My Most Precious Human

I read the decrypted message once again, trying to extract the meaning of it. I remembered that Nura was Kanan's mother's name, and I remember Kanan telling me that Elora wanted to poison her while she was pregnant... However, the message proved something different. Elora must have wanted her dead before she could get pregnant, but for some reason, she had failed. One message was highly insufficient as evidence, but what if other notes created wider content?

I took another note and looked at it closely. Considering the handwriting, it seemed to be written by the same person. This fact made me a little hopeful that using the same keyword to decode this message would work. I sighed in relief when it did. I truly prayed that this one would bring me something significant.

"Our spy became the King's concubine's maid. The spy's name is Aine. The King's concubine believed that Aine is a human. She will deliver the poison with the concubine's food."

When I read that message out loud, I gasped. I assumed that it was about killing Kanan's mother again. As I recall Kanan's words, Nura had a group of trusted servants, which had be quite impossible for Elora to infiltrate. After all, Princess surrounded herself with those who had mainly vampire blood running in their veins. If she wanted to poison Nura, she needed to find someone who seemed harmless, someone who didn't fit as someone working for Elora... A human being would have been a perfect spy, but the message suggested that Aine only appeared that way. If so, then who was she...? Or rather, what was she?

"God! It would be easier if I knew who wrote this damn message!" I grumbled aloud, staring at the piece of paper.

Suddenly, I noticed a tiny mark on the note's corner that seemed to be someone's signature. I looked closely, and finally, my eyes extracted letter shapes. There was a name, Jax, and an unclear sign preceding it. I blinked a few times trying to improve my focus, but having super-vision definitely wasn't one of my newly found talents. I would gladly have used old lady's glasses or old-fashioned magnifying glass, but I had zero chance of finding those in my chamber. Furthermore, I wasn't certain if magnifying this blurry character would help me read it... I took a deep breath and decided to temporarily leave Mr. Jax's identity as mysterious as it was. At the same time, the name Jax sounded familiar, but I couldn't recall where I'd heard it before.

I took another message and typed the text into the decipherer. I used the same keyword, hoping to get lucky this time as well... It didn't work. I felt as if I had lost my wings and hit the ground hard. I couldn't stand the thought of going through the dictionary again. With two decoded messages, I still had no serious evidence that could prove that could name Elora as a criminal in the vampire's court eyes. Nonetheless, I decided that I should at least tell Kanan that I had decrypted something.

I told Martha to find a servant who could pass him a message about my so-called breakthrough, and I allowed myself another coffee break. I brewed my liquid caffeine and was about to take a sip when I heard someone knocking on my door.

"Come in," I called, assuming that was Martha.

"So... what do you have?" Kanan barged into my room and impatiently stared at the table.

I chuckled. Seeing him this excited, brightened my slightly depressed mood. Once I showed him the two messages I decoded, his agitation only rose.

"This is about my mother..." he muttered while walking around my chamber. "They were planning to murder my mother!" he burst out.

I grabbed his hand, "Calm down, Kanan," I said firmly, "You have already known that Elora was the one who poisoned her."

"Yes... but I never had anything to prove she did." He gazed at me with a painful expression.

I could understand his reaction. He could finally confirm Elora's guilt, but the vampire court would never sentence a vampire noble for being involved in murdering a human.

"Kanan... we need more evidence, so I need you to think. Maybe you have met this spy from the message, Aine? Or perhaps you know someone who did?" I inquired.

"No. My father wasn't the type of person who would seek out guilty ones. After my mother died, he killed all her servants as those responsible for murdering his beloved. So anyone who might have known this Aine is already dead," he sighed.

"I wish we could at least know who this Jax is..." I muttered, searching for that name in my memory.

"Who?" Kanan glanced at me questionably.

I smiled nervously and pointed at the tiny signature. Kanan took the note, concentrating on the small characters.

"There is a Greek beta character," he said calmly.

"What?" I bemused. "Where?!"

"The sign before the name. It's a small beta character."

"Beta... Jax?" I mumbled, slowly realizing the meaning of this signature.

