Fatefall - 21

Chapter 21 - Adrian 

It was odd to speak to the very thing I’d sworn to destroy. He seemed to believe that we were in the wrong, that he’d done nothing wrong. Dusan asked me what he’d done to earn this hatred. When I told him he’d lorded his power over us---had treated us mortals like slaves, had forced us on our hands and knees to beg for a sliver of their power. And then he had the audacity to call himself a benevolent god. I wanted to kill him, but alas, in the spirit of diplomacy, I could not. 

“Where have you been?” Nakoa demanded as soon as Adrian and Poppy returned to the apartment. Her brow was wrinkled with worry and the soft groove in the carpet by the sitting area told Adrian that she’d been pacing. 

“Your concern is touching,” Adrian said. “But we’re fine. Poppy and I just took a little walk.”

Jett coughed into his fist, giving Adrian a dirty look. Adrian shot a glare right back. Jett and Sage appeared to be reading through newspaper articles on past Tournament Trials. At least they were being productive. 

“Do you have any idea what you’ve put us through?” Nakoa continued, shaking her finger at Adrian as though she was scolding a small child. 

“Not us. You,” Jett corrected. “I told you they were probably off making kids together--”

“What’s going on?” Poppy asked. Like she didn’t already know. “Is everyone okay? What’s happening?” It struck Adrian suddenly what she was doing as the tension in the room dissipated slightly. Her questions redirected the attention to more pressing matters rather than where Adrian and Poppy had been.

Nakoa rubbed her temples. “Eight of the Eliminated competitors disappeared last night.”

Poppy frowned. “I thought they were free to go after the Elimination. How do we know they didn’t just go home?”

“The Eliminated competitors were locked away in the arena until this morning. The judges wanted to make sure no one’s Grace came back overnight and that no one died,” Sage explained. “When the medics went to check on everyone this morning, there were eight cells unlocked.”

“All from the same team? What Graces did they have?” Poppy asked. 

Adrian found himself also intrigued as Sage shrugged. “I think they were random, but I have no clue. I had to bribe a friend of mine who patrolled the arena last night to give me that much information.”

Interesting. Eight competitors, all vanished into thin air. 

Adrian’s memory flickered to the previous night, Poppy in his arms as he carried her to the castle, trying to ignore her racing pulse against his chest. The people he’d encountered in the street---there had been twelve of them, not eight. 

“That’s not even the worst of it,” Nakoa added. “Supposedly, they found a note along with a mask from the last Trial in one of the empty cells. The note was addressed to the king, saying that unless the Tournament ended, his kids would be the next people to disappear.” Her eyes landed meaningfully on Adrian. 

He swore loudly, taking a seat in one of the plush chairs and burying his head in his hands. “Sophia was right. There really are people who want me dead.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Poppy’s voice was quiet, but firm. Adrian glanced up at her in shock. Hadn’t she been the one to be threatened about being framed for regicide? “Why would any of the competitors leave a mask with the note? Shouldn’t it already be assumed that whoever left it was a competitor, seeing as they asked for the Tournament to end? Someone is trying very hard to blame this on a competitor.”

“Or you’re reading too much into this,” Jett pointed out. 

“Besides, they still threatened my life,” Adrian added. 

“But that’s what I don’t get,” Poppy said, tapping her fingers against her leg. “The king doesn’t directly control the Tournament. So why would anyone threaten his kids?”

Adrian crossed his arms. “Other people than my father care about me.”

“That may be true, but Poppy’s right,” Sage said. “This seems too targeted to be a competitor.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nakoa cut in. “Our duty is to win the Tournament, not to worry about who’s trying to sabotage it. Which means we need to get through the interrogations, and to make that easier, Poppy and Adrian should tell us where they were last night.” She raised an eyebrow expectantly. 

“It was my fault,” Poppy automatically said. “I saw Adrian leaving the apartment and I followed him because I thought he was up to something. We visited Koda, I got sick, and Adrian took me to the castle for the night.”

