"Well, it happened accidentally, when I went to find the herbalist from that night…"
Previously, when Kel had spent time replaying the events of the night of Lucy's poisoning in her mind, she'd come across one particular occurrence that didn't make sense.
That night, the doctor had been the first to come rushing in the room to attend to Lucy. He inspected the patient and quickly got to work alleviating her symptoms as best he could.
Next came the herbalist, who also immediately ran to inspect the patient.
She checked a few things on Lucy's body, diagnosed the poison, and handed over the antidote.
It would have been a perfectly logical order of events..
If the very knife Lucy had been slashed with wasn't left in the room.
No matter how confident an herbalist was in their knowledge and skills, when it comes to identifying poison, checking the source is always more efficient than checking the afflicted.
And that herbalist had not even inquired about the weapon.
Kel couldn't be sure she'd actually found a lead--it could have easily been a slip up on the herbalist's part due to the chaos and late hour--but it was the only loose thread she could pull from the rebels' tightly woven cover.
So she had wasted no time setting off to do some digging.
After agreeing to take at least three guards with her and promising to be back before the gathering, she had headed for the workroom of the palace herbalists.
When she finally arrived, she found an elderly man and middle-aged woman busy with wooden boxes and trays of dried herbs.
"Excuse me," Kel coughed awkwardly, trying to get their attention.
"Eh?" the woman turned toward her with a sour look on her face, which changed to surprise as soon as she recognized her.
"Y-Your Highness," the woman placed her tools on the table, offering a small curtsey. "What brings you to this humble place?"
"I'm looking for someone," Kel replied, glancing briefly around the room.
The young herbalist who had attended to Lucy was nowhere to be found.
"Ah, if it's someone skilled with medicines and herbs, you've come to the right place," the woman smiled clumsily, elbowing the old man still busy working behind her.
"Hmm? Oh.. oh!" the old man turned around, fumbling with a pair of spectacles as he noticed the newcomers in the room.
"... are you, perhaps, the only herbalists in the palace?"' Kel questioned, still searching the room. "Is there another woman who works here?"
The middle-aged woman and old man exchanged an uncertain glance before the woman answered.
"There is another woman who works here," she explained, hurriedly adding, "but I'm afraid she won't be of much help to you."
"She hardly comes here, that worthless girl," the old man grumbled, only to be elbowed again by the woman.
"Ah she's still an apprentice," the woman went on. "She hasn't learned much."
"And frankly, she never will!" the old man growled, clearly ignoring his companion's attempts to silence him. "If not for her mother, I would never have been forced to take on such a useless apprentice!"
The woman turned to him with her hands on her hips.
"She's my apprentice, not yours, you old coot!"
"You're still my apprentice too, young lady!!"
The pair squabbled for a few moments before Kel disrupted them by clearing her throat again.
"Is this apprentice a woman in her twenties with short, curly hair?" she asked, describing the only things she could remember about the herbalist.
"...That sounds like her," the woman hesitated. "H-has she done something wrong?"
Kel paused.
If what they said about that woman was true, it made her even more suspicious. Only someone extremely experienced with identifying poisons would inspect the patient without thinking to ask for the source.
A young, clumsy apprentice would have sought out the source first, since she'd have more experience with plants than people.
On top of that, she didn't appear awkward nor hesitant at all when diagnosing Lucy. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
Turning to the elderly man this time, Kel asked another question.
"What were you saying about that girl's mother?"
The middle-aged woman's eyebrows shot up, and she began to respond, only to be interrupted by the old man.
"Her mother is a very important person to one of those royal brats, so she begged him to let her daughter have this position!" he complained. "I can't exactly say no to a direct royal order, either!"
"You mean she was close to one of the princes?" Kel clarified.
The pieces were suddenly coming together.
"Yes. She was the nanny of that boy.. Javid! Prince Javid's nanny," the man barked. "He's the one who ordered me to take her on. I even had to give up on such promising future students…"
The old man continued babbling about being forced to take the nanny's daughter as his apprentice when she had no aptitude for herbs, but Kel had stopped listening.
Her mind was swirling with everything she'd been told.
The herbalist apprentice shouldn't have been able to identify that poison the way she did and prescribe the antidote so easily.
Suspiciously, she was the only herbalist who received the call to attend to the Emperor's room that night, and even more suspiciously, she had only gained her position through the royal order of a prince.
"You said his name was Javid?" Kel cut off the man's rambling. "Prince Javid?"
"Yep. That's his name," the old man nodded grumpily.
"I wonder which prince he is.." Kel mumbled to herself.
"Prince Javid?" the middle-aged woman, who had been silent until now suddenly chimed in. "Don't you remember him? He came to Mevani to surrender to the Emperor personally."
"Oh, did he?"
Kel's lips curled into a smile.
The final piece had fallen into place.
Now, she had to think of a way to flush Prince Javid out before the gathering. But there was hardly enough time to even inform Calix of what she'd discovered, let alone come up with a plan.
Perhaps, the gathering could be postponed or-!
Or the Prince could be kept in Pandreia for longer!
"Thank you!" Kel nodded to the two bewildered herbalists before spinning on her heels and rushing back through the palace.
If she could convince Calix to appoint Prince Javid as the new regent, that would give them more time to bring him down. Perhaps, he would even appoint some of the rebel council members to stay behind with him, keeping them all nicely corralled for the Emperor to deal with.
In the end, however, her plan worked better than her wildest imagination, and the rebels practically defeated themselves overnight.
"So that's how I ended up finding out about Prince Javid," Kel finished her story.
"Wah, I'm so impressed!" Thane's eyes were glittering.
While Lucy and Calix simply nodded thoughtfully at Kel's explanation, Thane couldn't contain his awe.
"I never imagined you could use your head like that, Kel!"
"You little-" Kel leapt from her seat, her fist aimed at Thane's shoulder.
"Eek! It was a compliment!" the knight shrieked as he dodged her punches.
In the background, Lucy chuckled while Calix cracked a smile at their antics.
Ordinarily, Kel would have been offended at their responses, but after seeing Lucy sick in bed and Calix frowning for days on end, she found herself thinking it was a pleasant change in atmosphere.
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