"Valen Nox, explain this," a stern voice from a child speared through Mavyn's pounding head as her world flickered back to life. "Did you forget the only law you must follow? The Living must not enter our realm!"

A groan escaped her lips as her hand clutched her forehead. The fire had calmed into a banal warmth. Through the weight dragging her eyelids down, she registered Valen's frame shielding her from the throne's vantage and how his hands settled on her shoulders with such certainty. Her chair had skittered meters away from the rim of the table, and all eyes speared through her. It took her a moment that Valen's Death Matter protection was gone, reverting her elaborate clothing to the muddy and clumpy mourning dress she wore upon arriving.

Valen's hand snaked around her nape, his forehead pressing against hers once more. I'll handle this, he said. Stay silent until I say so. The poison is neutralized, but you are still healing.

Before she could say anything, Valen whipped towards the Monarch who sat on the edge of her throne. Her red eyes glinted like rubies activated by the blood moon. Her fist clenched atop the flat armrest. "I have not, Mother," Valen answered. "But this is the only way for me to convince you to see reason."

Mavyn pieced the information from there. Someone poisoned her drink, and when she was dying, Valen saved her. She sank into herself, analyzing the strands of Death Matter curling around her own magic. They haven't reached her soul, which would boot her out of the Living World, but they flowed through her veins, pulsating under her skin. A Living witch, bearing Death Matter in her system. This was turning more interesting by the second.

But in the process, Valen revealed the truth to their arrangement. Everyone was now aware that she was a fake wife, and she was not of their realm. If not for him, the Monarch would have incinerated Mavyn on the spot. But if not for him, she would have died anyway with such a sweet death coursing through her body.

"See reason?" the Monarch answered. "Are you certain it is I who needs it? Consorting with the Living, bringing danger to our doors—have you lost your mind?"

Valen slammed a hand on the table, making even Prisca jump. "I may be, but this is the only way I can bring to light what has been happening from the shadows," he said, his voice rising a pitch. It was the closest to being human he got. "Someone from our world is tainting your essence, Mother. It wasn't just an illness. It is a slow death an errant soul bestowed upon you."

"We have talked about this, Valen." Roassa shot from her seat and faced her brother. "Is that why you had the mortal ask me about Mother's health?"

Not wife; just mortal. How quickly the Kathari moved forward.

"The only thing that could kill a Kathari is a relic of the Living," Valen said, training his full attention towards the Monarch. Two passive faces with cosmic anger threatening to break through were interesting to watch. "And only a Living soul can discover it."

"He is correct, Your Highness," Mavyn interjected without Valen's approval. She staggered towards his side, fielding the Monarch's angry glare herself. "I know what it is, and how it was used against you."

She glanced at Valen whose lips were pressed into a thin line. "It was a shadow of the Living, cloaked to be from the Land of the Dead," she said. "It was spider spike poison."

"We found traces of it in your quarters," Valen added, earning an indignant huff from the Monarch. But no one was vaporized, so it was safe to proceed. But if she uttered the wrong thing, would Valen save her from the Monarch's wrath? She didn't know, and she'd pretend it didn't bother her. "Prisca attested to having something stolen from the Garden of Eden. It must be the culprit's doing when they aimed to disguise their scheme as something harmless."

"It worked for a while," Mavyn said, taking over the Kathari's attention again. She smirked at the Monarch, which might not be the wisest thing to do. "But I know who it is."

The Monarch narrowed her eyes, the red glint concentrating to a point. "Give me a name."

"Abnegem Philozoros."

The moment the poison touched her tongue, she knew whose hands touched it. Abnegem wasn't the straight-rod noble she projected him to be. He has a fascination for the macabre, and she was more than happy to provide him with what he needed. When he developed a fixation on poisons, he brought Mavyn all the grimoires he could and asked her to brew them under his parents' noses. She couldn't care less on where he would use them, but one mixture leaped out at her the most: the one with spider spikes.

"And how do you possess this information?" the Monarch asked.

Mavyn faced Valen. "I must make a confession," she said, more to him than the Monarch. "Abnegem may have been my fiancé, but I have no love for him. He only existed to help me survive."

Her next statement, she directed to the Monarch. "I am a witch from the countryside, surviving amidst persecution and prejudice from the common people," she said. "A place in high society with a sympathetic husband is the only way for me to survive and save others who are like me. But he entered your realm before any plan was put into place, driving me to seek out your son."

"A call he so foolishly answered," the Monarch huffed. Hearing those words puff out of a voice smaller than a street runt displaced some comfort in Mavyn's gut. "What does that have to do with the name?"

"Abnegem Philozoros was that man," Mavyn answered. "And he brought his fascinations with him, past the gates of the Underworld."

The Monarch scoffed. "Impossible," she said. "The Saints would have seen through it."

"Not if he had help," Mavyn countered. "From someone already in the Land of the Dead. Someone who had the power to manipulate the spirits' memories to further hide their schemes. Just like how Valen helped me enter the gates of the realm, someone must have helped Abnegem skip the line."

The gazes trained on her scattered into various directions—blames thrown towards each other. Valen eased from the table's edge, joining Mavyn a step back. "Before you claim it is preposterous," she said over the silent chaos imploding in the conclave. "I suggest summoning the accused."

