Chương 209: 31. Irrefutable Evidence 1

Outside the command post, the world had already turned into a pot of boiling oil someone had just kicked over the stove. Soldiers were yanking at reins, hauling water barrels, or clutching spears without the faintest idea where they were supposed to run—an entire flock of ducks that had just taken a club to the head and hadn't yet received the follow-up memo about where to go next. Out on the horizon, the fire was no longer just red.

It had gone into that blinding, whitish glare between blasts, strobing in and out and sawing the night sky into jagged teeth. Yozora had only just pushed herself up from the ground, fingers still clamped around that thin wooden seal-tablet, when Ignicia was already in the saddle. She didn't bother with a single word of reassurance—just threw down orders.

"Cedric, bring her. Lei Lian, with me to the crime scene. Maro, take your men around the back. Anyone who tries to slip away in the chaos—break their legs first, ask questions after."

"Your Highness is being positively gentle today," a drawling voice cut in. Maro materialized from somewhere—nobody ever seemed to catch the exact moment he appeared—his single eye catching the firelight in a way that made you want to punch it out.

"I'd have thought you'd go straight for 'cut first, autopsy later.'" Ignicia didn't so much as glance his way.

"That's your specialty, not mine." Maro bared his teeth like she'd just pinned a medal on his chest. I didn't have the spare attention to deal with him, because the moment Yozora's hand hit the stirrup, her whole body faltered. Reflex kicked in; I grabbed her arm—and touched not the warm, pliant skin from last night, but something fine and trembling and cold. She lifted her eyes to mine. Her lips were still bloodless.

"This one can mount alone."

"If you fall off now, Ignicia will assume I tried to silence you on the way," I said through my teeth, half-dragging, half-lifting her up.

"So do me the favor of at least not dying within arm's reach tonight." Somehow, she still had enough breath to curve her mouth, faintly.

"That sounds less like concern for this one," she murmured, "and more like concern for yourself, milord."

"You finally understood something." I swung up behind her, settling her in front of me and reaching past her on both sides to seize the reins. The scent clinging to her was still the same—but tonight, it had picked up something new from the fire, a bitter edge threaded through the sweetness. Like a blossom pinned face-down into burning coals. Ignicia put her heels to her horse and shot forward. We followed her through streets that had gone eerily empty under lockdown.

Heads poked out of alley mouths, only to be shoved back by shouting soldiers. The fire outside the walls climbed higher with every stride, until we crested the outer berm and I finally saw the disaster the night had been hiding from us. Wave & Tail Caravan was burning. No—not just burning. It looked like some massive beast had been disemboweled, its innards set alight from the inside.

Tents, streamers, wine carts, performance wagons, animal pens, flatbeds—along with all the bright fabric and brass bells that had dangled overhead by day—were now writhing and bursting and shrieking in the flames. And yes, shrieking wasn't a metaphor. There were still people inside. Someone was clawing their way out from under a collapsing tent. Someone else was pinned at the legs beneath a fallen frame.

One poor soul was entirely on fire and rolling desperately across the ground, like a log that had somehow learned to weep. The air was jammed full of too many smells at once—burning oil, burning cloth, burning alcohol, burning wood, and, worst of all, the one you never want to separate out. I held my breath on instinct. Yozora, sitting in front of me, went rigid. She stared at the sea of fire, her spine snapping straight, as if someone had just driven an icicle up between her shoulder blades.

When she spoke, the words were so thin I almost missed them.

"…Too fast." Ignicia had already hauled her horse to a stop and turned back toward her.

"Speak." Yozora's eyes never left the blaze.

"This isn't random," she said, dragging a breath into her lungs like she had to force her mind to start up again.

"If the outer performance tents had gone first, the fire would've spread inward toward the gambling rows. Once those went, people would've fled toward the animal pens and the wagon lanes. But right now, the blast started in the middle and is pushing both ways…" Her knuckles tightened around the reins.

"That's the fox quarters. The Vixenfolk wagons. The warm-tents. And the private tents for high-paying guests." That caught me short. Ignicia sounded anything but surprised.

"In other words, the part that needed to burn first." Yozora bit down on her lip and nodded. Lei Lian thundered up then, sliding out of the saddle in one smooth motion. He took one look at the column of fire, then dropped his gaze to the charred splinters and scorched scraps of oilcloth littering the ground, his frown digging in deep.

"Not just lamp oil," he said coldly.

