Chapter Warning - Violence.
I had been heading towards the door to our room to check if I could hear any hints of someone or someones waiting on the other side, but when Ursula made her bloodthirsty remark, I turned around.
"No! We are not killing anyone, especially not Janicen or Madame Claire. We need to get out of here and bring them with us," I hissed at her.
Ursula's mouth twitched a little as she took in my serious expression. She shook her head, still looking like she was going to laugh. "Solace, why do you think Larimar had you take me with you?" she asked. Her eyes glinted as they flicked over my face. "I'm not saying that I will go kill anyone. But... but we need to be able to do the hard things if necessary. I will do the hard things if you can't. I owe it to my Tavla to try to get his father back. And neither of these ladies will help us."
With a slow exhalation, I nodded, thinking quickly. "We can't leave her here. We'll pretend she came up for drinks and carry her back home."
Ursula crossed her arms over her chest. "Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's go before we're too late."
I tasted a grittiness in my mouth, then hissed as I realized that my homunculus was almost out of time. I had maybe a half hour before I had to remove it and let it recharge. That was another issue. "I agree. We have to hurry. Is your leg too injured to help me carry her?"
Her face tightened a little as she pressed her leg, and then her expression softened. "No, I'm ok enough to walk right now. Just lead the way."
"Good. Come on then," I urged as I grabbed a bottle of ale from the table that the hotel had left for us and took a swig. I coughed and sputtered as the harsh liquor burned a path down my throat. Ugh! It was like swallowing gasoline!
Ursula guffawed at my reaction and I thrust the bottle at her with a hushing sound. She took a swig and splashed some on Janicen. Then she splashed some of the ale on us as well until we smelled like we fell in a barrel of it.
Looking worriedly at Ursula's leg I said, "I have a better idea. Help me get Janicen on my back."
Ursula hoisted the woman onto my back, and I groaned under the weight. The homunculus was sturdy and added to my strength, but even though it was the tall one, Janicen was heavier than she looked. Ursula looked at me with concern, then took up the rear, lifting the other woman slightly so she wouldn't be so heavy on me. "Thanks," I grunted. "Bring the book and letters with us and our supplies. We may need to make a run for it."
I opened the door and breathed a sigh of relief to find the hallway empty. We careful stumped our way down the stairs with our load, laughing and hooting like a couple of drunks as we did, waving a bottle of alcohol we'd picked up on our way out. When we saw the innkeeper, we crowed at him cheerfully.
He frowned at us disapprovingly, his eyes raking over us, taking in our state. I grinned at him, and he looked away quickly, embarrassed to be caught staring. Happily, his prim outrage at two members of the clergy being so ribald left him too speechless to stop us.
We reached the front doors, and I pushed them open, resisting giving a sigh as we did. It was a short walk to her house, and the dog was nowhere to be seen once we were inside. The animal probably decided that she didn't want to taste another sampling of the spicy paste that Ursula still had on her body.
I dumped our burden onto her couch and rushed to the bathroom. There was no more time left for the homunculus. I was gasping for air as I fumbled with my clothes, my mouth filling with the taste of soil. As soon as I was free of the homunculus, I collapsed onto the floor, coughing up bits of loam, and wheezing. I had never gone so long with it on, and now I knew why it was a bad idea to wait until this time. It felt like my lungs were about to collapse as I struggled to free myself.
After I recovered a little, I put my priest robe back on, which was now too large on me, and walked back into the living room. I sat down on the green chair. Ursula had helped herself to bread and cheese from the kitchen and a large black dog was munching on some bits Ursula fed to her.
When Ursula saw me, she snorted at how ridiculous I looked, swimming in my clothes as it were. Then she hopped up and brought a pot to me that she'd relieved of a petunia so I could deposit the homunculus into it.
"Let's see that book, Ursula." I was wiping the sides of my mouth, checking to make sure I got all the dirt off of me.
She handed the book to me, and I began to scan the information inside.
"...love, you must come see me on the 8th, the 17th, and the 27th... I will give you a special prize of golden feathers..."
"...twelve days hence... the darkest star will come to see if he can steal our love away..."
"...stay with me, so that I may find if he has a heart. And should he lie, I will steal it from him..."
"......if I do not receive answers tomorrow, I shall assume the worst and destroy it..."
