I spent the rest of the day pretending everything was normal.
Which was difficult.
Mostly because nothing was normal.
I was a dead woman inhabiting the body of a poisoned empress while secretly investigating a conspiracy that might involve half the palace.
Normal had left the building several chapters ago.
The journal remained hidden beneath my mattress.
Not because it was a particularly clever hiding place.
But because I had absolutely no idea where medieval empresses usually hid incriminating evidence.
The thought of carrying it around seemed worse.
Knowing my luck, I'd drop it in front of the entire council.
Or accidentally hand it to the person trying to murder me.
By sunset, my mind had settled on one unavoidable conclusion.
I needed to investigate the kitchens.
The problem was figuring out how.
I couldn't exactly walk into the royal kitchens and announce:
"Good evening, everyone. Quick question. Has anybody been poisoning me for the last six years?"
That seemed unlikely to produce useful answers.
The system appeared.
[Observation: User Intelligence Functioning Within Acceptable Parameters.]
I narrowed my eyes.
"Was that sarcasm?"
[Unknown.]
It absolutely was.
The machine was learning.
That was somehow more alarming than the poison.
A knock interrupted my thoughts.
Before I could answer, the door opened.
A woman entered.
Mid-thirties.
Dark hair.
Sharp eyes.
Simple but expensive clothing.
Unlike most people in the palace, she didn't look surprised to find me awake.
Or alive.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
She bowed.
"Your Majesty."
I immediately searched Karina's memories.
Nothing.
Not helpful.
"Good evening."
The woman studied me carefully.
Far too carefully.
Then she smiled.
It wasn't a warm smile.
It was the smile of someone collecting information.
"I am Lady Isolde Marrowyn."
That name meant nothing to me.
Which probably meant it should.
"My lady."
"Your recovery has become the primary topic of discussion in the court."
Wonderful.
Exactly what I wanted.
Attention.
The thing every potential murder victim dreams about.
Isolde continued.
"The council wishes to host a formal dinner tomorrow evening."
My stomach dropped.
A dinner.
With nobles.
Political conversations.
People expect me to behave like an empress.
I suddenly missed death.
Death had been much simpler.
"What for?"
A tiny pause.
"The kingdom wishes to celebrate your recovery."
Translation:
Everyone wants to determine why the dying empress has stopped dying.
Fantastic.
"When was this decided?"
"This afternoon."
Of course, it was.
The vultures were already circling.
I forced a smile.
"Then I suppose I should attend."
Isolde's expression became difficult to read.
"Many will be pleased."
The way she said it suggested many would not.
After another polite exchange, she left.
The moment the door closed, I groaned.
The system immediately appeared.
[Upcoming Event Detected.]
"Really?"
[Formal Dinner.]
"Thank you for your groundbreaking analysis."
[You Are Welcome.]
I hated it.
I truly hated it.
The next morning began with another health update.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HEALTH STATUS
Current Health: 16%
Condition: Critical
Recovery Trend: Positive
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Still critical?"
[Affirmative.]
"You're impossible to please."
[Affirmative.]
At least it was honest.
After breakfast—which increased my health to seventeen percent—I decided to begin my investigation.
Officially.
The kitchens occupied nearly an entire wing of the palace.
I discovered this while attempting to casually wander in that direction.
Unfortunately, nothing an empress did was casual.
The moment I entered the kitchen district, chaos erupted.
Cooks froze.
Servants panicked.
Someone dropped a basket of potatoes.
A woman screamed.
Not in terror.
More in surprise.
Though honestly, it was difficult to tell.
Apparently, empresses didn't visit kitchens.
Good to know.
A large woman wearing an apron charged toward me.
She moved with the confidence of a military commander preparing for battle.
"Your Majesty!"
I resisted the urge to retreat.
"Hello."
The woman blinked.
Clearly not the greeting she'd expected.
"I am Marta, Head Cook of the Royal Palace."
Finally.
Someone important.
And possibly connected to the poisoning.
Or completely innocent.
At this point, everyone fell into one of those two categories.
Marta seemed bewildered.
"Is something wrong with breakfast?"
An understandable question.
Why else would the empress appear unexpectedly?
"No."
"Lunch?"
"No."
"Dinner?"
"No."
The woman looked increasingly confused.
Then inspiration struck.
A terrible idea.
Which naturally meant I immediately embraced it.
"I wanted to learn."
Marta stared.
Several nearby cooks stared.
Even the vegetables seemed skeptical.
"Learn?"
"About the kitchens."
The silence that followed could have qualified as a natural disaster.
Then Marta laughed.
A deep, booming sound.
"Your Majesty wishes to learn cooking?"
Oh.
That wasn't where I'd been going.
But it was where I apparently was now.
"Yes."
The lie emerged effortlessly.
I was becoming concerned about how easy deception felt these days.
Marta looked delighted.
Which immediately made me suspicious.
People shouldn't look that happy around royalty.
It suggested hidden motives.
Or a deeply unhealthy personality.
"Wonderful!"
Before I could object, she seized my arm.
The woman was terrifyingly strong.
I barely had time to process what was happening before I found myself standing beside a preparation table.
Several servants watched with open fascination.
Word was definitely spreading.
The empress had apparently lost her mind.
Not entirely inaccurate.
Marta handed me a knife.
A large knife.
A very sharp knife.
The system appeared.
[Warning: User Dexterity Remains Limited.]
"Not helping."
[Probability Of Accidental Injury: 42%.]
"Less helping."
Marta pointed toward a collection of vegetables.
"Start chopping."
I stared at the vegetables.
The vegetables stared back.
This felt oddly confrontational.
Back on Earth, my cooking skills were limited to microwaving things.
Occasionally successfully.
