Chương 131: Chapter 152: Lying

On Oneday morning everything was fine. First of Summerbuild, and the weather really suited it. The cave that is Skyside Hearstcliff mutes most of the weather changes, but even a few miles into the cavern we could feel the difference. I think there's a wizard somewhere that gets paid to circulate all the air in Skyside to keep it from getting too stuffy in here. Breakfast passed by with only the usual jibes, jabs and bantering.

In homeroom, I sat with Quarl and we discussed family business in a general sort of way, and found some interesting parallels. I had assumed that a family of assassins would be kind of chilly and impersonal, but he described a childhood almost as idyllic and pastoral as my own. But like my own, there was compartmentalization: I was raised to be traded away and bring power to the family. He was raised to wink and nudge and we both know what this is but we don't say it out loud.

My class with Kurumi went well, I have been steadily recovering favor with her. She doesn't like it when I bring up our tomb-robbing operation at the end of the year, but she is glad to know that I've got the details under control so she can continue ignoring the problem. I ducked out of science class, bebopped down to the market, bought up the day-olds at the bakeries, and whisked those over to the Uchislowi village. Could be my imagination, but the people I see are looking less starved than they had been.

I picked up some large animal teeth that were being used as crude tools, now damaged and discarded but good enough for my purposes. In my history class I chatted with Rabert Frantlin, told him a little bit about my seasonal strategy. He seemed impressed, and he implied at an oblique angle that his family members had referred to such strategies, but rarely so clearly or so ambitious. The more I speak with him, the more I can decode his referential roundabout mode of speech.

In geography I paid more attention to Belisa Roadaway, tried to see if I could really make out any sign of what is going on with her. I have my theory, but at this point I am so desperate for that theory to be wrong that I'm just ignoring it entirely. After class I stood from my desk, taking my time. The rest of the room cleared quickly, people heading for the lunchroom to feed their overworked bodies and brains. I walked slowly, and let everyone else get ahead of me. I walked, slowed, stopped.

Without looking at her, just a foot away from Belisa. She sat with her arms hanging limp, her head tipped forward to stare at the surface of her desktop. I trailed my fingers onto the wooden worktop, and left them there. After a minute, her hand came up on the same side, and her palm pressed to mine. Her finger curled over my hand and settled there, then pressed, then squeezed. There was a real desperation in that grip.

If I was wrong, then she was traumatized and she was reaching out for connection and this was just a human gesture of empathy and expression, a part of a slow healing process as her psyche slowly recovered from whatever it was that had [Broken] her. But if the theory that I hate is correct, she is hungering for something she needs to complete her, and she feels that she can get it from me. I shivered and winced, and a moment later she released my hand. She began to slowly stand and I backed off.

She had her own minders and her own schedule. I have enough things to be freaked out about without finding out what has actually happened to her. And that was what was on my mind the whole way to lunch. Heavy stuff.

"Do you know where she went?" Nathan demanded.

"Huh?" I said, blinking in total surprise. I was still thinking about Belisa. He had just barged straight into my thoughts. I was not even inside the student center, out on the front walk, and most everyone else was already inside, thanks to my slow-rolling after geo class. I had not been paying attention and he just appeared in front of me.

"What?"

"Nobody's seen her, and I thought-," he paused, watching me.

"Because you two have never really gotten along, right?"

"I thought we- but I- " I paused, blinked, sorted this in my head.

"Hang on. Nathan, who are you talking about?"

"The princess," he said.

"You've been fighting with her family, and there's some kind of grudge between you and her-" I blinked. I was still running behind. For a moment, I thought he was talking about me. In most conversations I'm in, I'm the princess. So it took me a moment to catch up.

"Wait, Princess Lachel?" Whatever he was looking for on my face, he found it, and I could see his relief.

"You don't know," he said, and took his consolation there.

"You have no idea, right?" I was starting to figure it out. And my face doesn't hide that.

"I'm starting to come to understand that something happened to her," I said. My brother ran a hand through his hair.

"She wasn't in our history class, and nobody had seen her all day. Or, all day yesterday! I've been trying to trace her movements, but it looks like she never came home after going out on a day pass on Sixthday night."