Suddenly, I remembered. Jax was the name of my father's old second-in-command. Ezra used to describe him as a vicious sociopath. He once said that if Jax hadn't served my father, he could have been an Alpha of his own pack, but that would have been a pack of truly bloodlusty wolves.

"This could be the proof we were looking for!" I called out, grinning, "It all makes sense now!"

"Lilith... take a deep breath and speak slowly." Kanan decided to put a touch of rationality into my joyful outburst.

"The author of these messages, Beta Jax, must have been my father's Beta. The message said your mother believed that Aine was a human, which meant that she wasn't a human. Aine must have been an odorless werewolf," I explained agitatedly.

Kanan grinned beamingly and then hugged me. "Lilith... If we prove Elora's secret collaboration with werewolves, it will strip her of her crown!"

His words were the greatest encouragement. A wave of new energy hit me, and I could even type the whole dictionary, searching for keywords again. We decided to work nonstop until we decoded enough notes to reveal Elora's crimes.

"One more thing..." Kanan said right before leaving my room, "Elora speaks French, Italian, and Spanish. The keyword doesn't have to be an English word."

"You are kidding me, right?" I glared at him. "Are you expecting me to go through four other dictionaries in search of a keyword?!"

"Just remember... Ockham's Razor rule, Lilith," he smirked, "The simplest ideas are usually the most efficient."

He walked through the door, and I started to wonder whether I really should look into French, Italian, or Spanish dictionaries as well. I sat in front of my laptop again and quickly typed the note that I was unable to decrypt. I took a deep breath, flipped my used-up dictionary to the letter A, and was about to start typing in the probable keywords, but something told me to stop...

"Ockham's Razor..." I smiled perversely and typed "puissance" in the keyword field.

The knowledgeable part of my brain instantly mocked my attempt to decode the message using the French equivalent of the word "power", but in fact, this was the simplest idea I could come up with. Chills ran down my spine as I saw the coded sequence turn into readable sentences. Yet, it was the meaning of the message that froze the blood in my veins.

"We are ready to act at the full moon. In the evening, Young Lord Calvet will be sedated. Our people working in the Calvet Castle's kitchen are going to add the potion to Young Lord's dinner. Once the sedative starts working, we will inject him with a mix of mercury and silver. We can assure the Princess that Young Lord won't be able to control his bloodlust. Precautiously, we fed that human a sedative as well, so she won't be able to escape or survive the Lord's bloodlust attack."

Tears filled my eyes. My heart ached as I read that Sariel's greatest agony had been caused by the woman who dared to call herself his Queen. I needed to tell him. He had to know that he had never been responsible for killing Laura.

I dashed out of my room and ran through the passage. I paid no attention to whether there was anyone who saw me running out into the corridor in front of Sariel's chamber. I had to tell him everything now! I wasn't going to mind any manners. I reached for the door handle, aiming at barging into his room, no matter what, but as soon as I touched the handle, I heard voices coming from inside the chamber... "I don't get it, Sariel. Why do you keep this human by your side?"

It was Elora. I recognized her vicious giggle right away. I gently moved my hand back but stayed by the door, motionless.

"She is... useful," Sariel muttered, seductively deepening his voice.

My chest squeezed, pushing the air from my lungs out.

"Lilith... this is only Sariel's game. He is playing Elora... This is a game... This isn't real," I tried, justifying what I heard.

"How is she useful?" I heard Elora's teasing whisper, along with something that sounded like a wet smack.

It made me feel sick, but I told myself that it was my imagination playing tricks on me.

"Her blood makes me powerful. I can be the strongest of all races. I need her to conquer werewolves' lands..." he said with a sly chuckle.

A second later, Elora's excited moan crushed my heart. I covered my mouth so as not to scream while tears flew down my cheeks.

"This can't be happening... This can't be happening!" I cried inside.

"And... what will you do with her... once you win against the wolves?" Elora mumbled while panting in obvious arousal.

I held my breath and closed my eyes, and then I heard Sariel's snicker, and then he cleared his throat.

"Once I'm done, I'm going to kill her."