Nakoa turned to Adrian. “Is this true?”

Adrian nodded. “I wanted to ask Koda about the poison that Hunter used on Poppy. She got sick from the medicine he gave her and I had to carry her home.”

Poppy’s cheeks turned bright red and Jett stifled a snicker. 

“So potentially Koda and Aida could be used as alibis,” Nakoa said.

“Potentially,” Adrian repeated. “But I’d prefer to not reveal my identity unless absolutely necessary. Please and thank you.”

“All right, we need to get our stories straight,” Nakoa continued. 

Sage tossed the article he’d been reading over his head. “Doesn’t matter what story you agree on---they’ll be using Graced of Deceit in the interrogations. You can’t lie to them.”

“Okay, so we just don’t tell the whole truth,” Poppy said. 

“Nakoa, Sage, and I aren’t the problem here,” Jett said. “We were here all evening. You and Adrian are the ones who need to coordinate your stories.”

“My Grace will prevent any Graced of Deceit from sensing my lies,” Adrian said. “I just need a believable story that doesn’t involve any of you, since you can’t lie about my whereabouts.” He cursed under his breath. “I should’ve thought to not tell you where Poppy and I were because then you could’ve said you had no idea and it would’ve been the truth.”

“Just tell them you went to see Koda for another sleeping draught,” Poppy offered. “Then at least your destination was the same, even if the motive isn’t.”

“And what about you?” Jett asked. 

“I’ll…I’ll say I went to Koda because I couldn’t sleep, and whatever he gave me made me sick. That’s close enough to the truth, right?” 

“What will you say about your visit to the castle?”

Poppy blushed, but a smirk formed on her lips. “I was warming the princess’s bed.”

“This would be a lot easier if you just told the truth,” the interrogator said, lounging back in her chair and inspecting her nails.

Adrian gritted his teeth. “I am telling the truth.” A burst of pain seared through his gut in response. His Grace pounced on the pain and it disappeared a moment later. Adrian inhaled deeply. “I’m telling you exactly what happened.”

The interrogator frowned, probably confused as to why her truth serum or whatever concoction she’d fed him wasn’t working. Too bad he didn’t have an answer for that either. 

“So let me get this straight: the Elimination made you so upset you needed a second sleeping draught so you went to visit an unofficial apothecary---which happened to be the same man another one of your teammates visited last night---and you didn’t see her. Once you got the draught you returned here?” the interrogator summarized, her eyes fixing on Adrian. 

He nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. “The Elimination was troubling, and surely you should have no trouble understanding that, seeing as you’re Graced too.”

The interrogator shrugged indifferently. 

“And I already told you that Koda is our sponsor, so yes, Poppy and I both went to see him because he offered to provide for us at any time during the Tournament. And seeing as I left before her, it seems probable that we wouldn’t see each other.”

All truths, and the lack of pain in his stomach told him so. They would match Poppy’s story too, which would hopefully draw the investigation away from them. 

“But you didn’t arrive here until this morning---with Poppy,” the interrogator said, grinning smugly. 

“I returned home after visiting Koda,” Adrian said. Another truth. “Poppy and I saw each other on our walk here, and seeing as we had the same destination in mind, it seemed only fitting that we should walk together.” A half-truth, but the truth serum didn’t react. 

“All right, change of subject. Do you want the Tournament to be called off?”

“No,” Adrian answered without hesitation. He didn’t want the Tournament to end so soon, just not for the reasons this woman was thinking. Training and the Trial hadn’t allowed him much time to search for his brother’s killer, though he was hoping Sophia could help him. If he could find her.

The interrogator scribbled something in her notebook. “Do you have any reason to want the royal family dead?”

“Of course not,” Adrian scoffed. The woman raised an eyebrow and he cleared his throat. “I’m the princess’s champion, ma’m. I mean no disrespect, but why would I kill the very woman who has declared me her champion.”

