"You actually dare to provoke the monarch?" Josef sneered as he looked at Ava. But for some reason, the man was still smiling at her. "What were you thinking?" he asked.
"I didn’t provoke him. I told him the truth."
"The truth? You — " Josef narrowed at her.
After what happened, the Monarch asked everyone to leave the room and put Eva in a separate room. Of course, Ava wasn’t surprised to see that the Duke was already waiting for her inside the room.
"Foolish!" Josef hissed.
"Am I?" she responded.
"Perhaps you misunderstood. The chance that I gave you was nothing but empty promises. Both of us knew the Prince died not because of poison."
"It was because of poison." Ava maintained her words. "There is no point in arguing over things like this. I knew that he was poisoned by— "
"Mistress, you cannot go in there. Please— "
Their conversation was interrupted when Esmeralda, the mother of the prince who had just died, walked toward Ava. She didn’t give them any opportunity to react as she directly slapped Ava in the face.
**PAK!**
"How dare you!"
"Misstress please, the monarch will— "
"A mere other- worlder would dare to cause chaos in front of the monarch?" The concubine hissed in anger. "Was it because of him?" She looked at Josef, her eyes sending daggers his way. "Did you think he would be able to protect you?" she asked.
"No." Ava was holding her face. That... actually hurt! Damnit!
It wasn’t because the woman had many calluses. No. It was because of the ring that she was wearing.
"A mere witch!" Esmeralda continued.
"I was counting on this." Ava smiled at the woman. She slowly got up. Earlier, Esmeralda looked immaculate in her black long gown. But up close, Ava could actually spot a few wrinkles that were hidden behind her thick makeup.
"You— "
"I was told that the concubine had a temper."
"You dare provoke me?" Realization hit the woman’s face. "You— "
"Though that does not change the fact that you murdered your own son."
"I would never!"
"Not directly. At least." Ava smirked. She walked around the woman, distancing herself, as she didn’t want another slap. "The poison that you used was a slow-acting one, right? It was invisible even if you are using magick."
"You— "
"I’ve heard tales that you knew an other worlder."
"Stop changing the— "
"Sit down," Ava said. Her voice was soft, but it echoed inside the small room. Then the countenance of the concubine changed. It was as if she was in pain.
"Don’t fight it," Ava said. "I was just trying to make you calm down."
"Using magick inside of the palace and— "
"Shut up." The moment Ava said that, the concubine stopped talking. It wasn’t because she was scared of Ava. It was because Ava literally made her stop talking. "I temporally disabled your... vocal cords as you keep on interrupting me."
Ava heard Josef chuckle, but she ignored it.
"I knew about your other- worlder friend. She wasn’t a witch — just a human who stumbled into this world. She became a close ally and a friend. She also took care of you when you were pregnant." Ava continued. "You know... when I heard about this, I wondered why would someone like you trust a mere human to stay by your side when you are pregnant with a prince." Of course, Ava has already done her research about the names and backgrounds of the people inside the royal family.
She did it after that incident with Lord Welton.
She did it the moment she realized that his world is far from the world that the Shaman told her.
"Then I thought... of one thing. She was a doctor. Wasn’t she?" She looked a Josef. "A human doctor, or perhaps a pharmacist. Using her knowledge, she made a poison that could cause blood thinning. Once injured, a man who had been consuming that medicine would surely succumb from blood loss." Ava smiled. "And since you didn’t use magick, no one knows about it."
When she read the files about the Prince’s death, Ava thought of ways to lie.
And this is just one of the ways.
A blood thinner.
The people in this world had no way to know about those things, as they didn’t have a way to use technology. Meaning, only an other worlder would have the ability to do it.
Seeing the woman’s expression, Ava added.
"Though... I am curious. Why did you poison him? You doted on him and loved him more than you love yourself. Why do it?"
Ava snapped her finger, and the frozen woman finally moved.
"Why did you kill your son?" Ava asked. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
"I said— "
"I have a way to check if he died of poison." Ava decided to bluff.
In fact, she had no other evidence other than the woman’s guilt. The details that she said about the woman’s best friend who is an other worlder were the only true thing in her statement. The rest were something that she had come up with... the moment she felt the woman’s overpowering guilt.
The blood thinner was just bullshit that she made up when she noticed the excessive loss of blood from the initial investigation.
Though Ava didn’t have any evidence, she was certain of one thing.
She was right about the poisoning.
The woman’s fluctuating emotions were enough to prove that.
But she had no physical evidence.
So... she decided to bluff her way to the truth instead.
"I could examine his body and show you that— "
"So what if I gave him something like that?" the concubine asked. By now, tears were streaming down her face, ruining her makeup. "He had a medical condition! I was just trying to help him. Magick cannot just magically heal him. That medicine was something that he had been taking since he was a child! It was supposed to help him!"
"A blood thinner... might help with problems in the heart, but it could also cause excessive blood loss if the person was injured," Ava said. "You knew about the blood loss, didn’t you?"
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