"There were charges. Something buried in there to boost the burn and the blast."

"Good." Ignicia dismounted in a movement as clean as a beheading.

"That means this wasn't an accident. It was a purge." She turned to us.

"You two with me. Getting words out of people who are still breathing is a lot faster than picking them out of cold bones." I barely had time to swear silently about this dragon princess and her ability to make a disaster scene sound like shopping for fish at the market before my legs were already moving, carrying me after her toward the edge of the inferno. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

Up close, I finally understood just how much weight the word caravan had been hiding in daylight. This wasn't a handful of wagons and a few tents. Wave & Tail's outer ring had been a carnival—gambling pits, drinking tables, side shows, barkers, performers, music, laughter, all packed into one roaring ring. Now, only splintered frames and half-charred painted signs remained.

The main signboard with the painted sea wave and the fox tail had been snapped clean off and was jammed upright in the mud, like someone had slapped its spine until it broke. The survivors were being dragged to an open patch of ground just outside the worst of the flames. Some cried. Some coughed until they nearly turned themselves inside out. Some shook and swore at everything—the fire, the gods, their boss, the customers who were supposed to come tonight and were now walking bad luck.

Soldiers pinned them down, pried them apart, forced a little distance between each body. Ignicia stepped up onto the overturned yoke of a wagon, planting herself where everyone could see her. Her voice wasn't loud. It didn't have to be.

"Listen. From this moment on, the first one to tell the truth is the first one who gets to live. Anyone I catch lying goes into the ground first." Much more effective than comfort. A bubble of quiet snapped into place amid the chaos. Yozora stood beside me, the hem of her cloak snapping and shuddering in the hot wind. Her eyes swept across the faces being dragged out, fast and precise, like someone trying to net as many dying fish as possible before the water turned black.

"Can you tell which side people belong to?" I muttered.

"I can tell in broad strokes." Her answer came just as low, her gaze never stopping.

"Most elves worked the front—performance, songs, zithers, dance, serving wine. If they took clients, it was only after much choosing—as if they were choosing fates, not men. The Harengon did the heavy labor. Hauling crates, washing cloth, tending animals, pulling carts, cleaning the filth. Even the women are built sturdier than humans expect. Unless a client was drunk into brain damage, he rarely insisted on a Harengon for the night." She hesitated.

"The Vixenfolk are different." She practically had to grit her teeth to get the sentence out.

"They're the best talkers. The best at leading men into cages they walk into themselves. They sell smiles, sell drunkenness, sell closeness—and, when they have to, they can sell a convincing imitation of a heart. The best business in the caravan almost always went through them." I thought of Haerdin and felt something inside me sink a notch.

"You suspect them?" Yozora nodded, then shook her head almost immediately.

"Not all. But if you needed to get something inside that governor's body—" She closed her eyes briefly, like even voicing it left a film on her tongue.

"—then the odds on a Vixenfolk woman are highest. He did take several of them that night. But which ones exactly… this one cannot swear. The front and the back are separated. The girl a client picks in public may not be the name she uses behind the curtain." That was the problem, right there.

Without something solid, we'd be stuck forever on "some woman among the Vixenfolk probably did something," chasing that useless thought in circles from sunrise to sunrise until all we had to show for it was a pile of beautiful charred corpses and a ledger full of fake names. Ignicia clearly understood the same thing. She jerked her chin at us.

"Start with the ones still conscious. I want people who know the back rotation." Lei Lian was already on the far side, kicking open a warped wagon door and dragging out a half-conscious man. Maro, naturally, was everywhere at once, weaving through the smoke like a stray dog turned loose in a trash heap.

He reappeared before long with two subordinates in tow, hauling in three more bodies: a Vixenfolk woman with a burned brow, a Harengon girl clutching her arm and sobbing, and a scrawny man so blackened with soot he looked like the gambling tent's cashier. Ignicia didn't bother picking. She pointed at the rabbit-girl first.

"You. Head up." One of the Harengon's long ears was singed, the other dust-caked and trembling like grass in the rain. She'd been crying, but the moment Ignicia's command cracked across the yard, she strangled her own tears back so hard her face turned purple.

"Name."

"G-Grey-Ear… Everyone calls me Grey-Ear…"

"What do you do?"

"W–wash… wash clothes, bring water, clean the back tents… a–and help carry warming boxes and charcoal…" Yozora and I traded a look. Warming boxes. Ignicia had caught it too. She crouched down so she was level with Grey-Ear's eyes, her voice going softer, not kinder.

