The Rogues Who Went Rogue
Chapter 127

In one of the many rooms in Pellethia's castle, Saxum was tied to a chair placed at the edge of the room, away from the table with three chairs, two of which were placed facing the third one. He would mind-link someone but the oleander and allicin cuffs weren't allowing him to do that.

Servants came to ask if he wanted water from time to time, and he declined every single time. He didn't want to drink something that could contain poison.

The doors finally opened again, and Pellethia and Octavia walked in this time, bringing a man that Saxum didn't see on the battlefield. Lucianne, Xandar, Christian and Greg took their seats at the opposite side of the room facing Saxum.

Pellethia and Octavia sat at the table and gestured to the single chair as Pellethia said, "Have a seat, Maddock."

The name caught Saxum's attention, and he began studying Maddock with interest but finding no familiarity in the old man. A servant came with a potted plant and placed it on the table, pushing it very near Maddock.

Maddock didn't dare move the plant away, so he adjusted his seat as he glanced at Saxum and asked, "And who may that be, Your Majesties?"

"That's Saxum."

Maddock's eyes bulged wide in horror. He took another look at the leader, who began feeling suspicious about his reaction. Saxum couldn't stop himself from asking, "Have we met?"

Maddock chose not to answer the question, and turned away. Pellethia then told Maddock, "I want the truth, Maddock. What happened during the assasination of Lady Luisa from our empire and Heros Pas from the Lycan Kingdom?" Saxum sat up upon hearing that. Maddock insisted, "But I've told you what happened, Your Majesty. Your lawyers have also taken my deposition, and..." before he went on, the transparent flowers exuded its fragrance and Maddock suddenly found himself more willing to get straight to the point and tell the whole truth.

Pellethia didn't want to use her Authority to extract answers. She wanted Saxum to know that whatever was coming out of Maddock's mouth was the truth, and nothing was what she was compelling him to say.

Maddock coughed at the strong odor and waved his hand in front of his nose in hopes of removing some of its effects before he started, "Well, after Rosalie's death, Emperor Kosh discovered that Heros Pas was instrumental in poisoning her. When Kosh demanded that Lady Luisa cooperate in surrendering Heros, she refused."

Maddock was surprised by how frankly that whole thing came out, and that was when he realized what the plant was for. Where on earth did they get this from?

"Go on, Maddock." Octavia prompted, and Saxum's eyes grew wide in eagerness as well.

Maddock was forced to inhale the fragrance again before he continued, "After Luisa's refusal, she...wrote to me, asking me to convince Kosh to look past Rosalie's death and Reagan's subsequent insanity as simply an unfortunate consequence of a bond that was most likely created between the right souls but at the wrong time."

"Did you respond?" Pellethia asked.

"I did. I...have never stopped loving her." He pressed his lips together, knowing fully well that his confession just contradicted whatever he told the rulers the other day.

The flowers got him to talk again, so he went on, "I didn't like the idea of her choosing to be with Heros with that sort of...background but I also didn't like that Kosh wanted to kill the man when it was not within his jurisdiction to do so. Muddling jurisdictional lines was one thing, what made it more complicated was the fact that, by exerting his decisions upon a lycan without the Lycan King's permission..."

He sighed in dismay. "It was a recipe for diplomatic destruction. The newly-crowned king at that time still saw Heros as a trusted figure, so you can imagine how messy things would get if we touched him." "So, you asked my father to reconsider his decision and he said no?"

"That is the...abridged version, Your Majesty. You see, Luisa then wrote to me saying that she was bearing twins. I saw this as good news because I thought that the late emperor would never want to leave set of children fatherless. I was later proven to be wrong. Kosh agreed that the children, despite having Heros's genes, shouldn't be touched. But he still wanted Heros's head. He didn't want a co-conspirator to a murder living a happy and lavish lifestyle in his empire, saying that letting him live here meant that he tolerated what the lycan did, which Kosh didn't."

After clearing his throat, Maddock proceeded to say, "It was clear that Luisa was...not going to give up her husband, neither did he want to give himself up since he felt that he was simply aiding the then Lycan King in what His Majesty wanted done. He claimed that whatever he did... was an act of duty and loyalty to the monarchy. I wrote to Heros, in secret, telling him that Kosh was never going to negotiate more than he already did, and that if he wanted to live, he'd have to return to lycan territory."

Maddock continued, "What was shocking was that Heros couldn't return because the medical professionals' demonstrations and protests were also calling for his death. He wasn't safe there. The other conspirators who were involved already had their homes burned, their families were dismissed from their jobs, and most had been harmed one way or another. The new Lycan King was still trying to smother the flames, and the authorities were searching for the culprits, but the fact remained that Heros could also be in danger if he ever went back. He was scared for his family and himself. He pleaded with me to change Kosh's mind again, but we both know your father, Your Majesty. Almost no one could change his mind. Your father...began to question my loyalty, seeing that I was pleading Luisa and Heros's case when the whole world was against them."

Pellethia murmured, "That's why you volunteered for the task - to prove your loyalty to the empire."

"That was one of the reasons. Another was to make sure that...the task was done right. The issue was that by the time the plan had to be executed, Luisa herself had garnered a lot of backlash for sleeping with and bearing the child of a conspirative murderer. The public wanted Heros dead, and they didn't care if she survived. The children? Most people felt that it was better for them to be brought up by a normal creature who neither killed nor supported killing. I volunteered because I wanted to make sure that ONLY Heros was killed, as Kosh ordered. Luisa was supposed to be left unharmed."

Maddock offered a firm nod. "She was a discretus, and on the night we entered their private residence...my mistake was to have every discretus on the team search the property when I myself faced Heros with only a velox and a decipio. We didn't see Luisa behind the curtain, covering the child she was holding with her garment. Heros refused to tell me where she was, and I assumed she wasn't on the property. The moment I gave the signal to fire the arrow, I heard her scream and what I saw next...was...her appearing...in between...me and her mate...with an arrow going right through her and the child. My men fired the second arrow to kill Heros and the oleander killed him slowly. Luisa could heal like a lycan after being marked, but the fact that the poison was Oleander made the healing ability practically...useless, and she...didn't survive." Maddock threw a guilty glance at Saxum and the lycans before his eyes returned to their Majesties once more. "What I told you about the names on infant garments was true, Your Majesties. We saw two names but we couldn't find the second child. We started tracking the governess whose things we found in the smallest room, and we found her eventually but...upon Kosh's compulsion, she admitted that she gave the child away. We went down that trail and lost it when it was collected by a witch. We attempted to enter the Forest of Oderem fifty-two times, but it kept us out using mist and odors."

"The mission was considered a failure. That's why everything was redacted." Pellethia muttered.

"That task was an embarrassing failure on our part, on my part. When we went looking for Saxum out of genuine concern, word got out about our search. And those in the empire who hated Heros and Luisa started going on a hunt. They were hunting down hybrids. Hybrids were mere children, and those who gave birth to them were already a very discriminated minority but they kept to themselves, so they were safe...until the urge to kill a murderer's descendant gave them an excuse to justify killing the innocent creatures' babies, saying that they may be hiding a future killer, claiming that the child they were holding was actually Saxum when, in reality, it was their own flesh and blood."

Pellethia questioned, "Weren't they tried? Weren't these people punished for their own murders?"

"Of course they were. That's how it stopped."

Octavia asked, "Why hasn't anyone of our generation read about this, or heard about this?"