POV: Ravenna
I didn't sleep again.
Shocking, right? It's almost like finding out your mother was murdered tends to keep you awake at night.
I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, my mind running in circles. Someone killed her. Someone poisoned her while she was weak from giving birth to me. Someone made it look like childbirth complications so everyone would think I killed her just by existing.
And then that same someone tried to kill ME.
By morning, I was exhausted and furious and so far past terrified I'd looped back around to numb.
The summons came early. Lysander requested a private meeting in Father's study. Just the four of us—me, Theron, Father, and the healer who'd kept this secret for twenty-one years.
I dressed mechanically. Morgana tried to talk to me but I couldn't form words. My throat felt like someone had filled it with ash.
Theron was waiting outside my chambers when I emerged.
"Ready?" he asked quietly.
"No."
He nodded like that was a reasonable answer and fell into step beside me. We walked through the palace in silence. The hum between us was subdued, like even our dragons knew this wasn't the time.
When we reached Father's study, the door was already open.
Father stood by the window, his back to us. He looked like he hadn't slept either. Lysander sat at the desk, and spread out before him were—
Papers. Old, yellowed papers. Glass vials filled with dark liquid. Medical instruments I didn't recognize.
Evidence.
"Close the door," Father said without turning around.
Theron closed it. We sat. I couldn't take my eyes off the papers on the desk.
"Tell them," Father said. His voice was flat. Empty. "Tell them everything."
Lysander took a slow breath. When he spoke, he sounded every one of his fifty-eight years.
"Twenty-one years ago," he began, "Queen Elara went into labor. It was a difficult birth, but not unusual. She was strong. Healthy. A water dragon with the healing gift—one of the most powerful healers I'd ever known." He paused. "She should not have died."
"But she did," I said. My voice came out harsh.
"Yes." Lysander looked at me with those sad, ancient eyes. "Three hours after you were born, she began showing symptoms. Violent tremors. Difficulty breathing. Her skin turned grey." He gestured to the papers. "I documented everything. At the time, I thought it was a rare complication. Fever. Infection. Something I'd missed."
"But it wasn't." Father still hadn't turned around.
"No." Lysander picked up one of the vials. The liquid inside was almost black. "This is the poison used on the arrow that struck Theron. It's called Widow's Whisper. Extremely rare. Extremely lethal. It mimics the symptoms of fever and organ failure." He set the vial down carefully. "The same poison killed Elara."
The room went very quiet.
I stared at the vial. That tiny thing. That small amount of liquid had killed my mother.
"How do you know?" Theron asked. His voice was calm but I could feel the tension radiating off him.
"Because I saved a sample of Elara's blood from that night." Lysander pulled out another vial—this one older, the glass clouded with age. "I couldn't identify the poison then. We didn't have the resources. But I knew something was wrong. The symptoms didn't match any natural complication I'd seen." He looked at Father's back. "I kept the sample. Just in case."
"You suspected," Father said flatly. "All this time, you suspected my wife was murdered, and you said nothing."
"I had no proof!" Lysander's composure cracked. "I had a dying woman, a poison I couldn't identify, and a newborn baby who'd just lost her mother. What would you have had me do, Aldric? Announce to the court that the queen was poisoned when I couldn't prove it? When I didn't know WHO or HOW or WHY?" His voice dropped. "When announcing it would have made that baby a target?"
I felt cold. So cold. "You kept quiet to protect me."
"Yes." Lysander met my eyes. "If someone was willing to kill the queen, they wouldn't hesitate to kill her child. I saved you. I kept my suspicions quiet. And I have spent twenty-one years hoping I was wrong."
"But you weren't wrong," I whispered.
"No, child. I wasn't." He gestured to the vials. "When the assassin's arrow was brought to me, I recognized the poison immediately. Widow's Whisper. The same compound that killed your mother." He looked between Father and me. "Someone poisoned Elara while she was weakened from labor. Made it look like she died from childbirth complications. And now, twenty-one years later, that same someone tried to kill Ravenna."
Father finally turned around.
His face was terrible. Grief and rage twisted together into something I'd never seen before. His hands were shaking.
"Who?" The word was barely more than a growl. "WHO DID THIS?"
"I don't know." Lysander's voice was heavy. "I've spent all night going through records, looking for anyone who had access to Elara that night. The list is long. Servants. Guards. Nobles. Healers." He paused. "Whoever did this was patient. Careful. They waited until she was vulnerable, struck, and vanished."
"And they've been operating in shadows for over two decades," Theron said quietly. "Planning. Watching. Waiting for another opportunity."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
I thought about the arrow. About Theron taking it for me. About how close I'd come to dying the same way my mother did—poisoned by someone I probably knew, someone who smiled at me in court while plotting my death.
"Why?" My voice broke. "Why kill her? Why try to kill me?"
"I don't know," Lysander said gently. "But I suspect it has something to do with your mother's gift. She was a healer. A powerful one. And you—" He hesitated.
"What?" I demanded. "Me what?"
He exchanged a glance with Father.
"Elara believed you would inherit her gift," Father said slowly. "She told me, near the end of her pregnancy, that she could sense it in you. The healing gift, dormant but present." His jaw tightened. "If she was right, if you carry her power—"
"Then whoever killed her might want me dead for the same reason," I finished. The pieces clicked together with horrible clarity. "Someone is hunting healers."
"Or gift-bearers in general," Theron said. His voice was hard. "Gifts are rare. Dangerous. There are always those who fear power they can't control."
Silence fell again.
I looked at the vials on the desk. At the proof of my mother's murder. At the evidence of a conspiracy that had been waiting in shadows for twenty-one years.
"We find them," I said. My voice didn't shake. "Whoever did this. Whoever killed my mother and tried to kill me. We find them and we make them pay."
Father nodded slowly. "Yes."
"I'll help," Theron said immediately.
"No." Father's voice was sharp. "You'll protect her. That's your job now. You're bonded. Where she goes, you go. You keep her alive while I hunt down the bastard who did this."
Theron's jaw clenched but he nodded. "Understood."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to say I didn't need protection, that I could take care of myself. But the words died in my throat because they weren't true. Someone had killed a queen. Someone had operated undetected for decades. Someone was still out there.
And they wanted me dead.
"What do we do now?" I asked quietly.
Lysander began gathering the papers and vials. "Now we investigate quietly. Carefully. We look for patterns. Anyone who was present at Elara's death and the recent assassination attempt. Anyone with access to rare poisons. Anyone with motive." He looked at Father. "And we tell no one. If word gets out that we're investigating, whoever did this will disappear."
"Or strike again," Theron added grimly.
"Exactly." Father moved to his desk and sat heavily. He looked exhausted. Destroyed. But beneath the grief, I saw something else.
Rage. Cold, focused rage.
"Twenty-one years," he said softly. "They've had twenty-one years to think they got away with it. To believe they were safe." He looked up, and his eyes were merciless. "That ends now."
I believed him.
And for the first time since yesterday, I felt something other than numb terror.
I felt angry.
Someone killed my mother. Someone tried to kill me. Someone had been hiding in shadows, operating with impunity, thinking they were untouchable.
They were wrong.
We were going to find them.
And when we did, they were going to wish they'd never been born.