Chapter 33

At the first light, Zuri stepped out of the shadows and walked into the Patriarch’s house. The burly guard was asleep in the chair and one of the women was sleeping on the couch. He peeked into the first bedroom and saw Ellabet drooling in her sleep. In the master bedroom, he approached Torrea and shook him awake.

“Good morning,” Zuri said. “Did the Royal Guard keep you up late last night?”

“You disappeared,” Torrea said, slowly sitting up. “You left minutes before they came knocking. You have this knack of being in the right place at the right time or getting out of the wrong place at the right time.”

“They’re gone and you are here,” Zuri said. “You must have done something correctly.”

“Tea, first and then we can talk,” Torrea said. Zuri left the man to his business and went to wake up the rest of the house. While everyone worked to start their morning, Zuri skipped over to the Sacred Gardens, only to find the house was empty. He went to the back of the Apothecary and moved the Chancellor’s body into the gardens on the far side of the property. Inside the vest on the dead body, Zuri felt a tiny vial. He pulled out the metal tube, finding a thin piece of paper curled inside. The paper had two words on it: baking soda.

“Too little, too late,” Zuri muttered to himself. He tucked the message and the tube in an inside pocket. He returned to the Patriarch’s house.

Torrea was sitting in the garden with the tea service in front of him. “Find something?” he asked when Zuri appeared.

Zuri dropped the tube and the message in Torrea’s lap. “I found it on the Chancellor’s body. He wanted us to find it.”

“What does it mean?”

Zuri shrugged his shoulders. “Baking soda is the secret ingredient? Baking soda neutralizes the miasma? I don’t know; baking soda does something concerning the tainted elixir.”

Torrea took another sip. “The Captain of the Royal Guard and the Majordomo for the Regent will meet me in front of the Great Hall at the beginning of the second watch. What do I have to offer?”

Zuri downed half his cup. “Yampa. You offer them Yampa.”

“What does the Great Hall have to do with that accursed site?”

“Yampa is off-limits to all by royal degree Royal Decree and is still patrolled. The truth of Yampa is gone but it involved the Duran Royals, the Lewa Royals and the Gura of Yampa. The Gura’s bones are still in the courtyard of the temple. The Great Hall must be sealed as Yampa is.”

“I have an important follow-up question, but I must know, how is it you know the gura’s bones are still there?”

“I was there, and I stepped on his skull by accident,” Zuri said simply. “The Pointing Chayre in your temple is a fake. The Pointing Chayre in Yampa still functions.”

“God have mercy,” Torrea said, holding his head in his hands. “How is the Great Hall like Yampa?”

“Seal it and forbid anyone to enter. Have the Royals enforce it,” Zuri said.