by M. L. Ryan
29
Not surprisingly, Ryxjat navigated through traditional corridors on the way back through the palace. It took twice as long as the mapped directions, but I figured I had been correct in my original assumption that he would not be pleased to discover I now knew about the intricate, hidden avenues. I’d just keep that my little secret.
Xina’s suite was located on a lower floor of the residential wing, not too far from the rooms Tannis occupied. My knock on the main door went unanswered. I tried again, rapping harder, with the same result.
“That is strange,” Ryxjat muttered. “She should still be here.” He grasped the wrought iron handle, seeming surprised when he was able to push it down and open the door. “Perhaps Tjryxina is in a back room and cannot hear us,” he offered, peeking into the entryway.
Or, she knows it’s you and is practicing iryxij.
“Your Highness? Are you here?” His voice echoed through the empty suite, but there was still no answer.
“Maybe she went to say goodbye to someone,” I suggested. “I can’t imagine she’d choose to wait in here; there’s no place to sit. Let’s check if any of the staff have seen her.”
He nodded, gave the room a final once-over, and then glanced toward the next room. “There is quite a draft coming from the there. I wonder if someone left a window open.”
Now that he’d mentioned it, there was a bit of a breeze. “I guess we should check it out. Wouldn’t want some random bird flying in and messing up these nice, marble floors.” I punctuated the bird part with a wink, knowingly getting in a dig at his less-than-friendly opinion of form-benders.
The master bedroom was—like the rest of the place—bare, except for sheer curtains billowing from the gaping balcony doors. I pulled the wooden frames together, latching them to make certain they stayed shut. “The wind must have blown them open,” I began, but turned when I heard Ryxjat gasp.
I followed his horrified gaze to the closet. Inside, hanging from a decorative beam on the ceiling, was Tjryxina. Her mouth was open, as were her eyes, a long scarf looped around her neck. Fighting the acid that rose in my throat, I ran to her, wrapped my arms around her knees, and lifted. I was almost positive it was too late. Her body was cool and stiff, and she reeked of urine and feces. Still, not knowing for certain, I wanted to get her down.
Ryxjat still stood in the doorway, frozen in shock, and I had to yell at him twice for help. “What do you want me to do?” he croaked, easing a few steps closer.
“Take the chair,” I directed, indicating the toppled, Chippendale-style piece Xina must have used to leap from. “See if you can untie her.”
Disgust clouded his already panicked face. “I… I… couldn’t,” he sputtered.
“Yes. You. Can. Get on the chair. I’m holding her up, so the tension is gone. You should be able to untie the knot.”
“I will go and get help,” he offered.
“No, not until we get her down. Either climb up, or you hold her and I’ll do the untying.”
He hesitated, and I thought I’d have to start yelling at him again, but he righted the chair and stepped onto the upholstered seat. Fortunately, Ryxjat was tall enough to easily reach the beam above him; I wasn’t completely sure I could have managed it had he taken me up on my offer to switch jobs. Ryxjat labored with the silky fabric, while I struggled to keep her aloft. Xina had been slim, and my upper body strength was excellent, but I wasn’t certain how much longer I could support her weight.
There was no warning when the tie finally came loose, and I had to scramble to stop Xina from tumbling onto the floor. It wasn’t until I eased her onto the cool marble and got a good look at her open, unseeing eyes that the full impact of what just happened crashed over me.
I sat back on my haunches beside her, a tear falling freely down my cheek. “Go notify someone,” I whispered to Ryxjat when he stood beside me. “I’ll stay with her while you are gone.”
While I waited, I couldn’t help but think back at what Tannis had said earlier. Did Xina actually have any real friends here? Was that why no one had seen how profoundly her husband’s death had affected her? I was riddled with guilt. I was angry. Within a few weeks, both Kyzal and his wife were gone. One murdered, and the other dead by her own hand. A whole family erased, and for what?
