Chương 192: 24. Dead Men Tell No Tales 2

Haerdin hit the boards, and only then did the execution ground remember how to panic properly. Someone screamed. Someone stumbled backward. Someone dropped the rotten vegetable they'd been about to throw, as if it had suddenly become contagious bad luck. People at the back, who hadn't seen clearly what had happened, only knew that the Governor had shouted two things that didn't sound entirely human and then collapsed foaming black blood. The result was predictable: the crowd went up like dry brush catching fire.

"Back! All of you, back!" The harbor commander was first to roar. His face, already dark earlier, now carried real killing intent. He kicked over a section of wooden railing, sending eager spectators flinching away.

"Garrison! Seal the perimeter! Anyone trying to bolt loses a leg before they leave!" Frontline material. Simple, brutal, very effective. Lei Lian moved even faster. She'd already spun and started issuing orders as Haerdin dropped, voice like iron striking ice.

"Yinglong Guard—First Flight, airborne! Lock the sky over the execution ground and outer harbor! Second Flight, to the tower! Third Flight, sweep all high points—rooftops, bell towers, rigging, cranes! Any position suitable for range, observation, or escape—nothing gets missed!" Outside the ring, answers snapped back in rapid succession, followed by the heavy whump of dragon wings taking air. Whump, whump, whump— The sound pressed down on the platform, smothering human noise.

I glanced up to see shadows cut across the grey sky. Dragon riders shot outward over the port like arrows released from a single point. And I was still beside the fresh corpse. Haerdin's dark blood kept threading downward along the plank seams. The placard on his chest had slipped crooked, I AM A CORRUPT BASTARD tilted against his rolled eyes and blue lips. The whole tableau looked like cheap slapstick taken one step too far. This wasn't bad comedy. It was filth. Filth down to the manner of death.

I crouched again, prying open his jaw where the final convulsions hadn't fully relaxed it. A bitter, rancid smell flooded out—some kind of crushed packet seeping into the blood.

"Not just biting through his tongue," I said through my teeth.

"Something in the teeth—or deeper. Pre-planted toxin."

"I know." That answer didn't come from behind me. It came from Ignicia. Her voice wasn't loud. Somehow that made the chill at the back of my neck worse. I turned to look at her— And nearly stepped back. She stood dead center on the platform, cloak hammered by wind, black-red edges snapping. It wasn't her stance that made my gut tighten. It was her face. No trace of the sharp-edged humor she'd worn before the execution. None of that usual how have you not died yet look. Just one expression: Cold.

Cold the way lava cools into black stone right before it cracks again. She stared down at Haerdin, something burning very far back in her eyes.

"Good," she said softly. Two syllables. My stomach gave a reflexive twist. Because I knew exactly what that tone meant, coming from her. It never meant good. It meant someone was going to suffer. Her head lifted, gaze raking across the agitated crowd, over the lines of garrison soldiers pushing outward, up along the roofs and masts and towers that ringed the harbor.

"They dared," she said, "to steal a head off my execution platform." She didn't shout. The sentence cut across the ground like poured ice water. Even those still shoving at the edges stuttered and stalled. Marro, not far from the platform, tilted his head back to look at her. His eye narrowed, then he let out a very low whistle.

"Oh, that's it," he murmured, just loud enough for me.

"We're past catch the culprit. We're at flip the port." …Much as I wanted to object, he wasn't wrong. Ignicia spoke again almost immediately.

"Lei Lian."

"Present."

"Dragon tower goes to wartime lockdown. As of this moment, Iskaaprubla Port is sealed." The word sealed landed with enough weight to make even the harbor commander look up. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Not the execution ground. Not a section of the outer harbor. The whole port. Ignicia didn't even glance at the momentary freeze.

"All vessels are confined to port," she continued.

"Merchant ships, fishing boats, cargo barges, private yachts—no distinctions. Raise flags, ring towers, close the breakwaters. Without my personal order, not so much as a scrap of driftwood leaves this harbor."

"Yes, Your Highness!" Lei Lian was already signaling even as she answered.

"Transmit to the tower! Port closure! Full alarm!" The tower bells began almost at once. Dong— Dong— Dong— The sound rolled along stone and water, deep vibration that made it feel like the harbor itself had a heartbeat—and it had just been kicked. Ignicia turned to the harbor commander.

"Your forces seal four zones." She lifted her hand, marking off points.

"The execution ground. The outer harbor piers. The Governor's residence. And every warehouse with direct access to the water." The commander's face stayed grim, but there was no hesitation.

"Understood."

"Everyone in the inner ring stays," Ignicia went on.

"Merchants, dockworkers, garrison soldiers, street vendors, drunks who came for the show, and—" Her eyes flicked toward the cluster behind me.

"Certain smugglers who slipped in for the entertainment." Marro raised both hands immediately.

"Your Highness, we're upstanding citizens." I almost choked. Upstanding. Sure. And Blackbeard Bay is a quiet family resort with excellent educational facilities. Ignicia glanced at him once.

"You look more honest when you're not talking." Several of his crew flinched, caught between hilarity and terror. Marro didn't so much as blink. He even dipped a tiny bow.

"Then we'll be mute today." …How he managed to blend suicidal impulse and survival instinct into one tone was beyond me.

"Cedric."

"Ah—yes." I straightened reflexively. Ignicia's gaze snapped to me, sharp as if she'd already written my name into her to-do list.

"You were closest to the body. Remember that smell, the way it took him, everything about him right before he started shouting." She didn't blink.

"Later, you don't leave out a single word." I hesitated a fraction, then nodded.

"Got it." Her eyes narrowed.

"This isn't just a cowardly official choosing an ugly out," she said, voice level in a way that made it worse.