"Elica told me that the Freckentop royal family was going to be at an induction event for the new Cardinal of Hearster," I said.

"That might be the place to start looking." I motioned for him to skedaddle and go find his girlfriend. He shook his head.

"If something's happened, you have to help me!"

"Nathan, I think you're about to be surprised by what I don't have to do," I replied sternly. I started to step around him so that I could get to the lunch lines. He stepped back and to the side to keep himself in front of me.

"Natalie, this is not the time! I know you and her have had troubles-" The thing is, I don't hate Lachel. She's literally nice. And she has a real heat to her love, it pushes her to do reckless things, and I like that about her. And while her family might be plotting the deaths of hundreds of thousands just for their own profit, they have not told her about this, she has no culpability. But there have been too many occasions where her presence or her interference has kept Nathan from his duties and his destiny.

I don't have to hate her, this is just necessary. Nathan on the other hand, has been increasingly manipulative, deceitful, and demanding. He's pushed me away and condescended me. He's told me he refuses to work towards the future I need but he demands my help on a whim. He cheats me and expects me to understand. He ignores me whenever it suits him. He started this conversation by interrogating me. And now he's pushing himself in front of me.

One of the most effective ways to piss me off hard is to refuse to take 'no' for an answer twice in a row. I had been in a wonderful mood. I've had a great month. Lots of recuperation, lots of downtime. And now this.

"Nathan," I said, and paused. I was trying to speak earnestly and patiently. Even I was surprised by how cold my voice was right now. My tone had edges on it whether I wanted them or not.

"Nathan, you had a chance to change things. I implored you to act. And you told me that you were not beholden to my future. You chose this path instead. And Nathan? If you step in front of me again when I am trying to get past, you will receive a much more tangible lesson in how consequences follow actions." He stared at me, open-mouthed, as I walked past him. I flicked open the door to the Student Center, and paused. Second thoughts. I turned over my shoulder.

"If you move quickly, if you make the right decisions, if you get lucky... you can save her. Either you or none at all." I walked away and let the door fall shut behind me. He has a chance, but just barely. He's outmatched and he'll need direct intervention of the RNG gods to pull this off. The good news is there's no risk to him. If he succeeds against all odds, he saves the girl. If he fails badly, he never gets close.

If he fails but just barely, there's a whole cutscene monologue before he sees Skeici kill the girl. He would have a better chance if he had started quests and leveled up when I told him to. I went in and found most of the school was in an uproar. You lose just one little member of the royal family... There had been a lot of tension in here when I accused the royals of necromancy. This was a much higher tenor of urgency.

Vancy stood up and came trotting over as soon as I walked in, angling to catch me before I got to the serving line.

"Hey," I said as she reached speaking distance. It was rather short right now, there was a lot of background noise.

"Natalie!" she gasped.

"Your brother has been tearing the school apart for two hours! He was just in here demanding-""I saw him outside," I said.

"He lost track of his precious princess and now he's acting a fool." She tagged along near my elbow as I made my way forward. I had to join a queue because I was running very late- there would probably not be much of a selection by the time I got served.

"Nathan realized she wasn't in his class and he started asking- he's been getting more and more frantic!" She paused, nibbling at her lips.

"I know you and the royals have been butting heads-""I haven't seen her since Fiveday," I said.

"And I was busy all weekend." Vancy was polite about this. When I got to the table a few minutes later, Elica was less polite. She just looked at me for a few seconds and then said it all out loud.

"You know something about this," she declared, no room for argument.

"Of course I do," I said. Rinnie rolled her eyes.

"Of course she does. She has told you all with her own words that she is going to get rid of that bitch."

"I didn't call her a bitch," I corrected.

"She's actually quite nice when you get to know her." Vancy looked troubled.

"Yes but, but you did say-""Vancy, it's true. Lachel is nice, and I don't even hate her. But I did say I am going to get rid of her. And I did not come near her all weekend. And I do know what happened to her. But I can't help. And I wouldn't if I could." She was frowning at me, taking all this in. I smiled.

"So, nice weather today, huh?" For the rest of the day, the buzz was the missing princess. I kept getting odd looks about it. People seemed to assume I had something to do with it. After all, there's basically nobody in the world that has a feud against Princess Lachel Freckentop except for me and Lady Elica Dandston. And Elica has a better alibi. During camogie practice, the coach called me by my name all day, very carefully.

