The Price of a Poisoned Arm
Shown into the Caliph reception room, Leoric let out a hollow laugh when the servants, however long he waited, failed to bring him so much as a cup of tea. They meant to slight him. He had braced for that much, so it hardly mattered. Had he known that Darius Mariner had been thrown out without even crossing the gate, he would have counted the present treatment a mercy.
He was sighing through a face gone pale when the door banged open without a knock and Sabrina appeared. Startled, Leoric lurched halfway to his feet.
"Does House Caliph look easy to you? Why do these worthless pests keep crawling in lately?"
She crossed the room in long strides and dropped into the seat of honor. Leoric's smile turned bitter.
"……I was certain I'd be meeting Shirca. I never thought I would be received by you, my lady."
"That's right. Be grateful I came to see you myself. Sit."
Even at the arrogant jerk of her chin, Leoric sat without a murmur of complaint. He hadn't expected Sabrina, but her authority outweighed Shirca's, and that pleased him more than it unsettled him. The arrogance, too, was only natural once one considered her station.
Blood? A heavy reek of it drifted off her, and Leoric looked at Sabrina again. Droplets speckled her clothes and the elegant silver of her hair.
"It seems I've interrupted you while you were occupied, my lady."
What on earth had she been doing before she walked in? He asked it sideways, and Sabrina let out a short laugh.
"It's tied to you, so it isn't an interruption."
"Tied to me, you say?"
"The underground auction house. I was interrogating the criminals from that place."
I chose the wrong time. Leoric clicked his tongue inwardly. The Caliphs were already sour over the auction house, and he had walked in while they were still questioning the culprits. Even so, he could not delay the visit any longer.
"What happened there was my fault. I apologize for the discourtesy shown to an honored guest of House Caliph."
He bowed his head with careful courtesy. Caught off guard, Sabrina narrowed her eyes.
"I heard you ran your mouth at Shirca like you owned the place. Now you turn up in person to apologize. What are you scheming?"
"Yes. I was deeply rude at the time. I won't make excuses."
"Rude. You tried to kidnap a child who is all of ten, and as if that weren't enough, you crushed the retainer who told you she was a guest of House Caliph—crushed him with your Authority. The heir of Leotel thinks the single word rude covers every one of those outrages, does he? And worse!"
Both her eyes blazed with fury.
"You dared try to seize a tiger being sold illegally inside a tiger's own territory?"
"……"
"If you want to walk out of here alive on your own two feet, you'd better explain yourself properly."
Only then did Leoric truly understand why Sabrina had come without even changing out of her bloodstained clothes. This was a warning. Next time, the blood on her might be his. Her pheromones surged over him, thick enough to pin him where he stood, and Leoric swallowed hard. He possessed an Authority of his own, but Sabrina's overwhelming Physical Enhancement left him nothing to do but marvel. Above all, he needed House Caliph's forgiveness now, so he endured her rage in silence and did not call on his power.
"Word circulated quietly among certain beastkin houses that an illegally run underground auction was dealing in a special tiger. Every one of those houses was on bad terms with the Caliphs."
Leotel had never clashed openly with House Caliph, but neither were the two close. As one of the three great houses of predator society, they had always kept one another in check, so of course the message had reached Leotel as well.
"I believe the news reached the Mariners too, though they won't have sent anyone yet. I was told I was the first to visit."
At the admission that the Caliphs had been deceived so thoroughly, Sabrina ground her teeth. The moment this meeting ended, she was going to break every limb on that auction-house wretch.
"I am sorry we never brought the truth to House Caliph. Going there because talk of a special tiger caught my interest is my responsibility, and I have no excuse for it. For what it's worth, my lord does not know I went to the auction."
"He doesn't know?"
"No. If he had, he would never have allowed me to go with only a single aide."
That was true. The head of Leotel was notorious for smothering Leoric—the first powerful wielder of Telekinesis to appear in their line in generations—with protection. Had he known, he would never have sent Leoric alone.
"When I found the girl there holding the tiger, I'll admit I grew greedy. The girl known as House Caliph's honored guest matched the description of the girl the Mariners have been searching for."
Sabrina ground her teeth. She had heard that the Mariner whelps had spread Bariya's description in their hunt for the child—after spending the last three years searching in secret, terrified her identity might come to light.
They must be that cornered. What would have become of them if they had failed to find Bariya? For the first time, she felt grateful toward Obli Glosa, whom she had never much liked.
"A girl both Caliph and Mariner wanted—I meant to take her back to Leotel along with the tiger…… Honestly, I regret it. For the first time in my life, I've learned that excessive greed exacts a matching price."
"A price?"
The bitter smile on his face left her puzzled. It was strange. Right up until he left the auction house, Leoric had spoken with insolence and made no effort to hide his greed. Why, then, had Leotel's cherished heir come in person to recite an apology without offering a single excuse?
"……That tiger truly was special. I never imagined it carried poison."
The moment Leoric drew the glove from his left hand and pushed up his sleeve, Sabrina's eyes went wide. From his fingers to just below the elbow, the skin had died black. The wound across the back of his hand had festered past all saving, and pus seeped from it.
"I sought help from the Belcher family, who hold the Poison Authority. Even they said a complete cure was impossible. They can slow the poison's advance, but if I don't wish to die, they told me the arm must come off before it reaches my heart."
Sabrina was startled despite herself. The Belchers' Poison Authority was said to surpass any other—able to brew the deadliest toxins, and to neutralize countless poisons that existed in the world. And Blackie's venom could not be cured?
How in the world does Blackie even possess a poison like that?
"When the tiger injected the poison, your honored guest told me that no ordinary means would neutralize it. She said that if I didn't want to die, I had better find a way, and find it quickly."
Leoric smiled bitterly. Only now did Sabrina understand why his color was so unusually pale. It was the pain of the poison.
"I took those words to mean that if I wanted to live, I should come find her myself. And so today, shameless as it is, I have come before you."
He bowed his head.
"Leotel and I fully acknowledge the wrong I committed, and we repent it. In Leotel's name, I will bear the responsibility. Please—remove the poison."
"Well, I'll be."
Faced with a turn she had never expected, Sabrina could not quite suppress her admiration.
Our girl really is something. Even in the middle of all that, she got her claws into Leotel's weakness. For reasons Sabrina still didn't understand, the Mariners were said to carry the same poison as Blackie. It was a genuine mercy that Leotel didn't know even that much. Had they known, they would have gone to the Mariners rather than to the Caliphs, whose relations with them had already soured over this very affair.
"The one you tormented is our girl, so it's our girl you ought to beg. I'll pass your plea along."
Sabrina considered for a moment, and did not throw him out.
If the little one said that, she must have wanted Leoric to come. He irritated her, but if Bariya wanted this, she had no mind to oppose it.
"Of course. I will apologize to the honored guest first. That goes without saying."
"She isn't at the estate just now, though. It'll be another three days or so before she returns."
A week had passed since the child left. Baden would see to the business quickly and come straight home; ten days there and back would be more than enough.
"She went to Aldros with my husband."
Sabrina looked at Leoric and smiled, bright as daylight.
"……Pardon?"
Leoric's eyes flew wide. Bariya Bell Caliph. That meant—
Sabrina's words struck like lightning from a clear sky, and Leoric went ashen on the spot. The charge against him was no longer the attempted kidnapping of a mere guest. It was the attempted kidnapping of a direct heir of House Caliph.