Viella was already on her knees.
Her hands were clasped in front of her.
Her eyes were red.
She had been crying since they brought her in and she had not stopped.
”I have never seen those items before in my life.” Her voice broke on the last word and she pressed through it.
“I don’t know how they came to be in my chamber…I don’t know who placed them there… I swear on my kingdom, on my family, on everything I have ever been given, I had nothing to do with Princess Moriah’s death.”
The court listened attentively but had already made up its mind.
The evidence had been laid out before the throne, the vials, the cloth, everything.
Each piece lined and sitting in the cold light of the throne room.
”I didn’t put them there.” Viella’s voice came out raw.
“Someone else… whoever did this, they were placed there, I was set up…please, someone, I am begging you…” Her voice broke entirely.
She pressed her hands together.
“Please. I have a family. I have a younger sister at home who is waiting for me. I have never harmed anyone. Please.”
The court did not move.
Elyndra looked at Viella’s hands pressed together, shaking, the knuckles white and the skin stretched thin over bones that were trembling with the effort of holding herself upright and something in her heart ached in a way she did not entirely welcome.
”The items were found during an official search,” General Pierre said.
“Consistent with the compound used in the poisoning of Princess Moriah Evercrest of Nymeria. Found within Princess Viella’s personal drawers.”
”I didn’t put them there.” Viella’s voice cracked.
“Someone put them there. Someone is trying to…”
”Princess Viella.” The queen’s voice.
Even.
Final.
Viella went quiet.
”The evidence was found in your chamber,” the queen said.
“Not in another’s. Yours.”
”Your Majesty, please…”
”Do you deny that the items were found there?”
A pause.
Viella’s hands were pressed together in front of her, trembling.
”I cannot deny what was found,” she said.
“But I can deny placing them there. I can deny knowing they existed. I can deny…”
A door opened at the side of the hall.
Every head turned.
The woman who entered was not what the room had been expecting, a kitchen servant not anyone who belonged to the formal structure of what was happening here.
She stopped before the throne.
Then she bowed.
”Your Majesty,” she said.
Her voice was steady, not trembling.
“I am here to give testimony regarding the death of Princess Moriah Evercrest of Nymeria.” She doesn’t sound frightened.
The room shifted.
Queen Desdemona looked at the woman without expression.
”Speak,” she said.
The woman spoke.
She described the morning clearly and without adding anything else to it, the hour, the corridor, the specific time of day.
She described the figure she had seen moving through the passage that connected the formal garden to Princess Moriah’s private courtyard.
She described the way the figure had paused at the entrance, looked both ways down the passage, and then slipped through the gate.
”I know Princess Lythia by sight,” she said.
“I have served in this palace for eleven years. I know the faces of every candidate in the current selection.” She paused.
“The woman I saw entering Princess Moriah’s courtyard last that morning was Princess Lythia.”
The throne room break out into tension.
Not loudly, low voices, urgent and covering the whole room.
People turning to each other.
Elyndra did not look at the woman.
She was looking at Lythia.
Lythia stood on the far side of the assembly with her hands folded in front of her and her face arranged in an expression of composed, faintly wounded dignity.
But her eyes, her eyes had gone to the testifier with a sharpness that no amount of composure could fully cover, and they stayed there.
Then Lythia’s gaze moved to Elyndra.
Elyndra had raised a hand from where she was standing, not too high but high enough for every attention to be drawn.
Heads turned to her direction.
She kept her face the same calm and patient.
The queen looked at her for a long moment before she spoke.
”Does princess Elyndra have anything to say?” Her voice cold and sharp.
Her brow slightly raised.
Elyndra stepped forward.
”Your Majesty.” Her voice was clear and light.
”The witness account is not yet confirmed,” one of the court officials said, not unkindly.
“The physical evidence is…”
”Princess Viella may be innocent.
Your majesty,” A pause.
“I am not trying to lay an accusation on anyone,” she continued quickly, choosing every word with care.
“But perhaps this matter deserves further investigation before punishment is carried out.”
Queen Desdemona looked at her.
The look lasted long enough to be intentional.
”The testimony, as presented, is not enough to override physical evidence found during an official search,” she said.
Her voice was even and final.
“And the evidence is solid.”
”The judgement will proceed.”
”But your majesty if she is truly being framed and she is to be punished, then whoever is responsible for Princess Moriah’s death is still in this palace…
”
”What further information would satisfy you?” one of the officials asked.
”I am not asking to be satisfied,” Elyndra turned to the official.
“I am asking that we be certain.” she said then turned to the queen.
”Your Majesty, if I may…”
”Enough!”
The word came out sharp.
Louder than the queen’s voice usually was.
It landed in the hall and everything went still.
Elyndra closed her mouth.
The silence held for a moment.
”Princess Elyndra, a woman who poisons her husband’s mistresses, would one day poison her own husband.” the queen said.
”Who are you?” asked a different voice.
Low.
Measured.
Coming from the throne.
Every head turned.
King Vaelor was looking at Elyndra.
Not with hostility, but not friendly either.
He had been watching her for a while and had decided it was time to ask a question.