Read Online The Mad God's Muse (The Eye of the Lion Saga Book 2) by Matt Gilbert - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Matt Gilbert
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with this.
Planning
was everything. So many fools killed on the spur of the moment,
passionately, understandably. Rithard was rarely consulted on such cases, due to the ease of
solving them. On the few occasions he had been, it was child's play
to work out motives, means, opportunity, and point the authorities
in the right direction.
Murder, in the end, was just another human behavior, albeit a
forbidden one. Men killed because they were angry, because they were
greedy, because they hated. Catching a murderer consisted largely of
working out which of the three applied, and finding who fit the
bill. Once one narrowed the list of possibles, the evidence was
usually all too easy to find.
Not
so, in this case. There were damned few who could even fathom Rithard's motivation.
They would have to be clever enough to work out a masterful
deception that had confounded even him for quite some time. How
could anyone know he wanted her dead, when they have no idea what
she had done?
Nothing
much. She just engineered death and ruin on both sides of my family,
with me likely included on the list of victims.
Rithard paused in the bedroom outside Maralena's bath. She was
surely within, indulging her decadent tastes. He shook his head at
the expense of the silk sheets, the polished, intricately carved
headboard. Such vanity. It's a wonder she didn't just have it all
made of gold and be done with it.
He removed a vial from his pocket and checked the contents. It held
a rarely used drug, one that only he or Aiul would possibly
recognize: a powerful sedative used for surgeries. In carefully
measured doses, it brought temporary oblivion and paralysis of most
muscles, a godsend for a surgeon and his patient. A massive
overdose, administered through the carafe of drinking water she kept
by her bed, would lead to unconsciousness and heart failure in just
a few minutes. It had no smell, no color, and no odd side effects
beyond those he desired.
Were there risks? Certainly. He had come here unobserved, but he
might be seen leaving, still. He had a clever lie, one that would
pass even his own mother's keen sense of truth: Maralena had
summoned him here, wanting information about Aiul's condition. There
might be some suspicion, but without motive, it would pass. Maralena
had plenty of enemies, some of them Meites. Bookish, dispassionate
Rithard would be forgotten in the storm of accusations.
And worst case, if he were caught, and she lived? The ultimate play
would be to tell her exactly what he had intended, and why. Of
course, he would also lay out in exacting detail what he had worked
out about her machinations, and that he had written all of this
down. Were he to suffer an “accident”, the document in
question would end up in the hands of his good friend Caelwen, as
well as his Matriarch Narelki and their family friend, Maranath
Aswan.
He had every base covered. He opened the vial and was about to pour
its contents into the carafe, then froze at the sound of the bath
door opening.
Rithard
almost dropped the vial in his shock, as he quickly spun to face the
newcomer, seeing only a vague figure within the cloud of steam that
came rushing from the bath. I'll
strangle her. I've no choice, now. I can recover, if I have the
will.
“Oh, my,” the newcomer tittered, the voice decidedly
male. “What have we here?”
Rithard
clenched his jaw as the steam dissipated to reveal a tall, lean,
sharp featured man, draped in red and black robes. He flashed
Rithard a cruel, razor smile and cocked his head in amusement. Well,
it would seem I am less competent at murder than I imagined. Still,
it's damnably bad luck. “We
have similar, bad taste in women, I suppose.”
The man snorted laughter. “You're standing there over her
water, pouring something in, and I'm supposed to believe you're her
bed mate?” He shook his head, still laughing, and touched a
finger to his lip in mirth. “A jilted lover, here for revenge,
is that about the shape of it?
Planning
was everything. So many fools killed on the spur of the moment,
passionately, understandably. Rithard was rarely consulted on such cases, due to the ease of
solving them. On the few occasions he had been, it was child's play
to work out motives, means, opportunity, and point the authorities
in the right direction.
Murder, in the end, was just another human behavior, albeit a
forbidden one. Men killed because they were angry, because they were
greedy, because they hated. Catching a murderer consisted largely of
working out which of the three applied, and finding who fit the
bill. Once one narrowed the list of possibles, the evidence was
usually all too easy to find.
Not
so, in this case. There were damned few who could even fathom Rithard's motivation.
They would have to be clever enough to work out a masterful
deception that had confounded even him for quite some time. How
could anyone know he wanted her dead, when they have no idea what
she had done?
Nothing
much. She just engineered death and ruin on both sides of my family,
with me likely included on the list of victims.
Rithard paused in the bedroom outside Maralena's bath. She was
surely within, indulging her decadent tastes. He shook his head at
the expense of the silk sheets, the polished, intricately carved
headboard. Such vanity. It's a wonder she didn't just have it all
made of gold and be done with it.
He removed a vial from his pocket and checked the contents. It held
a rarely used drug, one that only he or Aiul would possibly
recognize: a powerful sedative used for surgeries. In carefully
measured doses, it brought temporary oblivion and paralysis of most
muscles, a godsend for a surgeon and his patient. A massive
overdose, administered through the carafe of drinking water she kept
by her bed, would lead to unconsciousness and heart failure in just
a few minutes. It had no smell, no color, and no odd side effects
beyond those he desired.
Were there risks? Certainly. He had come here unobserved, but he
might be seen leaving, still. He had a clever lie, one that would
pass even his own mother's keen sense of truth: Maralena had
summoned him here, wanting information about Aiul's condition. There
might be some suspicion, but without motive, it would pass. Maralena
had plenty of enemies, some of them Meites. Bookish, dispassionate
Rithard would be forgotten in the storm of accusations.
And worst case, if he were caught, and she lived? The ultimate play
would be to tell her exactly what he had intended, and why. Of
course, he would also lay out in exacting detail what he had worked
out about her machinations, and that he had written all of this
down. Were he to suffer an “accident”, the document in
question would end up in the hands of his good friend Caelwen, as
well as his Matriarch Narelki and their family friend, Maranath
Aswan.
He had every base covered. He opened the vial and was about to pour
its contents into the carafe, then froze at the sound of the bath
door opening.
Rithard
almost dropped the vial in his shock, as he quickly spun to face the
newcomer, seeing only a vague figure within the cloud of steam that
came rushing from the bath. I'll
strangle her. I've no choice, now. I can recover, if I have the
will.
“Oh, my,” the newcomer tittered, the voice decidedly
male. “What have we here?”
Rithard
clenched his jaw as the steam dissipated to reveal a tall, lean,
sharp featured man, draped in red and black robes. He flashed
Rithard a cruel, razor smile and cocked his head in amusement. Well,
it would seem I am less competent at murder than I imagined. Still,
it's damnably bad luck. “We
have similar, bad taste in women, I suppose.”
The man snorted laughter. “You're standing there over her
water, pouring something in, and I'm supposed to believe you're her
bed mate?” He shook his head, still laughing, and touched a
finger to his lip in mirth. “A jilted lover, here for revenge,
is that about the shape of it?
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