meanwhile in another room
The Duke and Duchess are talking.
A fire roared in a hearth large enough to stand in, its light glinting off polished steel and ancient tapestries depicting Veyrith victories. The Duke stood before the flames, a tall silhouette of power and impatience.
"You said the boy would be gone, Isolda," he said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate in the very stone of the room. "The bloodline is getting weak."
Isolda, sat in a stern pose
"I....did give him poison. A special one" The duchess said
"What? I told you not to use that!" The duke said with a hint of anger in his tone.
The Duchess's fingers tightened around the goblet. "It was the Weeping Bella, it's undetectable and the smptyoms are just common cold" she retorted, her own composure cracking. "It was a calculated risk. A slow wasting sickness. Plausible. No one would question it. A weak constitution, they would say. A tragic end to a lesser branch."
The Duke turned from the fire, the firelight carving his features into a mask of cold fury. "You risked everything on a garden weed? You fool. If it had been traced back to us, the Silverwoods would have torn our house apart. They dote on that girl of theirs, what was her name... Alicia. She has a soft spot for the boy, or so the whispers say. A 'childhood friendship,' they call it. A weakness we cannot afford."
"Alicia Silverwood is a child with a fleeting infatuation," Isolda scoffed. "She will be married to a real mage, not a... a void. Her father, Lord Silverwood, is a pragmatist. He wouldn't risk a war over a useless boy's convenient demise. Besides," she added, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "the Bella was not my only attempt. There were... other methods. More subtle methods."
"Such as?" The Duke's tone was flat, demanding.
"Whispers woven into his food. Curses sewn into the linens of his bed. I paid a shadow priest from the Outer Quarters to bleed the lifeforce from him, Each night, while he slept, he has been getting weaker"
The Duke stared at her, a long, silent appraisal. For a moment, the only sound was the crackle of the fire and the faint, distant howl of the wind around the spires of the keep. "And yet, he persists," he said finally, the words a judgment. "He breathes. He fills our halls with the stench of failure. He is a tumor, Isolda. And you have shown yourself incapable of cutting it out."
Fear, or perhaps excitement crossed Isolda's face. "My Lord, this night will be the end of his life and his severance from the bloodline... the cost is immense. And the risk is zero. The curse should effect on him this night "
"Good, Valerius is our future. His red glow is our banner. We cannot have that banner tarnished by the shadow of a null-sibling. the next moon, we will cleanse our line."
Isolda bowed her head, a gesture of submission that hid the gleam in her eyes. "As you command, my Lord."
The night falls dark, as the new day arrives with the news that soon followed....