"The most beautiful of all birds... the only man who could save her... the king of the fairies will be there, waiting for her.... I have been practicing... my skills are perfect..."
"And when the sun sets upon us forever, Faluel will repay!" I read aloud.
Each of the entries was in a different hand, some masculine, some feminine, all signed Melusine.
"So, Melusine isn't a person, it's a group. Right?" Ursula guessed. "What does all this gibberish mean?"
"It's code." I replied. I sighed as I looked at the unconscious Janicen. "Let's wake her up. She needs to tell us what this code is."
Ursula grinned at that, then slapped Janicen sharply on the thigh. "Wakey, wakey!" The dog growled at that, but one look from Ursula made her whine and quiet down.
Janicen opened her eyes slowly, blinking as she stared up at the ceiling. "Huh?"
"Wakey, wakey! Your friends want to know what the codes mean," Ursula repeated sweetly, grinning again.
"You are insane!" Janicen exclaimed as she struggled to sit up, while holding her head. Her dog started barking in alarm but stayed planted on her butt in fear.
The woman blinked as she recognized me without my disguise on. "Solace?" Janicen asked, her voice growing thready. "What are you doing here?"
I grimaced, wishing I'd had more time in the homunculus. "I want answers. You seem to have some.
Her expression grew stony. "I won't tell you anything."
I leaned forward. "I've had some harrowing experiences, Janicen. Ever since I set foot on Janesport, things that had nothing to do with me avalanched upon me. I can ask nicely, and receive answers nicely, or..."
Ursula stepped near her. "I can get the answers from you, but I won't be nice."
Janicen set her jaw.
"What is Melusine? Who does it serve? The emperor?" I leaned forward more, locking gazes with her. "Did Gladys get killed for something she found out?"
She shrugged, which I took as a yes.
"Why?"
Silence. Janicen stared past me at the wall.
"Answer Janicen!" I shouted.
Janicen suddenly pulled a dagger out of her pocket, but before she could unsheath it, Ursula pulled out a thin rope and had it wrapped around her neck. The woman dropped the dagger to pull at the rope.
I shook my head at Ursula, not wanting her to kill the woman. With a huff, she loosened it and kicked Janicen's dagger away.
"Keep at it, and we'll get our answers from Madame Claire," I said in what I hoped was a gruff and threatening manner.
She winced as she slowly moved her gaze to me. "Melusine is a spy brigade for the emperor. I am Melusine, as is Madame Claire and..."
"As Gladys was..." Ursula's voice was chilling.
"Did Helen poison Gladys?" I spat. "Was it she that gave Gladys that fatal disease?"
"No... I mean, I don't know. I don't know! I told the same to the prince! Please! Tell Ursula to let me go! I swear I won't do anything else!"
"Tell us about this book." My voice wavered as I tried to contain my anger. "And Ursula might release you," I told her as I thrust the book in front of her face and pointed at the first entry I'd read.
Her eyes were crazy as she eyed the book. "What do you want to know? It's a book about our missions. That first one is coordinates."
"To what, Janicen?"
She struggled against the rope, not wanting to tell us. Ursula hadn't tightened it further, but suddenly Janicen shrieked in pain.
I glanced at the door, worried.
"Relax, I set a barrier that will only allow Madame Claire in if she shows up." Ursula sneered down at her prey, "No one is coming to save you, so stop being dramatic."
"Ursula, you have that truth potion, don't you? The one that burns a person's throat until they finally tell their secrets?" I hoped that the lie would work on her already frightened senses.
Ursula grinned at my lie. "The one made from viper mushrooms? Why yes, yes I do."
"To a phoenix, it's to a phoenix!" Janicen croaked in alarm, and I was quite ashamed at how neatly she folded. She wasn't strong at all, and that was a shame for a spy of the empire.
"What...for?" I shuddered, horrified as her words raked down my sensibilities. "Janicen, it's against the church to hunt phoenixes. They are sacred messengers of Faluel! They aren't even birds, Janicen! They are sentient, humanoid monsters! Why?"
"Because he wanted to make a copy of one using mimics like me," she explained in a whisper.
My rage slightly diverted, I asked, "You're a mimic?"
Janicen transformed her face into an alluring dark beauty from Aluraparine, then back to her plain looks as an answer. "Mimics can make themselves look like any sort of humanoid being as long as they have a living reference. We needed a copy of a real phoenix for a mission," she explained.