The Monarch was silent for a few seconds. Then, she raised her hand and snapped her fingers. Mavyn watched with bated breath as the air beside the throne shimmered. In a blink, Abnegem's confused features sparked to life inside the pavilion. Wide eyes scanned the array of faces, both regal and common. The decision to flee or start begging for his life flashed in his features, even if a shroud of murky gray and green swallowed most of his pallor. When his eyes landed on Mavyn, he pointed an accusing finger at her.

"You again!" he exclaimed. "I told you to leave me alone! I don't know you."

Mavyn slunk towards him and threw an arm around the spirit. It was like pressing her skin against an iron wrought fence during a winter storm. "My dear Abnegem, perhaps you recognize someone else in this room?" She gestured at the Kathari who all had shot up from their seats save for the Monarch. "Someone...who ordered you to do something for them?"

The spirit tensed as much as his wispyform allowed him. "You are in the presence of the ruler of the Underworld, and she is currently deciding your fate," Mavyn said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Are you condemning or saving yourself? It's your choice."

If Abnegem carried more than the spider spike poison with him to the afterlife, it was his suggestibility. Mavyn stepped out of the scene, watching the spirit's eyes dart across the golden-bathed space. Her words drove a stake of desperation into the poor spirit of her fiancé. He raised a hand and pointed east.

To Noclys.

"It is him, Your Majesty." Abnegem's words shook as he whipped to the Monarch's throne. His poor, undead brain must be overcooked now. "Th-that man found me at the rim of the cave and pulled me away from the queue. In exchange for doing something for him, he would help me find justice." He beat his chest with a fist. "I was mur—"

"Now, are we going to let Noclys get away with endangering the Underworld by consorting with a mortal?" Mavyn stepped in front of Abnegem and clasped her hands together, smiling up at the Monarch's throne. "Valen only brought me here to solve this problem, but Noclys here succeeded in hurting you. Valen would never dream of harming his realm. I cannot say the same about his brother."

Noclys pushed past Prisca and waved a dismissive hand at Mavyn. "Are you hearing these miscreants' words, Mother?" he demanded. "Do you believe their lies over the word of your own kind?"

"Where is your wife?" came the Monarch's only question. "Nothing but the truth, Noclys."

He flinched as if the reference struck a nerve. "Mother, what does that have to do—"

"The truth!" the Monarch ordered. Her voice rumbled across the hall, making the chandeliers quiver and the jewels hanging from the curtains clink.

Mavyn tucked her hands together, throwing her gaze to her feet. She risked a glance at Noclys who sputtered as if punched in the throat. "I sent her away," he answered. Oh, that wasn't the answer.

The Monarch's eyes shone a deeper shade of ruby. A little redder, and maybe they would shed blood. "Sent her away? Do you know what you've done? Not to me, but to the fate of your realm?"

"If not for you and your vapid dreams of strengthening this hunk of smoke and obsidian, I would not choose her," Noclys fired back. "Kahlia is the one for me, and always will be."

An unprecedented frost blasted inside the pavilion. "Do not dare utter that mortal's name in my presence," the Monarch hissed.

Noclys, with his face withdrawn to a fatalistic mania, scoffed. "I'm tired of having no power against you and your whims. Kahlia is my light, and you're an impending darkness I can't overcome." He chuckled, hysterical beyond measure. Mavyn might have stumbled into a gold nugget's worth of drama. "With your power, Kahlia and I can conquer death. Once I am the Monarch, she wouldn't have to die. She would never have to fear death."

Mavyn caught Valen's eye from the distance between them. What? Only the Monarch could resurrect the spirits? What about his oath to her? The Kathari do not lie. His words bled back into her mind. The Kathari do not lie, but they scheme, they deceive, and they stretch the truth as far as they dared. Valen could resurrect the dead, provided he became the next Monarch. And was he secretly hoping for that? Was that why he ensured he was in the conclave, and why he was set on finding the culprit behind the Monarch's sickness?

A smile crept out of Mavyn's lips. Valen could spend a lifetime deciphering what it meant.

"With my power, you will only upset the balance of life and death," the Monarch said, her voice mellowing into an exhausted sorrow. "You are the farthest in being ready for it."

Noclys' eyes bugged. The Monarch spread her hand towards her son. "You snuck weapons from the Land of the Living, exposed me to it, aimed to deceive your kind and frame your sister, and dared to love a mortal," she said. "For that, you deserve eternal sleep."

The Monarch closed her stubby hand. From the ground rose strands of dark ink lashing and screaming for the soul of the damned. They gripped Noclys' arms and legs, leaving not an inch for him to squirm or to shout. Beside her, Abnegem collapsed to the ground, writhing in invisible pain. What—

"Mavyn, help me!" was the last thing he yelled before his spirit poofed into wisps and scattered into the green-gray mist. She could have laughed at that. Now, he remembered her. Funny how life seemed to flash before one's eyes at the face of eternal banishment.

Noclys lasted longer, bucking against the final judgment of the shadowy leashes dragging him to the floor. But even a Kathari was no match for the Monarch's power. Soon, his body, cocooned by the insatiable void, slammed into the polished marble floor with a loud crack. The shadows shrieked, devouring even his voice and essence until nothing but the webbed gaps between the marbling patterns remained.

The Monarch opened her hand, lowering it to her side. "Well, can we start the Solstice Conclave now?"

Mavyn sank to her knees, whipped out one of the knives hidden in her grubby boots, and drove the blade deep into the Monarch's chest. "No," she said with a wicked grin.