"Here. Take this."
It was Vireya.
The medicine is taking hold at last. That Serena must be dosing her properly after all.
She hid that satisfaction and turned a face heavy with sorrow upon the knights.
"Sirs. When this child departs, let her go with a heart full of good memories. I ask you to look after her well, until the very end."
So saying, she bowed her head to them. No blood bound them, and still she played the tender stepmother fretting over a stepchild. At words that all but named Lumina's end, a current of pity for the girl rose among the knights.
Auntie's playing a deeper game than she looks.
Serena watched with interested eyes.
It was a poor look for a ruler who needed to seem someone others could lean on, to go purchasing the pity of those beneath her. Vireya had come all the way out to the training grounds and spoken so to the knights for a reason: to whittle down Lumina's political standing, all the while believing the girl would soon be dead.
Ruthless. Truly ruthless... but that move will hang her.
Serena laughed inwardly, and deepened the Veil of Frailty on Lumina still further.
And so, the next day, Lumina could no longer endure a veil strained to its limit. She collapsed where she stood.
As if she had been waiting for it, Serena went to Vireya with tears and a running nose both.
"Madam...! Lady Lumina, Lady Lumina, she—!"
At last. Vireya crowed in silence and set about soothing her.
"Calm yourself, Serena. Where is the child now?"
"The manor—the little infirmary in the manor. Yes. She's there... What do we do about our Lady Lumina? What do we do...?"
"I see..."
Serena clutched the hem of Vireya's skirt and wailed.
"Madam, Madam... what am I supposed to do? Our Lady Lumina is so pitiful, I don't know what to do..."
"For now, let us increase the dose a little. I was told that in a crisis, three pills may be given at once."
Look at her, seizing the moment to raise the dose. Serena very nearly forgot she was meant to be crying, and laughed.
"Three pills... yes. I understand. But, Madam."
She nodded, then sounded Vireya out in a soft, sidelong voice.
"This may be the end... Would it be all right to call the people who have ties to Lady Lumina?"
"You mean Countess Deneb, and Miss Rastavan?"
"Yes..."
"Do so."
Serena summoned the ladies of both houses at once. At word that Lumina lay critical, they came straight to the ducal residence.
"My lady!"
"My lady, are you awake? My lady...!"
Watching the two of them so frantic for Lumina, Serena smiled a wicked little smile where no one could see it.
Hehehe... The whole cast has gathered.
She briefly strengthened the Veil of Frailty until Lumina looked graver still, then gently raised her.
"Lady Lumina. Sit up for a moment. You need to take your medicine."
"Mm..."
Serena drew out a bottle—not the elixir she ordinarily gave Lumina, but the one that held Vireya's poison. Then she turned to Riseira.
"Riseira, if I wanted the medicine to take even a little better, what should I do...?"
"Miss Serena, you took powdered medicine as a child, didn't you? Powder is absorbed more readily than a pill. That's all it is."
"Ah! Yes. I'll try it that way."
Serena ground three pills of the poison to a fine powder, set the powder on a silver spoon, and poured water over it. Then something astonishing happened. Serena's eyes flew wide in a show of shock, while Aileen's and Riseira's opened in honest horror.
"Huh...?"
"!?"
"!!!!"
The silver spoon had turned black.
There was not a noble in the world who failed to grasp what that meant.
Aileen seized Serena by the shoulder.
"Serena. Who gave you this medicine?"
Her feelings ran so high she had forgotten even the courtesy she usually kept.
"Ah—ah, ah, ahh..."
Instead of answering at once, Serena's hands began to shake, until at last the silver spoon spilled from them and clattered to the floor.
"Serena. This is precisely when you must keep your head."
Pressed a second time, she forced the name out in a voice that was plainly being wrung from her.
Everyone in the infirmary was struck with horror.