“You make a good argument,” the interrogator admitted. “Have you heard any of the other competitors discussing any threats to the royal family? Any information you can provide us will help us track down the perpetrator.”

Adrian shook his head. 

“You’re going to have to say so aloud or I won’t be able to record it.”

“I haven’t heard anyone threaten the royal family,” Adrian said, which was at least partially true. He hadn’t heard the threats in person---he’d just been told about them.

The interrogator seemed to read his mind. “Have you heard anyone else discussing any threats?”

“No,” Adrian replied, wincing as his stomach flared with unbearable heat, which his Grace quickly consumed. The interrogator did not seem impressed, so he continued, prepared for the pain this time and able to mask it. “I haven’t heard about any threats on the lives of the royals. Why do you think that they’re in danger?”

“You’re not the one asking the questions here,” the woman said, her frustration obvious. At least she wasn’t furious with him for lying. “We’re almost done. Did you see anything last night that could lead us to the competitor who left the note? Or any clues as to where the Eliminated competitors could have gone?”

“No,” Adrian said, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes from the fire in his gut. “Nothing at all.”

“Really,” the interrogator pressed, baring her teeth. “I mean no disrespect, sir, but it would be much less painful for you if you just told us what you know.”

Adrian didn’t miss her cruel mockery. “I can’t,” he finally managed to bite out. 

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

Adrian pressed his lips together, trying to ignore his writhing stomach. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down the back of his neck. Fates, his Grace struggled to eat away all of the flames. 

“Let me make myself clear, sir. Your refusal to comply with our interrogation will make you a suspect in this case. We will revisit you, and next time I can assure you our methods of interrogation won’t be quite so pleasant,” the interrogator hissed. She leaned forward, so her face was practically nose-to-nose with Adrian’s mask. “Whatever you’re hiding, we will find out.”

He refused to respond even when his whole body felt like it might explode. 

“Very well.” The woman wrote something else in her notebook and snapped it shut, her glaring daggers at Adrian. “I’m afraid I don’t have any remedy for the truth serum on me right now, so the nausea should go away in about twenty four hours.” 

A whole day of this personalized torture? 

“13th and Hemlock,” Adrian said, staring the woman directly in the eyes. 

“What does that mean?” the interrogator asked, her interest piqued. Adrian shrugged and she stood abruptly, making her way to the door of the tiny closet where the interrogations were to take place. 

“The streets,” Adrian continued, hating how desperate he sounded. “Check the corner of the streets there. That’s all I can say.” Another flare of pain--

The interrogator plopped down a bottle of liquid on the desk. Adrian snatched it immediately and chugged the entire thing, finally relaxing as his stomach finally calmed down. “Thank you for your compliance, sir. This has been truly enlightening.”

“One more thing,” Adrian said, his mind latching onto Aida. If the threat was serious, he didn’t want Aida getting hurt. Meaning he needed to share his team’s theory in order to protect her. “I don’t think that the person you’re looking for is a competitor.”

Two days passed without action, only adding to Adrian’s nerves. Training, studying past Tournaments, recovering---the monotony drove him crazy. 

He still returned home at night to sleep at the castle. He continued cooking dinner, albeit with even less success than before. Nakoa and Sage theorized that the next Trial would be much longer than the first, and so Adrian brushed up on survival skills. 

But with no word from Koda on the poison, no news about possible suspects for the missing competitors, and no leads on Asher’s killer, Adrian wanted to slam his head against the wall repeatedly. The first two were entirely out of his control, but the third was his responsibility. He just didn’t know where to start.

Until the third morning, when Koda arrived, eyes bloodshot and a satchel bulging at the sides draped over his shoulder. 

Poppy sighed, turning away from the charts full of edible plants that she and Nakoa had been discussing. “I’m guessing this visit doesn’t have anything to do with the poison in my blood?”

Koda nodded. “I haven’t had any time to investigate yet.”