"Which section's warming boxes?" Grey-Ear swallowed.

"T-The Vixenfolk's, mostly… They hate the cold… and hate when their paint runs… Some of the ladies' boxes can't leave the fire. They have to stay warm at all times. I… I only swapped the coals like I was told. I didn't dare look inside…" Yozora stepped forward half a pace.

"Which ones?" Grey-Ear's eyes went wide when she saw her.

"Y-Yozora… sis…" The title slipped out, then she seemed to remember this wasn't an ordinary night behind the curtains and dropped her head in a hurry. Yozora's voice stayed pressed flat.

"I'm asking which ones." Grey-Ear shook and thought.

"Red-Silk… White-Mallow… and… and a new girl, everyone called her Little Coral. None of us were allowed to touch their boxes. Especially Little Coral's. It was tiny, but it had to stay warm all the time, like… like they were afraid whatever was inside would die." The back of my neck prickled. Yozora's fingers visibly tightened. Ignicia's question followed immediately.

"Where is Little Coral?" Grey-Ear's gaze skittered, then broke. She started to sob.

"G-Gone… She's gone… I saw her before the fire. She was talking to a man behind the wagons. He wore a black face-veil and carried a long, hard case. When I came back from changing the coals, she was gone. And after that… everything exploded…" A long, hard case. My mind went straight to dental instruments. Ignicia's eyes went darker.

"Describe the man." Grey-Ear shook her head desperately.

"T-Tall. Thin. Walked without making a sound… I didn't dare look up." Maro snorted.

"Put that in caravan terms, and you might as well have said 'he had two legs.'" Ignicia didn't even turn.

"Save it. When the day comes you can smell a name out of ashes, you can have sarcasm privileges back." Maro actually shrugged and shut up. Ignicia looked back at Grey-Ear.

"The night Haerdin came—which section were you assigned to?" Grey-Ear flinched like something had jabbed her.

"I-I only served water outside… There were too many important guests. The Vixenfolk section kept calling for hot water, incense coals, and wine. That lord—the one dressed like his own money would crush him—did take several of our girls. Red-Silk and White-Mallow went in first, then others were swapped out after… Who went in or out in the middle, I really didn't see… The curtain was always down…" She stopped suddenly, as if something had just surfaced.

"But… but there was something strange that night." I leaned in.

"Say it."

"One time I brought hot water over, and there was arguing behind the tent. It wasn't the guest shouting. It was women—keeping their voices down and still fighting. I heard one sentence…

'Don't bite too early.'" The air in the immediate vicinity stopped moving. Even Maro stopped smirking. Whatever color had been left in Yozora's face vanished. Ignicia just watched Grey-Ear.

"You're certain." Grey-Ear nodded, crying.

"I-I thought at the time it was just a drunk client biting someone… but now… now…" She couldn't finish. Only the crying was left. It was enough. Enough to push "possible" a large step closer to "near certain." But not enough. We still needed the hard piece. The thing you could drag out of this mess and slam onto a table and make everyone else see what you saw. Ignicia was clearly thinking the same thing. She straightened and turned to Yozora.

"Where are the Vixenfolk's heated tents? Which row?" Yozora raised a hand, pointing toward the line of wagons where the fire burned hottest—and where the structures had almost finished collapsing.

"Third row in, under the red-tail banners. If Little Coral still had that warming box, it would be in her dressing wagon or the private compartment behind it." Ignicia drew her sword.

"Cedric, with me. Lei Lian, clear a path. Maro, keep every survivor who can still wheeze. If anyone tries to die on you, resuscitate them first, questions after."

"The layers of your hatred for the living are genuinely artistic," Maro muttered. I ignored him and plunged after Ignicia and Lei Lian into the burning maze. Storming into a half-torched wagon line didn't crack the top ten of good life choices I'd ever made. It wouldn't crack the top twenty. Fire pressed us from both sides. The ground had gone soft and blistered underfoot, mud and splintered wood radiating heat through my boots. Sparks spat from the rims of wagon wheels.

We kicked aside the charred ribs of a fallen awning frame, squeezed through the gap, and slipped into the third row. Yozora came too, teeth clenched, skirts catching on something and scorching through instantly. I opened my mouth to shout at her for having a death wish; she beat me to it, stabbing a finger toward a half-overturned dressing wagon ahead.