The Supreme Court, usually spotless, churned with dust like a sandstorm; coughs and curses scraped the air like grit. But one familiar voice cut like a blade.
“Old man, who’re you calling a fugitive?”
He muttered a clipped spell, snapped his fingers; a wind rose like hawks stirred from roosts. It cleared the haze and snatched hats and wigs.
The victims tried to curse, but the words froze like ice at their throats; fear braided with dust held them still.
Not just because the caster’s gold hair flagged him as the Second Crown Prince, Neprah. Also because he’d hung a person by threads of mana—Skela.
Since Richard VI’s passing, nobles had traded rumors like drifting leaves. The loudest spoke of Tonyil, Neprah, and Skela vanishing. Now two stood here, deliberate as thunderheads, atop the defendant’s shattered dock.
Rockridge raised a brow and looked down from his high perch; his wrinkles stacked like folded parchment.
“Your Highness Neprah, I understand the thrill of seizing your father’s killer. Next time, use the proper doors.”
Neprah glanced aside; Skela still swayed, dazed, suspended in midair like a caught kite.
Crowds had blocked them like a human tide, and the speaking tube had carried Rockridge’s demand for a verdict. Skela was about to be condemned with no counsel, like a boat without oars.
He panicked and dragged her into Windstride without asking; the mana rope he used to secure her still clung like ivy. It looked, badly, like he’d hauled Skela in for praise.
He hurried to let Skela down, then pointed at Rockridge like a drawn blade.
“On the contrary, I’m here to say you grabbed the wrong one!”
He fished out a small jar wrapped in cloth strips; a tug loosed the knot, and the fabric spiraled down like shed snakeskin. Dark liquid glimmered in a clear glass belly.
“Miquelis—no idea why you kept this quiet, old man, but it matches the toxin found in Father’s body, right?”
“…Very good.”
Aside from his tightening wrinkles, Rockridge didn’t flinch; his calm sat like stone in rain.
“You caught the culprit and found the king’s poison on her. That’s a fine merit, Your Highness.”
“No way! Are you even listening? I said—”
Skela, still pale from the flight, grabbed Neprah before he boiled over; she bowed toward the bench and Rockridge, steady as a rooted pine.
“Honored judges, this is evidence we found in the deepest reaches of Dalahaman, half a month past. You may doubt it, but before I bare heart and lungs to gods and to you, one more must face justice—”
Different from the wag-tailed cutie she often was, Skela shed her bright skin like a molting bird; her words were neat, proper, and flowed like a river.
She gave no chance to interject; she drew a scroll and unfurled it, parchment sighing like wind through reeds.
“This roster surfaced during our search. It lists Hakadi—the last group able to craft miquelis—every member and their duties. Within it is a name: Andisim Karath. I believe the royal family knows it well.”
“Yeah, that guy with the brown square frames, sneaking around the palace every day!” Neprah shouted, like a pebble skimming a still pond.
The jury murmured like bees in a hedge, then quieted under a gavel’s crack, sharp as winter ice.
Chief Justice Padini looked down, his gaunt face an iceberg; his poise stood apart like a mountain above fog.
“Please continue.”
Pinned by that killing-cold gaze, Skela swallowed like a dry reed, but she went on.
“Andisim is the royal physician, as you all know. He’s also a hidden senior of Hakadi. His duty in Hakadi is to approach the king. The roster doesn’t state his exact purpose, but as the royal physician, and one of the few who can obtain miquelis, he’s the most likely and easiest to strike.”
She finished and bowed deeply again, like grass bending to wind.
“I don’t crave instant acquittal. To keep true evil from slipping away under my trial’s shadow, I ask for an immediate warrant for Andisim Karath—”
“That is unnecessary, Skela Trinity Purdo.”
“Huh?”
“Because the man you named was found dead half a month ago.”
**
Adelaide listened without expression, her face still as a lake at dawn.
Shock had bobbed like corks when Skela and Neprah learned Andisim was found in a stinking gutter in the lower district. Skela soon steadied and spoke, stringing their journey like beads.
They fled through the caverns of Dalahaman like startled fish, stumbled onto Hakadi’s den like a hunter’s blind, and slipped through danger to seize a roster kept like a snake’s skin.
Skela’s tale wasn’t dull; it had dust, blood, and moonlight. But Adelaide wasn’t hunting that flavor; her appetite reached elsewhere.
Their proof felt solid as iron, their logic clear as glass, their witnesses many as sparrows. By the Script, the Chief Justice would declare Skela innocent on the spot; those lines were already inked.
Adelaide wanted deviations, not certainties; she wanted wind, not road. Change glints like ripples on water; only by watching them can you guess the shape beneath.
“So we rushed back to Balad,” Skela said, earnest as sunlight. “At the gate, the crowd blocked us like a wall… after that, you all saw.”
Her story closed like a book with a proper clasp. Every clue threaded neat, with Neprah as witness; her innocence looked bright as noon.
By the Script, Padini would now announce it to all, clear as bells.
Right then, the change Adelaide sought arrived like a sudden gust.
“I don’t think the suspect Skela has proved her innocence.”
Rockridge had held his tongue through the tale like a shut door; now his voice dropped like cold rain.
“What? Old man, are your ears done? It’s clear Father was poisoned by something unrelated to her—”
“Maybe she didn’t wield the blade. But I hear holes and deceit, wide as a cracked wall.”
He turned toward the jury and the bench, eyes cold as iron.
“To me, this can be trimmed into a simpler, tighter story. Skela is Andisim’s accomplice. After the assassination, she was arrested and felt fear like a noose.”
“To save herself, she chose to sell her companion; her path was baited like a snare.”
“She slipped from prison like smoke. Then she planted clues—Hakadi’s name and address—where His Highness Neprah would pass, like bread crumbs on a trail.”
“She staged a meeting in the woods to gain a witness, knowing his name carried thunder.”
“She led him to Hakadi’s site, then showed a prepared vial and a roster with her name cut out, like a page doctored in candlelight, to win his trust.”
“Thus, in court, she’d have a strong shield to speak for her, bright as a crest before spears—wouldn’t she, suspect Skela?”