It probably only took minutes for Ryxjat to return with a band of Royal Guards, but it seemed like hours. Nothing like waiting next to a corpse to pass the time. As the professionals took over the scene, I couldn’t bear to be there anymore. My tears had dried, but I backed out of the closet and escaped into the hallway outside Xina’s rooms. A steady stream of people moved in and out of the suite, and I watched the spectacle with unnatural detachment, slumped on the floor.
That was where I was, sometime later, when Alex and Sebastian arrived. Alex took one look at me, helped me to my feet, placed a comforting hand on my lower back, and started to guide me away.
“I think I’m supposed to stick around to answer questions,” I mumbled feebly.
He nodded to Sebastian, who informed the guard stationed at the door of the suite that I would be in our apartment if the need arose. The three of us walked silently, away from the hubbub, away from the gloom of untimely death. Once safely in our suite, Alex gently cupped my face in his hands.
“What do you need me to do, carisa?”
“I’m not sure there’s anything anyone can do for me right now,” I conceded. “For now, though, I want a big shot of tequila, to take a long, hot shower, and to have someone burn these clothes.” The smell of Xina’s loss of control over her bodily functions clung to the fabric. Even if laundering the jeans and shirt might remove the stench, I’d never be able to wear them without thinking of her dangling in her empty walk-in closet.
Easing away from the comfort of his touch, I escaped into the bathroom. Alex, bless his soul, didn’t ask any questions. He just let me go, only interrupting to hand me a tumbler of Patrόn. After, he gathered my discarded and soiled attire from where I’d left them on the floor near the sink and left.
I had to scrub myself from head to foot—twice—before the odors of death dispersed, and then I lingered in the steamy streams of water to calm myself. By the time I emerged, my fingers and toes resembled the snout of a bulldog puppy. Grabbing the first comfortable garb I could find—sweatpants and one of Alex’s pullovers—I headed back to the living area, prepared to face the inevitable inquisition I’d purposely postponed by hiding out in the bath.
Alex and Sebastian sat with their backs to me on one of the sofas, so engrossed in something before them that they didn’t notice me right away. As I looked over their shoulders, the item that held their attention was a multipage, hand-penned note. It was in Courso, and while the writing itself was neat, I had trouble understanding much of it from my vantage point.
“What’s that?” I asked, sliding around the arm of the couch and plunking down next to Alex.
They lifted their heads to acknowledge me, and while I wouldn’t have thought it possible, revealed expressions even gloomier than before my self-imposed exile.
“Xina left a note,” Alex explained, his voice strained. “It was found in her pocket.”
I surveyed the fancy stationery still gripped in Alex’s hand. I probably could have guessed the contents: too despondent over the death of Kyzal, and feeling out of place and alone, she believed joining her beloved husband was her only way forward. Still, I wanted the details, if for no other reason than to confirm how clueless we all had been. “Did she explain why she did it?”
Sebastian sneered. “More a confession than clarification. It seems Tjryxina and Kyzal weren’t getting along, and she feared he was about to divorce her. The humiliation was too much for her to take, and, in her own words, ‘she’d rather be a widow than the ex-wife’.”
“Are you saying she killed Kyzal?” I exclaimed, not quite able to wrap my head around what he was saying.
“Yes,” Alex confirmed. “On the night he die
d, she laced his food with sedatives procured from an unsavory healer who specializes in providing human pharmaceuticals to rich Courso stupid enough to risk taking them.” His fist tightened around the letter. “And then she let him go off skiing,” he yelled, flinging the crumpled pages across the room.
Waves of rage and betrayal rolled off him, and his scent, which earlier today resembled Brewed to Matter, a Ben and Jerry’s flavor with a coffee ice cream base, changed to one closer to old coffee left to burn in a not-quite empty pot. He stalked toward the bar, and I stood to follow, but Sebastian grabbed my hand to stop me.
“Give him a moment,” he whispered.
Alex decanted some Glenlivet into a glass and chugged the twenty-one-year-old scotch. When finished, he poured another and spun around to face me. “And that is not all,” he bristled, swirling the amber liquid around the snifter. “She also conspired with Boklym to kill you, so she might one day still become queen as my wife. When she thought we were getting close to discovering her treachery, she decided hanging herself was a better option than a life sentence in prison.”
