Long after the lights dimmed in the banquet hall and everyone filed out in neat streams, Mavyn lingered at the palace's entrance. With no visible carriages or anything with wheels to take her back to the Judgment Seat, she had to wait for the one who brought her here. It never occurred to her how simple a Kathari wedding could be. Instead of an hours-long ceremony of tradition, they celebrate a union by gathering together and entertaining themselves in any way they could.

The taste of the Duthri—the dish and the animal it was taken from were named after as she learned of later—hung at the back of her throat. It was both meaty and sweet, as if a real egg was mixed with nectarine essence. Despite the dissonance in her thoughts, she tried the shell, expecting a grainy and unpleasant experience. In truth, the Duthri's shell was malleable, albeit a bit chewy. It tasted like day-old bread too.

"You appear to have gotten a good meal," a voice snapped her out of her reverie. She looked up to find Valen striding towards her with that unguarded grin on his face. It was only when he felt like jesting, and when Mavyn wasn't cross with him. "Was the Duthri that exquisite?"

"Take me back to the Judgment Seat," she ordered, knowing full well Valen could incinerate her should he wish to. "We have something to discuss."

A hand wrapped around her wrist, and the world around her spun once more. After doing this with him for three times in a row, the swirl of colors and the internal sense of displacement became family. When Valen let her go, they stood in his quarters, the one with the Cathedral harp and the vase of dimly-lit flowers. "Go on," Valen said. His smile was replaced by a glower, dark and deep against the shadows of the truth they both hid. "What did Roassa say?"

Mavyn smoothed her skirts down and leaned against the wall next to the door. With the Kathari appearing at random places with shows of light and darkness, a door in the palace was as unnecessary as a silent rune in a name. "She told me the Monarch was not ill. Otherwise, the entire Underworld would have felt it," she said. "And she told me something interesting."

His red eyes squinted, hackles rising at an inexplicable sense of danger. There wasn't anything behind her, was there? "What did she tell you?" he asked, strung along Mavyn's leading.

"That you're the only one insisting the Monarch was not of excellent health," she revealed, tucking her hands behind her and pressing them against the cold marble. Was it always this cold in the Underworld? The myths didn't tell her that. Then again, the myths had been wrong about a lot of things.

She tilted her head to one side. The strand he tucked behind her ear slipped out once more. Mischievous ass. "Bizarre, wasn't it?" she continued. "Here you are, dragging an innocent Living into your problems, when all along, it was only a product of paranoia." A small laugh ripped off her mouth. "The way Ro said it might as well have been pointed at you. You didn't poison the Monarch yourself, did you?"

The vase exploded into a thousand shards, startling her. Valen's presence turned heavy, as if the shadows came alive again and smothered her breath. His red eyes trained towards her, unwavering and filled to the brim with malice. Know your place, that glare seemed to say. Mavyn pressed her lips together. Of course, she knew it. And she knew it well.

"If you think Roassa is hiding something, perhaps she was," Mavyn continued, straightening her back. No way in Mordelle's staff would she back down. Not even in front of a Kathari. Of a being who could end her existence with a snap of his fingers. "She might be circumventing the issue with the Monarch's health back to you to take away the focus on something else."

The shadows eased a bit. Mavyn crossed her arms. "Now, for your part of the bargain," she said. "Where's Abnegem?"

Valen's frown went deeper, but not because he was pissed. Not anymore. He merely looked annoyed now. "The mortal is not in Purgatory," he reported. "I searched every corner, and his essence cannot be found."

A scoff exploded off Mavyn's lips. "But you said—"

"I know what I said!" He shouted, his voice thundering across the room. Some strands of the moonlight shining through the remains of the vase and the stalks of blue flowers abandoned atop the pedestal shook and scattered in brief journeys. He breathed. Deep. His hand massaged his temples in slow, circular patterns. "Just..." He sighed. "Normal protocols would bring him to Purgatory, so if he wasn't there, we can assume he went further into the process."

Mavyn raised an eyebrow. "Which is?"

Valen's features couldn't have exhibited the amount of pain he had roiling under the surface, but Mavyn heard and saw enough. As much as she hated this arrangement, she did as well. "Choosing between Paradise and Damnation."

She blinked. "We have a choice?"

"The saints have a choice," Valen corrected. "As previous Living themselves, they are familiar with the ways a mortal can err, and the ways they can act rightly."

Mavyn could have scoffed at that but held it in. Valen throwing another tantrum because he didn't like what she said was a headache she'd rather not deal with. "So, to summarize," she said, rolling a hand in the air. "We still don't know who and if someone poisoned the Monarch, and we are no closer to finding Abnegem who has two probable places as his permanent residence."

Damned sasquatches. She should have persuaded Abnegem to kneel inside the Cathedral's pews and participate in every ritual those fools in white conducted every well. Would have narrowed their scope of search further.

"What now?" Mavyn asked, more to herself than to Valen who stood at the center of the large room. Never did he look so...miniature to her eyes. She had never seen a Kathari look so desperate either.

Was that how much he loved the Monarch? Enough to risk worlds and lives to break laws and frolic around with a Living soul? If she could shake her head without betraying her thoughts, she would have. The Kathari were demons—Valen said so himself. There was no way they would feel such connection or love towards their own family. Demons weren't capable of such human emotions.

There were many reasons why a Kathari schemes every day. Sometimes, it could be love or revenge. But it would be within the realm of possibility that Valen was doing this because of something more sinister—dominion.