“How could I have done that?” My voice is feeble. “I’ve only just arrived here. I don’t even know what he looks like.”
“You had ample time last night to do it. You convinced Gennet Allairis to help you. He’s in love with you—anyone can see it by watching your kiss in the station. You convinced him to help you. You promised him sanctuary in Alameeda—a promise I doubt that you intended to keep.”
I crush the silky znou petals in my hand. “You’re an amazing storyteller, Minister Telek, but that’s all it is: a story. You don’t even believe it yourself. You know it’s a lie.”
He looks intrigued that I’m calling him on his complete fabrication of facts. His smile is worrisome to me. Setting down his cig-a-like on the table between us, he says, “Minister Vallen’s death I mark as your doing. And you’re going to confess to it.”
My mouth opens in disbelief for a moment as I prepare to defend myself from such a ruthless accusation, but I close it after a moment. Something occurs to me. “You killed Minister Vallen,” I murmur in understanding.
His eyes narrow, as if in affront. “You’re accusing me! No one would believe it! I’m a well-respected officer. I have no motive,” he lies, “whereas you will be implicated in the attempted assassination of the Regent as well. I’ll show everyone that you can no more predict the future than you can save yourself—or the Cavar you seduced. But it won’t come to that, because you’re going to confess to the crime. ”
“I don’t think I’ll be confessing to your crime.”
“My crime? You have the motive—he was your enemy. You were sent by the Alameeda to kill him.”
“Your motive is better, Minister Telek: You killed him for power—a seat on Skye Council—total control over the Declaration of War you signed this morning. How very Machiavellian of you.” His eyes widen. “Oh, you’re surprised I figured out it was you?” I flick my hand at him. “I can’t understand why that would shock you, since I know I didn’t do it and I’m positive that Trey didn’t do it. That. Leaves. You.”
“Had you never returned to Ethar, there would’ve been no need to end Minister Vallen’s life. I mark his death your doing.”
It takes me less than a second to realize he just confessed to killing Minister Vallen. “So you’re going to try to pin it on me anyway by making me look like a spy,” I breathe.
“You are a spy,” he says honestly, believing the worst of me without any proof.
“I’m not, nor am I a murderer.”
He ignores me, looking away as he turns on the watery-blue light of Manus’s med-tank again. Then he says, “After you confess to killing Minister Vallen with your accomplice Trey Allairis, I’ll make it a painless death for you both. You can simply go to sleep and never awake. But if you refuse, I’ll have to torture a confession from you both . . . and you will confess.”
My throat aches with my struggle to hold back tears. I open my clenched fist. What he’s saying is true, at least in my case. I will probably confess, even though I didn’t do it—with a long enough time line, I wouldn’t be strong enough to endure pain forever. “You don’t know Trey,” I say with a tight voice. “He’d never confess to anything he didn’t do, and I’d never condemn him in that way to avoid pain. I won’t be euthanized like some unwanted pet at the pound.”
He looks at me again and shrugs as only a powerful man can. Reaching for the kafcan pot again, he pours out another cup of it for himself. “Either way you die. A part of me is delighted that you’d choose pain. Nothing will bring me more pleasure than to see you die horribly: a fitting end for an Alameeda priestess.”
My eyes fix his. He gives me a checkmate smile, and then he takes a sip of his kafcan, swallowing it like it’s the best he’s had in his life. I watch him savor it.
“I changed my mind. I do have something to confess,” I murmur.
He’s amused. “Ah, so you aren’t as tough as you wanted me to believe. The threat of pain already has you agreeing to confess to the murder of the defense minister?”
“Umm . . . no. I’ll confess to the poisoning of the defense minister.”
“That won’t work. The defense minister’s throat was cut.”
“No, it wasn’t. He was poisoned, and if he doesn’t get an antidote for znou axicote,” I reply, opening the lid of the kafcan pot so that he can see the znou petals floating on the surface of it, “he’ll be dead by the end of the rotation.”
Minister Telek’s eyes snap open wide as he rises to his feet, the kafcan cup slipping from his hand to shatter on the floor in front of his Regent-souvenir. He puts his fingers in his mouth, gagging himself so that he vomits. Wiping his wrist over his mouth, it leaves a blood trail on his sleeve. He turns away from me and stumbles toward his desk on the other side of the room.
I rise from the enormous chair and follow him on shaky legs. “I was never interested in botany when I lived in Chicago,” I explain conversationally as I trail him. “There was never any need for it. But here, it seems like a useful thing to know, don’t you think?”
Minister Telek bumps into the table in the center of the room, knocking the vase of znous off it. The flowers scatter as the vase splinters into a thousand pieces. I step on the flowers as we move across the room. “I found it interesting that most of those who had turbine worms drill into them didn’t die from that—they died from the poison the worms ingested after eating the petals of the flower. I only steeped two petals into your kafcan—I had six. They’ll want to know that when they come for you. I don’t think two will be enough to kill you, but you’ll begin to feel the poison eating through your stomach soon. There are several cures available if they act fast: Abersuctonal, Hesterfastok, or Lamb’s Bottom—I like the sound of that one, Lamb’s Bottom—it just sounds sweet. You should ask for Lamb’s Bottom. But they’re probably still going to have to repair part of your bowel; it’s a very caustic poison. And painful.” I fake a cringe. “Ooph, it’s supposed to be one of the worst.”
He makes it to his desk, leaning on it heavily. “Console on,” he moans. “Geteron, I need you!” He collapses into his chair, unbuttoning his collar as he pants and writhes.
“Don’t look so shocked,” I say, sitting on the corner of his desk as I study him. I hold my hands in my lap so that he can’t see how they tremble in fear. “I’m my father’s daughter. I, too, have a mind for defensive strategy. But I’m nothing like you. I’m not a coldblooded murderer. This is your only warning, Minister: Don’t mess with me. And if you try to hurt Trey, I’ll kill you.”