Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 176

Chapter 176: Bottomless pit
Anaisa’s eyes widened as she leaned slightly forward. Trace grabbed her hand, pulling her back from the edge.

“What is this?” She asked him, pointing. Sweat had beaded on his forehead as if he were reliving something quite terrible.

“Let’s press on,” He said, “I’ll tell you on the way.”

Nodding, Anaisa took several steps away from the dark hole in the cave floor.

She glanced back at Trace, and he shook his head.

“It was something Sanders showed me. When Oakdown first got his powers, the deputy that was with him was the unfortunate victim of a test of the strength of his commands.” Trace sighed. “He commanded the deputy to jump into a bottomless pit further up the trail. I believe we just passed it.”

Anaisa shivered. “Did it work?”

“Yes.” The single word seemed to echo more deeply than any other in the cavern.

“He must be stopped,” The doctor said quietly. “A man like that… that’s evil. To kill in self defense is sometimes necessary. To kill in war is pardonable. To kill just to see if you can achieve it? Vile.”

Anaisa felt the old sting of bitterness creep into her heart, though she tried to keep it at bay. Revenge was personal, and she was convinced it would not ultimately satisfy her.

She tried to focus on justice instead. Barnabas’s downfall would not be just to make herself happy, it would be for the good of the kingdom, the good of the world.

Those were the goals she should be working towards, not personal retribution. The cool air of the cave brushed past her cheek, and she remembered the slap Barnabas delivered to her after throwing her out in the street. Suggesting she become a harlot in a brothel.

Offering her a position as one of Denholm’s servant girls, subject to his unspeakable appetites.

Her blood began to boil, and Trace squeezed her hand gently.

“Are you all right?” He whispered. “You seem angry.”

“I was thinking about all his sins,” She confessed. “So many of them.”

“I gave checkups to the prisoners, did you know?” The doctor put in to the conversation. “And our older friend, Calvin, whose son is a royal guard, had some interesting things to say.”

“Oh?” Anaisa tried not to resent the change in subject, but honestly, it was probably far better for her not to dwell on Barnabas just now.

“He was a miner, before. Copper. Very dangerous work, and has many toxic byproducts that must be disposed of carefully.” The doctor continued.

“Is he ill?” Trace asked. “Should we send him away for his health?”

“Nothing like that. But his son was also raised to that life before becoming a palace guard. They educate their children rather thoroughly on the dangers.”

“I don’t see where this is going,” Anaisa admitted. “Unless this is simply for my education…”

“The snack you ate when you were poisoned,” The doctor pointed out, “it had no unusual taste, I trust? No odor that you noticed?”

“No,” Anaisa was suddenly much more interested in the conversation.

“There are few poisons that have no odor, taste, or smell. The queen noticed nothing amiss after so long with the same snacks. Arsenic is a byproduct of copper mining, and is a very effective poison. It was one of the possibilities I narrowed it down to from the queen’s snacks… and Calvin’s son was one of the guards that helped watch over her chambers for many years before he was lately reassigned. I got to know the man by sight due to my many visits to Her Highness, and the previous queen as well.”

Anaisa frowned. “The previous queen? Didn’t she die in childbirth having Princess Sapphira, or shortly thereafter?”

“I was new in the palace at the time.” The doctor grimaced. “I had my suspicions that there was more at work, but death in childbirth happens so often, and I had no evidence. I was afraid that it would look like I was trying to stir trouble to take attention off of my ineffective treatment of the former queen. She should not have died, but after time passed I put the matter out of my mind as something I could never change or do anything about.”

“She was poisoned, just like the current queen?” Anaisa was horrified.

“I’m confused,” Trace interrupted. “How can Calvin’s son have been blackmailed all this time, when Barnabas hasn’t been in power all that long?”

“That was another interesting thing he had to say,” The doctor paused for a moment and turned to fully face Anaisa. “Calvin’s son, it seems, got his first job as a palace guard with the generous and unexpected recommendation of the previous Count of Oakdown, just before Calvin was kidnapped.”

“My father?” Anaisa gapsed. “He… he had Sapphira’s mother killed? He was poisoning the new queen, causing all her miscarriages, and Barnabas just took it all over when he killed my father?”

The treachery ran deep, and Anaisa was deeply ashamed of her family. She wanted to vomit, knowing that not one, but multiple innocent lives had been snuffed out by her father’s evil. His political plots did not stop at scheming and maneuvering and betraying, but at murder.

“I’m distraught in retrospect that I did not test Her Highness for poison earlier. Only, she was immune to the poison herself, so she never showed symptoms of it. This pregnancy, she had very little appetite, which may have been little Ewan’s saving grace.” The doctor hung his head. “I must beg His Majesty and Her Highness for forgiveness now that my incompetence has been all but confirmed.”

“You did your best, and you’ve kept Ewan alive,” Anaisa encouraged. “That is the best penance anyone could pay. His life is the most important thing any of us have ever been trusted with.”

“I have barely kept him alive. He is weak. His heart and his lungs, while they still function, are not thriving and growing as they should. If this effort does not work, we shall not have him with us for much longer.”