Adrian shut the book he’d been reading on water purification, glad to have a break from the dull study. “Did something else happen?”

Another nod. “Do you mind if I sit down? I haven’t been sleeping.”

That much was obvious, so Adrian beckoned Koda over to the table. Koda’s bag rattled as he dropped it to the floor and he practically slumped over the second he sat down. Poppy appeared at Adrian’s shoulder a moment later. “Are you sure he’s okay?” she whispered.

“I’m fine,” Koda assured her at the same time that Adrian shook his head. “I promise you, I just need some rest.”

“So what happened?” Nakoa pressed. 

Koda rubbed his eyes. “The night after the competitors went missing, someone robbed my store.” Adrian immediately began searching Koda for signs of injury, but Koda noticed and waved his worry away. “I already told you that I’m fine. They only took one thing: the bottles of Graces I’d taken from the competitors.”

“You bottled Graces?” Sage asked, his voice quiet and eyes wide. 

Koda nodded. “That’s how I removed them. The oil I created draws the Graces to the surface so they can be drained along with the blood. But obviously the Graces have to go somewhere, so they end up in the bottles of blood. I planned to do more research to see if a Grace could be implanted into another person, but the bottles are all gone.”

Fates. The possibilities flashed through Adrian’s mind. A person with two Graces? A Graceless becoming Graced? Could Sage be an official competitor if he was given another person’s Grace? And could the Eliminated competitors get their Graces back? 

“My father will have your head,” he realized, the reality of the situation striking him in the chest like a punch. “Fates, Koda. You’ve done what no one else could, and then you lost it.” 

“You don’t have to rub it in,” Koda said, shooting Adrian a dirty look. 

“But you realize how crazy this is, right? You could transfer Graces and make someone with five Graces and--”

“And that is the reason that I didn’t want to work for your father, but here I am,” Koda shot back. He ran a hand through his hair. “This is too much power for anyone to have, which is why I planned to destroy the bottles and all of my research as soon as the Tournament is over. But with the stolen Graces now, well, stolen, someone else has access to them and can do with them what they please.”

“Do you think it’s the same person who kidnapped the competitors?” asked Sage. 

Koda shrugged. “I only know two things: that the king has demanded I find the bottles within the month or face charges, and that I am to place all remaining competitors under surveillance.”

Jett scoffed. “How do you plan on doing that? Constant escorts and babysitters?” 

“Markings that allow you to be tracked,” Koda stated simply. “That’s why I’m here. The vials in my satchel contain extracts from various plants. The king has ordered me to mark each competitor with a different extract that will allow me to track them.”

“Magical tattoos,” Poppy laughed. “That’s the solution to disappearing competitors and stolen Graces? They’re going to give us magical tattoos?”

“I’m going to give you magical tattoos,” Koda corrected. “And Poppy? Please, for the love of all things sacred, do not attempt to remove them. There are safeguards in place to prevent their removal and I’d really not like to test them out on you.”

Poppy didn’t seem convinced and Adrian could still see the challenge in her stormy eyes, though she agreed anyway.

Koda ordered them to the sitting area, where he took care to paint intricate symbols with some sort of maroon oil onto their wrists. He made sure to match each Grace with a Fate so that Adrian’s wrist was marked with an empty circle and Poppy’s with a tiny flower. An hourglass for Nakoa, a scale for Sage, and a snake for Jett. 

Once each symbol was painted, Koda stood in the center of the sitting area and closed his eyes. Adrian could sense Koda’s Grace of Life colliding against the wrists of the others, could feel it forcing the ink deep into their skin. Sage let out a small cry of discomfort and Nakoa winced. And yet Koda’s Grace avoided Adrian entirely, slithering away whenever it got too close. 

Koda finally opened his eyes, looking wobbly on his feet. Adrian stood, reaching out to steady him, but Koda pushed away. “I’m not done yet.”