The first carrot survived.
The second did not.
Neither did my dignity.
A nearby servant snorted.
Then immediately looked horrified that she'd done so.
I laughed.
The servant looked even more confused.
Apparently, Karina hadn't laughed often.
The realization lingered.
Sadder than I'd expected.
For the next hour, I learned three things.
First.
Cooking was exhausting.
Second.
Marta was terrifying.
Third.
The kitchens operated like a military campaign.
Every ingredient was documented.
Every meal tracked.
Every servant is assigned specific responsibilities.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Because poison required opportunity.
And opportunity left records.
Eventually, Marta left to supervise another area.
Giving me exactly the chance I needed.
I wandered.
Carefully.
Quietly.
Observing.
Storage rooms.
Preparation stations.
Wine cellars.
Pantries.
Nothing seemed unusual.
At least not until I found the records office.
A small room tucked near the back of the kitchens.
Shelves filled with ledgers lined the walls.
Inventory records.
Delivery manifests.
Meal schedules.
The sort of information most people ignored.
Which made it valuable.
I began searching.
The system appeared.
[Objective Updated.]
Investigate Kitchen Records.
"How helpful."
[I Am Learning.]
That worried me.
A lot.
I pulled several ledgers from the shelves.
Most contained exactly what I'd expected.
Food deliveries.
Supply inventories.
Routine information.
Then I found something strange.
Several years ago, ingredient deliveries changed.
Not dramatically.
Subtly.
Easy to overlook.
A specific herbal blend began appearing regularly.
Month after month.
Year after year.
The dates matched suspiciously well with Karina's declining health.
My pulse quickened.
I flipped through additional records.
The herb appeared again.
And again.
And again.
Always listed under Palace Medical Supplies.
Not kitchen ingredients.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
The system flickered.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
POTENTIAL CLUE IDENTIFIED
Item: Silverleaf Compound
Current Assessment: Unknown
Recommended Action: Investigate Further
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Silverleaf.
The name meant nothing to me.
But Karina had been researching the kitchens.
And the records were pointing toward something.
A sound interrupted my thoughts.
Footsteps.
Someone approaching.
Quickly, I returned the ledgers to their shelves.
A servant entered moments later.
Young.
Nervous.
Completely unaware, she'd nearly caught the empress conducting amateur espionage.
"Your Majesty!"
I smiled.
The poor girl nearly dropped her paperwork.
I really needed to stop startling people.
That evening, preparations for the banquet consumed the palace.
Servants rushed through hallways.
Decorations appeared everywhere.
Musicians arrived.
Nobles began filtering into the palace.
Watching.
Waiting.
Evaluating.
By sunset, I felt like prey surrounded by predators.
The banquet hall glittered beneath hundreds of candles.
Gold and crystal reflected light across polished floors.
Dozens of nobles filled the room.
Each one is smiling.
Each one is calculating.
The system appeared.
[Threat Assessment Unavailable.]
"Of course it is."
[Working As Intended.]
"No, you're not."
The hall doors opened.
A herald announced my arrival.
Every conversation stopped.
Every eye turned toward me.
The sensation was awful.
I smiled anyway.
Years of customer service had prepared me for many things.
Including pretending I wasn't internally panicking.
The dinner progressed slowly.
Painfully.
Endlessly.
People approached constantly.
Offering congratulations.
Expressing relief.
Testing reactions.
Fishing for information.
Every conversation felt like a duel.
Then I saw him.
Lord Victor Harrow.
The name from Karina's journal.
Middle-aged.
Silver-haired.
Immaculately dressed.
A black stone ring gleamed on one finger.
My pulse skipped.
The memory.
The blurred figure.
The ring.
It couldn't be a coincidence.
Could it?
Victor approached.
His smile was flawless.
Which immediately made me distrust him.
"Your Majesty."
His voice matched neither memory nor expectation.
Calm.
Controlled.
Dangerous.
"My lord."
His gaze lingered slightly longer than necessary.
Assessing.
Measuring.
"Your recovery has been remarkable."
There it was.
The same phrase everyone used.
Recovery.
Nobody cared that I was alive.
They cared that I wasn't dead.
"I've been fortunate."
A faint smile touched his lips.
"Fortune has little to do with survival."
The words felt loaded.
Like a test.
Or a warning.
Before I could respond, another noble interrupted.
The conversation ended.
But the unease remained.
Throughout the evening, I caught Victor watching me.
Not constantly.
Not obviously.
Just enough.
As if he were trying to solve a puzzle.
As if something about me no longer matched his expectations.
And perhaps it didn't.
Because the woman he'd spent years poisoning was gone.
The banquet finally ended hours later.
I returned to my chambers exhausted.
Mentally.
Physically.
Emotionally.
The system appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
QUEST PROGRESS UPDATED
The Dying Empress: 18%
Follow Karina's Trail: 26%
New Lead Acquired:
Silverleaf Compound
Lord Victor Harrow
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I sat heavily on my bed.
The investigation was moving forward.
Slowly.
Dangerously.
But forward.
Karina had left clues.
The kitchens held secrets.
And Lord Victor Harrow was connected somehow.
The question was whether he was the poisoner.
Or merely another player in a much larger game.
A soft knock sounded.
I froze.
Nobody should be visiting this late.
The knock came again.
Three times.
Slow.
Deliberate.
My pulse quickened.
The system flickered.
[Unknown Visitor Detected.]
The room suddenly felt very quiet.
Very still.
Carefully, I approached the door.
"Who is it?"
Silence.
Then a voice.
Low.
Barely above a whisper.
"Your Majesty."
My blood ran cold.
Because I didn't recognize the voice.
And whoever stood outside my door knew enough not to give their name.