Avoid The Lead! [[COMPLETED]]

35. The Hearing

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King Vien coldly gazed down at Lady Flora, who knelt before him.

A guard had come running to the Sun Tower- the King's residence, in the middle of the night, with information that Lady Flora had been caught performing dark magic.

At first, King Vien had been unwilling to believe it...

It wasn't that he trusted Lady Flora... Far from it!

She had poisoned him on their first meeting, so after Taze fell ill, he suspected poison.

But even the most powerful healing mages found no poison in Taze.

Also, dark magic was an entirely different matter.

Dark mages were nearly extinct, and the few dark mages left hid themselves well in the outskirt regions of Luxia, or even beyond the borders in desolate lands near the west seas.

Where could Lady Flora have learned such a thing? Or how?

Before she entered the Palace, she had been an official's daughter, sheltered for most of her life. She hadn't even been near any of the borders...

He had checked!

Back then, he had been looking for an excuse - any excuse to ignore her, after her cruel trap, so he had personally combed through her history.

But there had been nothing, and after she entered the palace, she rarely went out, only visiting the magic council once in a while. To his knowledge, she had also only left the Capital once, and that had been to bury her father.

However, despite his doubt, King Vien had followed the guard.

And he had seen...

Grand Mage Sidian had been present, and had also explained the magic circle that had been drawn, showing it to King Vien in the book, and explaining how the symptoms matched the Crown Prince's illness!

At present, King Vien's face was the image of fury, as Lady Flora wheezed before him.

"First, you came between me and Laiza. I pardoned you because of our child. Then you broke the Crown Prince's heart, ignoring a child who needed a mother for months on end. Still I let you off because you reached out to him again.

"Through the years, I've ignored your foolish attempts to discredit the Crown Prince." He smirked coldly when her eyes widened. "You thought I didn't know? That I didn't notice the times you ran to the Magic Council to incite their doubt?

"Still I overlooked it. What mother doesn't want the best for her own child. But you..."

The energy in the room suddenly rose to alarming levels.

"... you dared to curse the Crown Prince?!" The entire throne room rumbled, and the ground trembled beneath their feet.

Miles away, Celia and Taze witnessed the scene through a mind link, using one of Celia's ice flowers in the throne room, but as King Vien raged, they were flung back by a powerful force, and the ice flower shattered.

Taze quickly shielded them both, moments before they would have crashed into a wall!

"Wah! Father is indeed powerful!"

"Uhm!" Celia nodded her agreement. "How did Vitav manage to subdue him in the past lives?!!"

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After Lady Flora's interrogation, Vitav was summoned for questioning.

He hadn't been found in the Left Wing that night, but several High Mages suspected that Lady Flora lacked the boldness or complexity to plan everything that had transpired.