Whoa. This was a lot to take in at one time, and I didn’t know which of the many questions swirling through my brain I should ask first. I finally settled for a simple, “Xina knew Boklym?”
“Apparently, they met as youngsters in Drryxi,” Sebastian said. “Xina chose him because he resembled Alexander in both stature and coloring, thinking that would more easily draw you to him if his ability to compel wasn’t quite enough to initiate the contact. Her plan was to break up you and Alex by making it appear you were unfaithful. When that failed, she sought to eliminate you altogether.”
“I guess that also explains his use of ‘carisa’. Xina must have told him that’s what Alex calls me.” It also gave new meaning to her “advice” about thinking long and hard about marrying Alex.
“Lucky for you, my dear,” Sebastian continued. “She was not particularly skilled at subterfuge and machinations.”
“Skilled enough to murder her husband,” I offered. The continuing ache in my side from Boklym’s too-close-for-comfort magic projectile reminded me of just how close she came to success on both counts.
Sebastian nodded. “And if she had stopped there, her crime may never have been discovered. We assumed his death was part of a conspiracy with ties to high-ranking members of the GZ. Tjryxina wasn’t even on our radar. It was only in the last few days that Ziqua received information from her sources linking Tjryxina and Boklym. She was using her family ties to help conceal him in Drryxi. The page Ryxjat showed us would have only added to our suspicions had she not confessed.”
“This still doesn’t make any sense,” I argued. “Why would Boklym agree to any of it?”
“As Tjryxina tells it, he had a serious gambling problem, and he was deeply in debt to some unsavory characters. She offered to pay him enough money to get the loan sharks off his back so he wouldn’t have to admit his failings to his father. Once he implemented the plot to seduce you, and he was being sought by a number of international police forces, it was easy for her to force him into more nefarious endeavors or risk exposing him.”
I frowned at the Xyzok. “How stupid can he be? If she exposed him, she’d expose herself as well. And,” I held up a finger in question, “There are loan sharks in Courso?”
“We have many of the same imperfections as in the human dimension,” he said, a droll grin ghosting across his lips. “As to your first question, Boklym is not used to being a criminal. He probably did not think through all the ramifications before acquiescing to her demands. You would be surprised at some of the imbecilic reactions of those who are in over their heads. Alexander and I see it all the time.”
“I don’t buy it,” I persisted. “I get Boklym agreeing to the seduction part in exchange for getting him out of debt, but murder? That seems far-fetched.”
Sebastian shrugged. “Maybe she had something else to hold over him that she didn’t choose to reveal in her note. When we find Boklym, we can ask him directly.”
Through the discussion, Alex remained silent. The vein in his forehead had popped out, but he didn’t look like he was about to rip the plaster off the walls with his bare hands anymore. I figured that was a good sign he just might be regaining his composure. Sebastian appeared unfazed by Alex’s demeanor, but I kept a cautious eye on Alex as I asked, “So Boklym had nothing to do with Kyzal’s murder?”
“Not according to Xina’s letter. She did point out how she provided Boklym with the same drug she used on Kyzal to make it easier for him to have his way with you. Fortunately, he decided against it. His over-developed estimation of his magical abilities to persuade you likely saved you from a much worse fate than you endured, my dear.”
No shit. If he’d actually drugged me, I’d never have been able to fight him off. Nice to know Boklym’s massive ego was the only reason I hadn’t been raped.
The sound of glass breaking yanked me away from my sobering realization; Alex must have reached a similar conclusion. The remains of the crystal tumbler he had been holding lay in a shattered heap against the wall.
“When I get my hands on that zobojix, he will plead for death,” he snarled.
Sebastian approached with caution. “Alexander, I understand your fury. I feel it, too. But, channel the rage into more productive energy. You cannot enact your revenge unless we find him.” He placed a gentle hand on Alex’s shoulder as their eyes locked. “For now, let us focus on that.”