"What mission?"
What was worth setting Faluel's wrath upon the nation?
"We needed to lure our enemy to Sanfelton, and used the news that we had a real phoenix to bring him here."
"There is only one nation we call our enemy. Beltrit. Please don't say you lured the Tavla."
She said not a word, and I learned a new level of disgust. "And the phoenix?"
"The phoenix... died accidentally, but our mission was successful."
I crossed myself five times, each time pleading forgiveness to Faluel on behalf of my land. We were doomed, having killed one of our Lord's favorite messengers. Janicen looked on with a bleak expression, knowing her hand in our damnation. How they had managed to kill an immortal being horrified me. They constantly regenerated from their own ashes. Only skinning them would stop such a thing.
I gagged, unable to handle the image of the sin.
Ursula's eyes lit with a fiery rage as she tightened the rope, causing the woman to thrash and squeak. "You lying welp! A phoenix cannot die unless you took its feathers! And where is the Tavla!" she shrieked.
"Stop, Ursula! If you kill her now we won't get more answers."
She relented and kicked the chair Janicen was in.
"Who is the darkest star?"
"The darkest star is Acheron, of course," Janicen replied in a hoarse voice.
Acheron was the epithet we used to refer to the Tavla, whom Sanfelton believed was a demonic being spawned from Hades himself. "So, it was an alert that the Tavla was coming."
"We tricked the Tavla to come to Sanfelton with the phoenix. He wanted to get confirmation from the bird about a prophesied bride for his son."
I swallowed. I knew who the bride was.
"Who leaked it?" I asked.
Janicen swallowed hard, her body tensing up, "A person very close to the emperor."
"Like the empress?" I asked, seeing if she'd use the royal lady as a scapegoat.
A look of guilt crossed her features for a moment, before she answered me. "Yes. Like the empress."
"Liar. It was you who leaked it. You or Madame Claire."
She shook her head in denial. "No! It must have been a member of her crew that killed her! We think she was going to prevent the Tavla from coming to Sanfelton."
I could think of one person who'd die to be in the poisoned graces of Prince Kohl. "Darla."
"That's what we think."
"But how do you know she was going to do that?"
"I... I gave her incentive... a few months before your trip."
My mouth dropped open. No. Darla could not have murdered Gladys.
"I think the entry about the star setting upon us forever, is likely about war with Beltrit, which can be avoided if you marry the Tavla," Ursula chimed in again.
A cold spike of epiphany stabbed at my mind. "That's what this is. Sanfelton wants Beltrit to invade. They were hoping the current Tavla would come, weren't they? A childless Tavla, still too young for marriage..."
"Correct." Madame Claire said as she entered from the kitchen with a boomsword in her hand. It could incinerate both Ursula and I before we could get to her.
I was wondering why Janicen was being so free with her information. It was to allow time for Madame Claire to get here. I wondered when she'd alerted her.
Ursula tightened the rope again. "Janicen will be dead before you shoot us."
Madame Claire lowered the boomsword at Janicen's distress. It was a hollow tube-like contraption that could emit a targeted stream of plasma.
"Drop it, or Ursula will hurt her. We have enough reason to simply because she helped to kill a phoenix. The church would applaud us."
The boomsword clattered to the ground.
"Now, kick it away from you towards Ursula."
She did as she was told, looking at Janicen with worry.
"Now, Madame Claire, sit down. I'm glad you showed up, actually. I held up the sheaf of letters. "I believe these were missives sent to you by Gladys and others, correct? Thank you for keeping them."
Janicen groaned, "No, you didn't keep them all. I told you to burn them, you fool."
At her words, the older woman succumbed to a coughing fit. Blood trickled on the side of her mouth.
My mouth pursed. "You're dying."
"It's poison." Madame Claire admitted.
"Like Gladys?"
Janicen spoke up. "No. It was a different kind. Kohl tortured her with poison to try to get answers. And he tortured me... in other ways. Neither of us gave up our secrets."
I blanched, knowing full well what sort of things Kohl Sanfelton was willing to do to get his way. I regarded Janicen carefully, unsure of whether she told the truth.
Kohl Sanfelton said he loved making people his special family. I felt sick again.
Ursula shook her head, seeing me waver in my desire for vengeance. "They're liabilities, Solace. They're not worthy of mercy."
The two women turned to me, waiting for my decision.