Chapter 112
"This is not six different people who coincidentally share the same habits, Nirma.
This is one and the same person, deliberately leaving traces at every crime scene, framing five innocent people, and obscuring his own trail so that we would believe Adrianos was the culprit.
Look—even in the evidence that incriminates Adrianos, this same trace still appears.
This perpetrator is extremely cunning, Nirma.
He knew we would gather evidence from six different locations. He knew we would search for patterns. And he intentionally created the same pattern in every place, so that when we discovered that all the traces pointed to one person, we would believe that person was the murderer… when in fact…"
Arya did not need to finish his sentence.
Nirma already understood.
Her face, which had previously been cheerful, turned extremely serious—focused, sharp, like the eyes of an eagle observing its prey from the sky.
She took the holographic glasses from Arya's hand, put them on her own face even though they were not hers, and began analyzing.
For a long time—very long—she remained silent.
Her single eye, the only one that could see, moved rapidly as it followed every scene displayed, every detail it could capture, every clue that might have been overlooked.
Arya observed Nirma with mixed feelings of admiration and anxiety.
He watched how her brows rose and fell, how the corners of her eye narrowed when she found something interesting, how she blinked—once, twice, six times in succession when processing complex information.
Nirma removed the holographic glasses from her face with a slow motion, almost reluctant, like someone who had just awakened from a beautiful dream and was forced to return to reality.
She let out a heavy breath—very heavy—as though the entire burden of the investigation over the past weeks had suddenly settled upon her shoulders in one long, deep exhale.
Then she turned toward Arya.
At that moment, Arya was still looking at her with a gaze that never wavered—a gaze filled with admiration, trust, and perhaps a trace of fear.
Fear of Nirma's intelligence, capable of seeing what others could not.
Fear of the truth that was about to be revealed.
Fear of what might happen once everything was finally uncovered.
They looked at each other—Nirma and Arya—in the middle of the Kapeleion, occasionally illuminated by reflections of moonlight slipping through gaps in the roof and holes in the wall.
Outside, night had fully descended over Constantinople, mercilessly swallowing the last remnants of daylight.
The sky stretched dark above the city, adorned with pale flickering stars scattered between thin trails of smoke rising from hearths and furnaces in the citizens' homes.
The domes and stone walls of the ancient city appeared only as bluish-black silhouettes, while torches lit along the streets cast trembling dim light stirred by winds from the Bosporus Strait.
Inside the room, the rays of sunlight had long vanished, replaced by the soft yellow glow of a gently swaying oil lamp.
Fine dust still drifted through the air, caught in the faint halo of light hanging like thin mist.
Shadows stretched across the stone walls, moving slowly with the flicker of flame, creating a heavy silence—as if the night itself had paused for a moment, allowing thought to wrestle within the quiet of Byzantine Constantinople in the year 1101.
One minute passed.
Two minutes.
Perhaps five—no one could be certain, because both of them were too absorbed in each other's gaze, in a silent communication understood only by two people who had endured too many storms together.
Arya saw something in Nirma's eye that he rarely saw.
Fragility.
The fragility of a human being who was tired, who had fought too hard, who knew that the truth soon to be revealed might be more painful than ignorance.
And Nirma saw something in Arya's eyes that made her want to smile.
Loyalty.
The loyalty of a companion who would always remain, no matter what happened, wherever the truth might lead them.
They did not need to speak.
They did not need to exchange words.
In that silence, in that gaze, everything had already been said.
"Madam Nirma! Sir Arya!"
The voice of the Prefect's soldier shattered the silence like a stone thrown into a still pond, sending ripples across the surface.
Nirma and Arya simultaneously turned their gaze toward the Kapeleion's door, where a soldier in the distinctive uniform of the City Prefect stood with slightly labored breathing. Sweat dampened his forehead and temples—a sign that he had just completed a long and exhausting journey.
Nirma gave a faint smile—the same smile as before, the smile that had begun to define her during this investigation.
"Soldier," she greeted gently, "present your report. What news do you bring from our six suspects?"
The soldier wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his robe—once, then twice—gestures that revealed just how tired he was after circling Constantinople to deliver Nirma's letters.
Then, carefully, he removed something from the large pouch fastened at his waist.
Six letters, neatly rolled and tied with thin red ribbons—the characteristic mark of important correspondence in Byzantine Constantinople of the year 1101 AD.
He stepped forward and handed the six letters to Nirma with both hands, a gesture of perfect respect despite his still uneven breathing.
Without unnecessary words or formalities, Nirma separated the six letters into two piles in her palm.
The first three letters—from Megas Domestikos Adrianos Komnenos, Nikephoros Melissenos, and Konstantinos Dalassenos—she handed to Arya with a quick and decisive motion, like someone long accustomed to dividing tasks during urgent situations.
"Read these," she said briefly, "Summarize the contents in your mind. I need the general picture, not the details. Just the outline."
Arya accepted the letters without asking questions, without hesitation.
He knew that in moments like this, time meant everything, and every second wasted on questions could mean the difference between capturing the murderer or losing the trail forever.
He opened the first letter—from Adrianos Komnenos—and his eyes moved quickly across the neatly written characters on the parchment.
The handwriting of an educated nobleman—flowery in style, yet carefully maintaining dignity and distance.
The second letter, from Nikephoros Melissenos, was written in rougher script, more direct, like someone who had no patience for decorative language.
The third letter, from Konstantinos Dalassenos, was the shortest of them all—only a few lines—but every word felt carefully chosen, as if each letter were a blade ready to pierce.
Two seconds.
Perhaps three.
No more than that.
Arya lifted his head, looked at Nirma who was still absorbed in reading the remaining three letters, and without saying anything he returned the letters to her hand.
Nirma accepted them while continuing to read the fourth, fifth, and sixth letters—from Georgios Palaiologos, Ioannis Taronites, and Leontios Chalkeus.
Yet although her eyes were not directed at Arya, her ears remained fully attentive, waiting for his report.
"Adrianos," Arya began, his voice low but clear, "writes in an offended tone. He feels your letter is an insult—he considers your question about his motive a vile slander. He apologizes for being unable to attend your invitation to meet. He says there is urgent business at the palace that cannot be abandoned. But at the end of the letter… he asks whether you have found new evidence, Nirma. A strange question for someone who claims to be innocent."
To be continued…