The Midnight Storm (A New Dawn #2)

Chapter 27 - Alex

"Greenie! Greenie! Greenie!"

Fine sand seeped through the cracks in the ceiling and onto the sweaty heads of the chanting crowd. Pirates big and small moved aside to let Alex pass. Sure, not all were cheering, but still enough for her to question their sanity. Was this an elaborate joke she was too dumb to understand?

Her stomach turned as she stepped onto the platform. The sickeningly sweet odour that oozed from the lifeless body of Boyar Kalin didn't help either. 

"Greenie! Greenie! Greenie!"

Smiling coldly, Neja crooked her index finger and beckoned Alex to stand close to her deceased husband. Just her luck. Had she eaten anything recently, she would have hurled.

"Why in the Gods' names would I allow your candidacy?" Neja hissed. "What makes you think you could be a Boyar?"

"I don't think I could," she said. When boos erupted from the crowd, she added, "But I guess I would make a fine Boyarina."

"Silly Greenie," Neja chuckled. "Only the wife of a Boyar can be a Boyarina. Man or woman bearing the title, they'd still be the Boyar."

"Oh," was all Alex could muster.

Neja moved closer. "I repeat my question—why you?"

Alex gestured at the frantic crowd. "They think it's a good idea."

"Greenie! Greenie! Greenie!"

Neja didn't wait for the cheering to die. "But what do you have to offer?"

King Thomas, was her first thought. She bit her lip and held her breath to not have to smell death's pungent stench. She couldn't think—the old Boyar with sunken cheeks, blood-red eyes staring into nowhere and strange red spots near the mouth called for her.

At first, she wanted to look away, not acknowledge that she was feet away from a rotting corpse. Then she narrowed her eyes. In this temperature, worms and maggots would be feasting on his skin, but there wasn't even a fly circling around him. What had Neja said? Blurred visions in the days before he died, lack of appetite, and his heart stopping for moments at a time. 

All the signs of foxglove poisoning.

"You loved Boyar Kalin, didn't you?" Alex asked Neja.

"I did." The Boyarina stared longingly at the decaying body. "I still do. But that's not relevant for your candidacy."

"If someone had wanted to harm him, what would you have done?"

Neja's nostrils flared. "What are you implying? What did that Goddess of Lust and her Kraken hellspawn do?"

"Nothing. Captain Ilona and Pan were hundreds of miles away on the Kraken's Kiss," Alex said. Or that she assumed anyway. "Did anyone approach Boyar Kalin before he got ill?"

Neja pursed her lips, then finally said, "Nobody but a close friend."

Alex was about to ask who, when the Boyarina glanced at Selachii. The man was fidgeting with the shark tooth around his neck, his gaze set to the back of the cave, as though he didn't want to meet anyone's eyes.

"Do you trust this friend?"

"Yes, he..." Neja didn't finish the sentence. "Why should I believe you, Kraken Greenie?"

"Dead bodies are a feast for insects. But don't see any swarming around Kalin."

"He's a Boyar—the Gods protect his body."

"Fine, but I recognise foxglove poisoning when I see it," Alex persisted.

"Boyar Kalin was murdered!" yelled Kaisa from the left side of the cave. "Murdered. That's why he smells so sweetly—poison."