Reborn To Change My Fate-Chapter 166 - Hundred And Sixty Six

The assassin lay sprawled on the cold stone floor. His leg was bound with a makeshift bandage where the arrow had struck, the blood seeping through the cloth. His hands were tied tightly behind his back, the rope secured to a heavy iron ring set deep into the wall.

Derek walked into the cell. His boots made a heavy, echoing sound on the stone. His face was a mask of cold, intense concentration.

"Who wants you dead so desperately, Mari?" he thought, his mind cycling rapidly through the list of enemies they had made since their marriage.

"It can’t be Liam," Derek reasoned, pacing a small circle around the prisoner. "Liam is possessive. He wants to own her, to use her against me. He protected her in this cell. He gave her a bed, a lamp. He wouldn’t send a hired assassin to strangle her in the night. That is a move of desperation, not calculation. Liam plays chess. This... this is a bludgeon."

"Then who?"

He reached the assassin. The man looked up, his eyes wide with pain and a flicker of defiance.

Derek reached down. With a sharp, sudden jerk, he tore the black mask off the man’s face.

The assassin was ordinary. He had a rough, weathered face, the face of a man who had lived a hard life in the lower districts. He wasn’t even a professional palace killer. He wasn’t one of Liam’s smooth, silent agents. He looked like a desperate man who had been pushed too far.

Derek’s eyes caught a glint of something around the man’s neck. A necklace.

It was cheap. A piece of frayed leather cord with a crude, wooden pendant carved in the shape of a horse. It was uneven, the edges rough, clearly the work of small, unskilled hands.

Derek reached out and took hold of the pendant. The man struggled, jerking his head back, trying to pull away, but Derek held firm, taking the necklace off him.

"This," Derek said, examining the carving. "It looks like it was crafted by a child."

The assassin froze. The defiance drained out of his eyes instantly, replaced by a deep, aching sadness and fear that he couldn’t hide.

Derek let the necklace dangle from his fingers in front of the man’s face.

"Your child must have loved you so much to make you this," Derek said softly.

The assassin squeezed his eyes shut. Tears leaked out, tracking through the dirt on his face.

"Kill me if you must," the man whispered, his voice cracking. "Just leave my son alone. Please don’t hurt him."

Derek studied him. He saw the worn clothes. He saw the desperation in the lines of his face. He saw a father who had reached the end of his rope.

Derek turned and dragged the wooden stool over. He sat down, bringing himself to the man’s level.

"Your son is sick," Derek stated. "Or he is dying, right?"

The man nodded, a jerky, broken motion. "Yes. He is really sick. The fever... it won’t break and it’s leading to other complications. The doctors won’t see him without coin."

Derek leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"To raise funds," Derek said, "you would even commit murder. You would kill a woman you don’t know. A Duchess."

He dropped the necklace onto the man’s chest.

"But consider this," Derek continued, his voice hard but logical. "If you had succeeded... if you were caught, you would be executed. That is the law for killing a noble. There is no mercy for that."

He looked the man in the eye.

"If you die," Derek asked, "what would become of your son? Who would feed him? Who would buy his medicine? Who would hold his hand?"

The assassin sobbed.

"Your child would have no hope," Derek said ruthlessly. "Not even money to nail his coffin. He would die alone in the street."

The man wept openly now, his shoulders shaking with the force of his grief. "I had no choice! She offered me gold! Enough gold to save him! I had to try!"

Derek watched him break. It was time.

"Who ordered you?" Derek asked.

He leaned in closer.

"Tell me everything you know," Derek promised, his voice softening. "And I will pardon you. I will not execute you. I will not let you rot in this cell."

He picked up the necklace again and pressed it behind the man’s bound hands.

"And," Derek added, "I will have your son treated by the best physicians in the capital. The expensive doctors. The ones who treat high nobles."

The man looked up. Hope, fragile and desperate, sparked in his eyes. He clutched the wooden horse.

"I guarantee he will recover," Derek swore. "I give you my word as the Grand Duke."

The man nodded. He took a breath.

"She told me to strangle the Grand Duchess," the man confessed, the words tumbling out. "She said it had to look like a suicide. Like she hanged herself in despair over the scandal."

"Who?" Derek demanded.

"I... I don’t know her name," the man stammered. "We met in the old ruins near the river. At night."

"Describe her," Derek ordered.

"She wore a black cloak and a black veil," the man said. "I didn’t see her face. She was careful. She stayed in the shadows."

Derek frowned. Another dead end?

"But..." the man hesitated, his brow furrowing as he tried to remember a detail. "There was something off about her."

"What?" Derek asked sharply.

"When she moved," the man said. "When she handed me the gold... I heard a sound."

"A sound?"

"A bell," the man said. "She had a bell on her wrist. A small, silver bell. It... it sounded strange."

He looked at Derek, confused.

"It was very soothing," the man whispered. "Hypnotic. When I heard it, I felt... calm. I felt like I would do anything she asked. I thought I was going mad, but... I couldn’t say no."

Derek stood up abruptly. The stool scraped loudly against the floor.

A bell. A hypnotic sound. A woman who wanted Marissa dead and out of the way. A woman who knew Western magic.

There was only one person that ticked all the boxes.

"Senna," Derek murmured.