IATAOTHKG | CHAPTERS 103 – Novexa Novels

[CHAPTER 103]

“I saw something strange.”

Meyna added, forcing herself to speak.

“At first I thought it was just a hallucination, but it wasn’t.”

“What kind?”

Caliph’s concise question meant he wanted details.

Meyna carefully retraced her memories of that day.

“First, it was in the vestment room of the Grand Cathedral of Kassadin. I saw a pure white light flickering near your heart.”

“Light?”

Caliph’s gaze turned to Meyna.

Nodding, she cautiously continued, recalling everything that followed.

The Grand Saintess Banze, coughing up blood as she ascended the altar.

The prayer that sounded as if two personalities were fighting to claim her body.

And every scene from that day, when black light and pure white light alternated in her eyes and throat.

After silently organizing the story, Caliph seemed about to speak, then simply nodded.

“All right. I’ll look into it.”

“Thank you.”

“Anything else?”

Meyna closed her lips.

Noticing her hesitation, Caliph instructed quietly but firmly.

“Speak.”

Not all silence was the same.

There were relationships where you could tell what the other was struggling with just from the air between you.

Meyna and Caliph were like that to each other.

“Meyna. Speak.”

Caliph repeated himself.

Meyna hesitated, weighing Banze and Caliph in her mind.

If I had to trust only one person.

“On the day of the consecration, I heard something from Princess Parker.”

If she had to choose one person at the very end, it would be Caliph.

It was a clear answer born of brief but deep thought.

“She said the one who sent the Spiculum to assassinate me was Professor Motenson.”

“Are you sure?”

Caliph asked sharply, not even giving her time to respond before continuing.

“You’re saying Sera did it?”

Meyna nodded.

“Yes. She said it very clearly.”

Caliph stayed silent for a long moment, then let out a sigh as if something had clicked into place.

He gripped the steering wheel tightly, so hard the veins on the back of his hand stood out.

His face, stubbornly fixed on the road ahead, had gone pale.

“Sir Lennox. Are you all right?”

“You said you saw white light and black light.”

“Yes, but are you really—”

Screech!

With a harsh grinding sound, the carriage came to a stop on the roadside.

Turning away from the startled Meyna, Caliph stared out the window for a while before finally speaking.

“I didn’t think I’d reveal this now, but the day you were attacked by the Spiculum.”

Since that day, Caliph had worked relentlessly to uncover the truth of the incident.

Meyna had nearly died, so time was critical, and with Banze involved, he couldn’t easily ask others for help.

“After the prince took you away from your bathroom. I went to the scene alone.”

It had been a day when he struggled desperately to steady his shattered mind and focus on what he had to do.

Fortunately, because Meyna remembered where she had been just before the carriage accident, he was able to find the site again.

She also remembered Caliph giving Biterion some instructions before getting into the carriage.

“And as you know, at that same time, Banze was severely injured by an attack.”

“Yes. I remember everything.”

“Did Banze send the Spiculum to kill you, while someone else sent assassins to kill Banze? Or was it just a coincidence that the dates overlapped?”

After presenting the first hypothesis, Caliph followed with a second.

“Or did Banze stage an attack on herself to create an alibi and hide the fact that she tried to kill you?”

Both hypotheses were naturally discarded after the coachman’s body was found.

“That Banze tried to kill you, someone else tried to kill Banze at the same time, and yet another person tried to kill the coachman at the same time is too much coincidence. Three events can’t overlap like that.”

“I think so too.”

Meyna agreed.

“The idea that Banze staged it herself is also wrong. I went to the hospital where she was admitted and checked her wounds personally, and they were the same.”

“You mean the same as the wounds on the coachman’s body?”

Meyna grasped the context quickly.

“Exactly. It was the same blade. For example, attendants serving the same superior, guild members who bought blades together from the same place, or unknown individuals who were granted blades by the same person.”

“So two or more perpetrators acted under the same person’s orders and killed Professor Motenson and the coachman.”

“Yes.”

Caliph affirmed, then paused to think.

“But I couldn’t understand the connection between those three incidents that happened on the same day.”

On top of that, a carriage accident happened by chance that day, and they even fell into a Crack.

It was a day when unbelievable incidents and coincidences piled up all at once.

“To explain everything, I came up with a third hypothesis. There are things I haven’t confirmed yet, so it’s only a hypothesis, which is why I haven’t told you or anyone else until now.”

“Please tell me.”

“The last, third one.”

Caliph paused briefly, as if telling her to listen even more carefully.

Meyna looked at his lips with eyes full of both desperation and fear.

“Someone sent assassination teams after both Banze and you. That person cast black magic over Tan’s capital so neither of you could receive help from ability users or use mana. The team targeting Banze failed. The team targeting you caused the carriage accident on purpose and killed the coachman first. But you, who should have been inside the carriage, were gone.”

“Because you and I accidentally fell into a Crack…”

Murmuring, Meyna trailed off as Caliph shook his head.

“No.”

Her questioning eyes turned to him.

“On the day of the consecration. You said you saw pure white light and black light, didn’t you?”

Meyna nodded.

“Let’s go to the room. There’s something I want to show you.”

* * *

After arriving at the hotel room, Caliph opened a portal.

“Wait here. I’ll go home for a moment.”

What he handed her when he returned was an extremely thick hardbound book.

The title was engraved into a leather cover bearing the marks of time.