“Do you need help with Adrian?” Poppy asked, her smirk not quite genuine. She’s worried about Koda too, Adrian realized. She could probably sense Koda’s pain better than anyone else with her Grace. 

Koda shook his head. “His Grace won’t allow me to use my Grace on him---unless it’s for good. I’ve never quite understood the Grace of Void.”

“Well, you can take a break before you work on me,” Adrian said. 

“I still have four more teams to visit, so it’d be great if we can just move on,” Koda snapped. “Sit down, Adrian.”

“I think you’re the one who needs to sit down,” Nakoa cut in, scrambling out of her seat to offer it to Koda. “Seriously. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I’m fine--” Koda began, but Poppy cut him off. 

“No, you’re not. So you’re going to sit down until your head stops spinning---don’t even try to deny it---and you’re going to explain to me how to give Adrian a pretty tattoo, got it? Otherwise I’m knocking you out and keeping you that way until tomorrow.” 

“I’d listen to her if I were you,” Sage whispered. 

Koda grumbled something about terrible friends but reluctantly took a seat. Poppy edged closer to Adrian, her expression determined. 

“Hold on, I didn’t agree to let Poppy tattoo me,” Adrian said. “She’ll change the marking to make it something…inappropriate.” Her devilish grin only confirmed his suspicions.

“I’ll behave,” Poppy said, a little too eagerly. “Tell me what to do.”

Koda sighed. “There’s a way to bypass his Grace.” Adrian blanched. “It requires immense trust, which was I was so adamant that I should be the one to do it--”

“Adrian trusts me,” Poppy stated, turning her attention to Adrian. His pulse fluttered, and the mischievous glint in her eyes told him that she’d sensed it. “Right, Your Highness?”

“It’s misplaced,” Adrian growled. 

Poppy smiled sweetly and laid her hand over the marking on his wrist. His traitorous heart skipped another beat at her feather-light touch. “What next?”

“If his Grace believes you mean him no harm, it should let you slip through,” Koda said. “I can’t really explain how it works, so maybe you ought to let me do it--”

A sharp prickle in his arm startled him and Adrian tensed immediately. His Grace was burrowed deep in his chest, unflinching despite Poppy’s Grace at work. He could sense her magic seeping under his skin, and could feel it pulling the ink deeper. The intrusion sent shivers up his spine. 

Poppy’s even breathing kept him calm. Her eyelashes fluttered, the only sign that the work challenged her. He was glad she couldn’t see him blushing furiously at the close contact. 

“There,” she murmured, finally withdrawing her fingers. 

Koda glanced over her work with a scrutinizing gaze. “As much as it pains me to admit it, your Grace is powerful, Poppy. You should seriously consider apprenticing as a healer. Most medics would be proud to have you as a student.”

Everyone in the room scoffed at that, except for Poppy, who seemed mildly offended. 

She handed Koda his bag and laid a hand on his shoulder. Koda stiffened, trying to draw away but Poppy held him still. 

“Stop that!” Koda hissed, elbowing Poppy in the chest. She stumbled backward, looking pleased with herself. “Whose energy did you just give me?” He clutched his bag to his chest, as though that would protect him.

“Mostly mine. A bit of Jett’s and Sage’s, since they were closest. I’m sure they don’t mind.” Jett and Sage nodded their agreement and Koda groaned.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Koda said, frowning.

“Relax,” said Jett. “We can barely feel the difference. But don’t you have places to be? Teams to see?”

“I hate all of you,” Koda complained as he made his way to the door. He finally turned to face them, his expression sheepish. “But…thanks.” He slipped away without another word and Adrian shook his head, rolling his eyes. Koda was stubborn, that was for sure. 

“So,” Poppy murmured, suddenly appearing at Adrian’s side. She put her hands on his shoulders, standing on her tiptoes to do so. “You trust me?”

Adrian shoved her away with a snort. “Has anyone ever told you how much they want to kill you, Poppy?”

She twirled a strand of her hair. “All the time.”