Outraged contempt erupted across Alex’s face, and for a moment, I thought he might haul off and cold-cock his former mentor. However, Sebastian’s steadfast gaze never wavered. Eventually, Alex’s expression softened.
“Thank you, my friend,” Alex said, his voice barely rising above a whisper. “Thank you for bringing me to my senses.”
Sebastian stepped back and smiled. “You are most welcome, Alexander. Once we locate the scum, we can take turns tearing him limb from limb. There is no way I will let you to have all the fun.”
The two of them were kind of scary, all ruthless and unforgiving. Not that I had any problem with them torturing the bastard; I might even join in if given the chance. After all, Boklym had no one to blame but himself. He chose to gamble to excess and to borrow from shady characters at usurious rates, and he could have figured out a better way to pay off his debts than scheming with a delusional Xina. I still couldn’t fathom why she thought she had any shot at Alex once she’d eliminated her husband and me.
“Alex, did you ever get a vibe from Xina that she had a romantic interest in you?”
He considered my question. “No, not really. But she didn’t have to; all she needed me for was the title. Maybe she figured I’d naturally gravitate to her given our shared tragedies. What a completely senseless waste,” he said, shaking his head.
I also wondered why I hadn’t heard any buzz about Xina and Kyzal having marriage problems. Not that I was plugged into the palace rumor mill, but Tannis certainly was and she would have dished that juicy piece of gossip to me in a heartbeat. In any case, Alex and Sebastian weren’t the ones to ask. They might have their fingers on the pulse of inter-dimensional espionage, but not the ins and outs of intra-family intrigue. On the other hand, if Xina was as whacked-out as she must have been to hatch such a plan, maybe she imagined the whole my-husband-doesn’t-love-me-anymore thing. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony, if she killed Kyzal, and ultimately herself, over a divorce that existed only in her head?
Speaking of Alex’s family, I suddenly realized I hadn’t asked about them. “How are your parents and Tannis taking all this?”
“As well as can be expected,” he replied. “It will take some time for everyone to process the entirety of the situation.”
“Not to mention the extra burden of having to deal with this in such a public way,” I added.
Sebastian glowered. “The queen has no interest in airing the family’s dirty laundry. Kyzal’s death will remain accidental. Xina’s wil
l be explained as the desperate action of a despondent woman, unable to see past her immediate grief.”
I shifted my gaze from Sebastian to Alex. “It’s going to be kept secret? How’s that going to work? More people than just us must know already.”
“Yes, carisa. But none will speak of it. Even if they did, it can be easily dismissed as hearsay.”
“And you’re okay with the truth being swept under the rug? You’re okay with perpetuating the lie?”
“I don’t agree with my mother’s decision, but it is hers to make,” he answered sharply. “She believes it is best to spare both our family and Xina’s the ignominy of the true details. Besides, who benefits from the truth? Will it bring back my brother?”
It wouldn’t. And it wouldn’t get our lives back, either. Kyzal was dead, Alex had to learn to be king, and I was expected to go along for the ride.
Fucking Xina fucked us all.
30
The press treated Xina’s death as the heartbreaking end to a national tragedy. There was one, simple memorial in the same venue that hosted Kyzal’s last, attended by many heads of state, and, of course, Tjryxina’s family. In public, the royals assumed a genuine mantle of deep mourning, flawlessly concealing the reality of their grief. While Rexa remained steadfast in her edict to hide what actually happened, she balked at having her murderous daughter-in-law interred next to Kyzal in the royal mausoleum. Instead, Xina’s remains were shipped—with all proper pomp and circumstance—to Drryxi. The official explanation had something to do with her final wishes were to be laid to rest in her kingdom of birth. If her parents had any knowledge of the truth, they never showed it.
The head of the Royal Guards conducted a hastily assembled “inquiry” into the suicide. There wasn’t much need for a comprehensive investigation—after all, she left a note—and Rexa didn’t want anyone but her trusted general poking around long enough to discover its contents. A toxicology report, ordered by Alex, revealed Xina had taken an overdose of the same medication she gave Kyzal. We assumed she wanted a backup in case she botched the hanging.