Chapter 79

CAMILLA’S PO.V

It took two days and a written letter from the physician for Ryker to even consider letting me out of bed. He was worried- anyone with eyes could see it. The only people he allowed within reach of me were Christine and the girls. Speaking of the girls, Audrey had all but launched herself into my arms when she saw me. She muttered something about being happy that I didn’t go with my mother and I teared up.

Audrey wouldn’t even go for her lessons yesterday, she spent her entire time by my side. Neither Ryker nor I had the galls to tell her to do her lessons. As someone who had lost my mother twice, I knew how she was feeling. I wanted to assure her that I was never going to leave her but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words because I knew they were a lie. Sooner or later, I was going to leave- I just hoped it was later.

“Your majesty,” I looked up at the elders who I was currently in a meeting with and I suddenly realized that being in a coma for three days had its benefits because I could avoid them. “You did not answer our question.”

“What question was that?”

He pursed his lips in annoyance but he managed to hide it well. “We were able to narrow down the names of the potential helpers that Frederick could have in the palace. We took out the names of the people who were fiercely loyal to your mother and the older people who could not help even if they wanted to.”

“What are we left with?”

“Mainly guards and maids. It is impossible to know for sure that they are helping Frederick unless we catch them in the act. The first idea was to put guards to trail them, if you agree with that then-”

“No,” I shut the idea down immediately. “If you pick wrong and miss a spy then you could ruin all of us. Find another way to follow and track them down without potentially putting the entire operation at risk.”

I could see they didn’t agree but they couldn’t speak against me. I wasn’t there to cater to their needs and wants, they were to cater to mine and my want was that Frederick and his allies were found with the least possible number of casualties.

Once that was settled, I cleared my throat. “The poison that was used on me, did the physician find out anything about it? If we know what it is then we might be able to find out where it came from and by extension where Frederick might be.”

“That is a brilliant idea, I don’t know why we never thought about it,” I turned to Ryker and I saw him sporting a look of pride on his face. I couldn’t stop the small flush from creeping up my cheeks at his appraisal. “According to the physician, he used a mixture of wolf’s bane and a rare poison called anathis. Anathis is so rare and difficult to come across and also illegal because of its properties.”“That narrows down our search by a lot.copy right hot novel pub