It probably seemed like it would be very poor taste to call me "Killer" when everyone thinks I killed the fifth heir this weekend. At the end of camogie practice there was a note at my locker, asking me to drop by the administration building during the dinner hour. The room number was for the dean of discipline and enforcement, Dean Troket. I hadn't seen her since she worked with me against Skiff and Corder before school started. Skyback house, and very tricky.

So I got changed into street clothes, and cast a spell I had only tested a couple of times, to make sure it worked. I did not want anyone to know that I had access to this trick, just in case. I channeled the essence, felt it settle into my mana, and then I stepped into a portal and went to meet my fate. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. From outside the door I could still tell that there were several people inside. They were not speaking, they were waiting.

They were arrayed around near the desk, leaving an empty space across. Ah. An ambush. I knocked on the door and opened it when I was bade to. Dean Troket, the tiny wizened woman, was at her desk. She was the one that first gave me the idea of building roads at the Fissuring. But also others, who variously introduced as the head of campus security, the bursar, the admissions officer, and a familiar face.

"-and this is Sir Chomas Maspers, who is pursuing this case on behalf of the Royal Cavalry Guard." I curtsied to all.

"Charmed, I am sure. Sir Maspers, did they assign you to this based on your accomplishment as the only person who has ever successfully held me against my will?"

"If that was the reason, nobody said as much to my face," he said, rising for a brief bow.

"A pleasure as always, my lady." I took a seat and put a pleasant smile on my face.

"I assume that I know what this is about?"

"I'm sure you've heard," the security guy said.

"We just need to hear your side."

"Elaborate some," I said, and the words slapped out flatly, quite unamused.

"I'm being called in before the council, I'm allowed to be cagey. You need to explicate carefully what it is I'm expected to answer to." Maspers was watching me like a hawk. Prepared to be their finely-tuned lie detector. Troket still looked like a shrunken apple, but her eyes were still as sharp as a knife in winter. Any small slip is going to cut deeper than you expected and sting more than you thought possible. She was watching me just as carefully as Maspers. I met her eyes with a pleasant enough smile.

The security chief harrumphed.

"Very well. Lady Natalie Harigold, it is known that the Royal Princess Lachel Freckentop has not returned to her quarters or the Academy grounds. She was known to have left on Sixthday afternoon. She was expected to return on Sixthday evening. She left her destination on Sixthday evening and was known to be heading towards the Academy, but never made it. Foul play is suspected. And we want to know if you know anything about this." I slumped in my chair and groaned in annoyance.

"Unh. People always hitting me with 'did you know anything about this'. Do you ask that of people who aren't known to have prophetic vision?... Yes, I foresaw this. Nathan was just asking me the same thing the last time this affair made me late for a meal. I told him off because he was being snotty, but I guess blowing off this meeting like I did my brother is not an option." Sighing, I straightened and leaned forward, hands resting neatly in my lap.

"Very well. I'll do this all in one rush so I can get back to the dining hall before all the good stuff is gone. Ahem. I know pretty much everything that you just recited because it's exactly what Nathan told me. And that's all. I knew that she was going to disappear, because I have divine visions of the future, and that's all. I have no involvement and I played no part in any of this. Understand?" I lied. The security chief narrowed his eyes into a full squint.

"You are known to have a running feud with Princess Lachel Freckentop."

"I have a running feud with her whole family, which is well earned by them," I corrected.

"She's just close to me. One room over. Do you know that I go back to Meadowtam every weekend? I get to see what this blight is doing to my people. This is not abstract and distant to me, I have to interact with those who have been poisoned by dark magic or attacked by man-eating ground-grubs, and also the people who paid to have this happen. Yeah, dick, I've got some strong fucking feelings about this!" I paused, caught my breath.

"I apologize. What I had meant by this was that my feelings to her family stem from their actions. And I am hardly the only one, because the crop blight is affecting people in all thirteen provinces. So maybe that's the place to start? I'm hardly the only one that hates them, I'm just the most high-visibility of their critics in this facility. You seem to have skipped over the steps where you assume that someone else hates her too, but instead of speaking it out like I do, they harbor secret plans and foul play.