"This is cleanup. If someone could plant poison in his mouth, or some kind of safeguard in him, that means—""There's someone inside the port to trigger it," I finished. She looked at me. For once, there was no mockery in it. Only cool acknowledgment of finally, your brain is online. …Unfortunately, that felt unreasonably good. The harbor commander spoke through clenched teeth.

"I'll start with everyone who's been near him today. Escort details, guards, the ones who swapped his clothes, anyone who touched him before sentencing—every last one goes under questioning."

"Not enough," Ignicia said. He frowned. She gestured toward the tiers below.

"Everyone who threw things at him today—question them too."

"What?" I blurted. She didn't look back at me.

"Cleanup doesn't have to happen on the scaffold," she said.

"Confusion, cover, blocked lines of sight, early contact, item swaps—too many places you can operate. Rotting vegetables and stones are just visible noise. What we need are the hands that used that noise to get close, touch him, or put something down his throat." A second cold climbed my spine. That was the difference between us. I was still stuck on how did this man die. She was four steps ahead, breaking down at exactly which handoff was this death arranged. Lei Lian picked it up without missing a beat.

"I'll have the Yinglong Guard circle the angles from above—check for long-range delivery, darts, fine bolts, blown needles, gas. Fifty paces from the scaffold in every direction—clear it."

"And bring physicians and toxin experts," Ignicia added.

"Now. Immediately."

"Yes, Your Highness." The bells still tolled. Dragons wheeled overhead. Garrison units pushed the crowd back along stone streets. Around Haerdin's not-quite-cold corpse, Iskaaprubla Port was drawing itself tight inch by inch. It felt strange. Like a net that had been lying slack suddenly yanked up by its center. And we were standing exactly at that center. Ignicia gave the body one last glance, eyes devoid of anything like warmth.

"Good," she said. That word again. The bell tolls hadn't fully faded when another sound crashed into the execution ground from the stone road beyond. Hooves. Too fast for routine. More like something was chasing them. I had just straightened from Haerdin's side when I saw a guard hammering down the road on horseback. The animal's breath frothed white, front hooves slamming the stones hard enough to kick up chips. People scattered with shrieks.

"Make way! Make way—!" The rider looked as likely to fly off as stay on, but he clung to the reins and somehow forced the horse to a jagged stop below the platform. The beast reared, screaming, hooves kicking sparks from stone. The guard all but fell off his saddle, dropped to one knee, and dragged in air like someone yanked out of the sea.

"R-report—!" His voice shook.

"The Governor's residence—it's on fire!" …Oh. Wonderful. Neatly done. Take out the witness on the scaffold, then the evidence at his house. The pacing was so perfect it made me want to punch something. The harbor commander recovered first—or rather, his response was the purest form of who he was.

"Then why the fuck are you not PUTTING IT OUT?!" he bellowed. The blast of it actually made the crowd flinch in unison. Even I almost snapped to attention on reflex. The guard flinched hard, color draining.

"T-the fire's too strong, sir!" he babbled.

"City watch has already sent men with buckets, but—but it's coming from inside the residence! And—it doesn't look like normal fire. The watch says someone may have set it, or used accelerants!" That landed like another weight dropped straight onto the platform. Even the die-hard spectators started losing their taste for the show. I lifted my head and looked inward toward the harbor. Sure enough. Under the grey-white sky, a column of smoke was climbing—too thick and oily, too dark, to be any kitchen mishap.

Heavy, dark, sticky smoke rolled upward in sheets, like someone was boiling the secrets of the Governor's mansion into ink. I couldn't hold it back.

"Oh, fuck…" Things were getting better and better. This wasn't someone scrambling to save themselves. This was a pre-laid fuse, burning exactly on schedule. One link snapping neatly into the next. Haerdin slips? Kill him. Haerdin dies? Burn the house. Witness, ledgers, hidden books, sealed chests, transaction slips—anything that could burn, burn it. Anything that couldn't, smoke it. I looked at Ignicia.

"Your Highness, this was all prepped in advance."

"I have eyes, Cedric," she said. Flat. Too flat. It made me more nervous than anything she'd done on the platform. She narrowed her eyes slowly, that column of smoke reflected in her pupils like fire reversed into them.

"I'm only interested," she said, "in how deep it goes." …Right. That decided it. We weren't here to put out a fire. We were about to dig out a root. And we weren't stopping until we hit raw nerve and bone. Lei Lian moved first.

"Your Highness, the tower can lock down the airspace above the Governor's residence—prevent anyone from using the fire as cover to escape from upper levels."

"Do it," Ignicia said without hesitation.

"Yes." Lei Lian spun, hand slicing through air in a command gesture. Yinglong Guard riders broke from the platform perimeter—some vaulting onto waiting dragons, others sprinting for nearby towers and high points.

"First Flight, over the Governor's residence!" she barked.

"Second Flight, seal the surrounding roofs! Every climbable, jumpable, shootable, or concealable high point—secure it! Any suspicious movement, detain first, ask later!" The harbor commander snapped back online, too. The face that had looked ready to chew through furniture earlier now set like iron.

"Garrison, with me!" he shouted.

"Two squads stay on the execution ring! The rest—grapnels, rams, water sacks! Clear three streets around the Governor's residence! Anyone forcing their way out goes down first, questions later!" He threw one more look down at Haerdin, and his expression went from iron to something meaner.

"Even dead, you find ways to piss me off." …I understood that perfectly. Portside crews staring down enemy cannon, dragon tower waiting on nonexistent reports, garrison holding the line—and the man at the heart of it all was taking bribes, blocking repairs, selling doors, and dragging his feet. They finally hauled him out, and he died on cue for someone else. Then his house caught fire. If it were me, I'd be very tempted to dig him back up and kill him again, just on principle.