But again, for the record, I never acted against her and I wasn't planning to, either." I held his eye easily while I told my lies.

"You have said some pretty harsh-" he started. Sir Maspers spoke up.

"The royal family has asked that you assist in finding her, using whatever information you have."

"Will they put it in writing?" I asked.

"What do you mean by that," Dean Troket said, both amused and curious. She had her 'I'm on to you' smirk. I shot her a look and a wink.

"I think you've already sussed me out, Dean. If the Royal Family will issue a public statement that they believe in the veracity and accuracy of my visions, and my scrupulous honesty in revealing them, then I will walk you right to the end of the mystery. Posted public notices with the seal issued by the Public Ministry, as official as it gets, in post offices, government offices and public halls." This is one of the occasions that it's good to be high-stationed.

If I were a baron or viscount, the Royal Cavalry Guard would be well within their rights to demand that I do my duty to the crown and throne, and insist that I give them all help possible in solving this crime. But an earl-by-courtesy cannot be strong-armed that casually. The security chief was squinting even harder.

"You want to turn this into a chance to embarrass the Royal Family?"

"No, you- who even let you in here? - No, I want that because a public notice like that would give me the leverage I need to save tens of thousands of lives. At the cost of ruining the Royal Family by revealing their crimes." I pressed my hands together, flustered now.

"But they're not going to do that, are they? They'd sacrifice their own-" I winced, and looked down at my hands. I had long red scratches that were starting to fill with a slow watery trickle of blood.

"Shit," I said.

"I may have a lot of emotional involvement here." I stared down at my hands, and closed my eyes, and did a brief breathing exercise. I looked up at them.

"This is easy. Either the Royal Family disputes my abilities and claims innocence for the Blight, or the Royal Family acknowledges my abilities and believes I can help with this foul play against their persons. Not both. It cannot be both." Sir Maspers spoke up again.

"Could you have warned her, and prevented this?" He handed me a few thin paper tissues, and I started pressing them to the wounds left by my own fingernails.

"Yes and no," I grimaced.

"This is not a fixed point in time, like some. This was not inevitable like certain events. But, I did not know the timing. I can't walk up to a royal princess at the beginning of the year and tell her that according to my visions, she will be attacked at some point but I can't specify further. She's a royal princess, her bodyguards are already assuming she'll be attacked. All that does is make me sound creepy and antagonistic without making her any safer." Dean Troket butted in.

"We understand that. And your ult- your proposition to the royal family," she smirked again, letting the word ultimatum hang in the air in plain sight.

"But one last time: you have no responsibility or involvement in this attack against the princess?"

"None at all," I said, holding her eyes.

"I understand the reasons you'd want to be so very sure, but you're wasting your time looking at me for a suspect." The meeting wound down, the usual sequence of words were spoken, some apologies, some polite bits about exchanging information and reaching out about my offer. Nobody in that room believed that the royals were going to publish that statement to get their daughter back. They've got other daughters. I wanted to get dinner but I headed for the healer's office first. He was still not amused to see me.

"Hm," he said, looking my hands over.

"Very minor wounds. Not life-threatening for once. Good to see you're getting injured in normal amounts now. But these are clearly self-inflicted, and I need to report-""Dean Troket already knows," I told him.

"Ah, then I don't have to report anything," he said. He waved a hand over me, and then frowned.

"You're channeling something that interferes. Would you?..."

"Oh! Right, sorry," I said, and cleared my mana channels so he could work on me without interference. I released the essence of the serpent. The low-down, sneaky, lying, cold-blooded snake. The conniving, deceitful, two-faced snake. Essence is not just about physical properties. It is also about the mystical, legendary and ontological properties. Snakes are associated with lies, speaking with a forked tongue. And so with this essence, I gain that ability.

Everyone knows by now that I just cannot tell a convincing lie. It's a quirky little handicap that offsets my numerous advantages. It helps people trust me with all the power I wield. So it's very valuable to me that the essence of serpent lets me lie with impunity. For example, if I deliberately set up the assassination of a royal heir and want to get away with it.